In our digital environment, everyone is a producer of content. Including journalists. This means that typically bottom-rung newspaper and television reporters begin to function less like fact gatherers and more like editors, culling and packaging content rather than writing up facts. As UK journalism professor Paul Bradshaw writes in his multipart post about the 21st …

From on the ground to on the air: Why NGOs need to think more like journalistsRead More »

A blog post by Nash Suleiman of Visions Projection about Wednesday’s SMEx social hour on blogging and alternative media in Lebanon ended like this: Arab meetings in general consist of meeting up and talking, then forming a committee to analyze that discussion which in return will pass it to another group to approve the talks …

Another point of view about blogging in LebanonRead More »

After yesterday’s post on our first social hour, in which I asked whether a blog aggregator with a set of community guidelines might be one way to help stem the flow of hate speech online, I found (via digiactive.org) an effort—an Arab effort—to do just that. In Bahrain, discussions between Mahmood, a blogger, and his …

Combatting hate in the electronic sphereRead More »

Last night, the Social Media Exchange hosted its first social hour. I regret now that we didn’t liveblog it, but we did videotape most of it, so look for some clips to be posted soon. The idea for the hour was to pose the following questions: Is there an alternative media space in Lebanon? If …

The first social hour: We have a lot to learn—and a lot to doRead More »

Sorry for the silence! We’ve been busy here with more seminars and hosting our first social hour. Our most recent seminar included more than 21 participants from NGOs with a wide range of missions, including forestry preservation, aiding migrant workers, women’s professional development, and developing civil society through sport. If you haven’t attended one yet, …

A Hectic Week Means One Thing: More Seminars on the Horizon!Read More »

We’re Hosting Social Hour at RootSpace (Saifi- Beirut) on Wednesday July 9. THE SERIES: Social Media for Social Change, hosted by RootSpace and the Social Media Exchange. EPISODE 1: “Blogging, citizen journalism, social networks, etc…What alternative media exists in Lebanon, and what benefit can it provide?” Key Questions: Does media choice exist in Lebanon? Does …

SOCIAL HOUR at RootSpace!Read More »

The digital world moves fast. Digiactive, a five-month-old site devoted to digital activism, has released its first guide, A DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism. The 15-page PDF includes the pros and cons of using Facebook for activism, a step-by-step guide to organizing an activism campaign on Facebook, and examples of campaigns from Burma, Morocco, and …

A Guide to Facebook ActivismRead More »

I’ve just returned from two days at the 2008 Global Voices Summit in Budapest. Without a doubt, this was one of the most enriching experiences I’ve had since joining the world of participatory media and citizen journalism full-time. The first day of the program focused mostly on bloggers dealing with filtering and censorship in their …

Lessons Learned from Global Voices 2008Read More »

You can access the live webcast to see what’s being talked about in Budapest. The day started with Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon, cofounders of Global Voices, talking a bit about the history of GV and the many offshoots that have followed, including Lingua for tanslation, Rising Voices to bring blogging to beyond the Internet …

Global Voices Summit 2008Read More »

Inevitably in our Web 2.0 seminar, we talk about the fact that technology, like any tool, can be a force for bad as well as a force for good. It basically depends on who’s using it. I always argue that just because technology can be used to make bad things happen doesn’t mean we shouldn’t …

Al Qaeda: So Web 1.0Read More »