Content submitted by Mary tagged with "blogging"

Tibetans Use the Internet to Get the News Out

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 17/03/2008 at 13:25

Last week hundreds of Tibetan monks took to the streets in and near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa to protest Chinese rule. Although the heavily censored Chinese media refused to cover the story, both Tibetans and foreign tourists used the Internet to get the news out.


cell phone image of protests published on the site of a Tibetan rights NGO based in India

According to the Vancouver Sun, “Amateur cellphone photos and video clips showing what were described as confrontations between police and Tibetans protesting Chinese rule poured onto websites big and small, including those for major news media,

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Prison Blogging: Making Invisible People Visible

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 29/02/2008 at 12:05

Today I read in the New York Times that 1 in 100 American adults is in prison.  This is the highest incarceration rate in America's history and I believe it is also one of the highest in the world.  This is really shameful, not to mention horrible social policy, given what we know about high recidivism rates and the crimilnalizing effects of being in jail.

Because of the way my mind works, I am always wondering if there is grassroots digital solution to any problem and I am wondering if having inmates blog might be a good idea. 

Certainly this

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Blog for a Cause!: The Global Voices Guide to Blog Advocacy

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 30/01/2008 at 13:57

I wrote this guide for Global Voices Advocacy.  It explains how activists can use blogs as part of campaigns against injustice around the world. Blogging can help activists in se veral ways. It is a quick and inexpensive way to create a presence on the Internet, to disseminate information about a cause, and to organize actions to lobby decision-makers.

The goal of Blog for a Cause is twofold: to inform and to inspire. The guide is designed to be accessible and practical, giving activists a number of easy-to-follow tips on how to use a blog to further their particular

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Free Fouad on CNN

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 08/01/2008 at 13:34

A great piece on CNN about Fouad Alfarhan's imprisonment and the blog campaign to free him:

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New York Times Sees Blogs as Threat

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 03/01/2008 at 13:29

I just got this as in my daily New York Times e-mail briefing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who do you think NYTimes could possibly mean by "second opinions"? Could they be talking about blogs, perhaps? Looks like the NYTimes is feeling the heat from bloggers and is feeling the need to push back a bit to retain market share.

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The Campign to Free Fouad

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 27/12/2007 at 20:32

Fouad Alfaran, only of Saudi Arabia's most important bloggers, was arrested on December 10 for blogging about Saudi Arabia's political prisoners. Ironically, he is now a political prisoner himself.

The campaign to free him is taking advantage of several digital activism techniques, including a Free Fouad blog (in English and Arabic), a Free Fouad Facebook group, and an e-petition.

Please consider taking action by signing the petition, joining the Facebook group, and learning more about the case on the blog. I'll be posting more about this campaign as it develops.

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Don't Cry for Us, Thomas Friedman

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 12/10/2007 at 1:07

Columnist Thomas Friedman is worried about the politics of the Internet generation. He wrote the following in the New York Times on Wednesday in an editorial entitled "Generation Q."

I just spent the past week visiting several colleges...and I can report that the more I am around this generation of college students, the more I am both baffled and impressed....

I’ve been calling them “Generation Q” — the Quiet Americans, in the best sense of that term, quietly pursuing their idealism, at home and abroad....

But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good,

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Semiotic Democracy and Rayt

Posted by Mary in Rayt it! on 30/08/2007 at 10:40 AM

The theory of semiotic democracy states that ordinary people can re-define and create culture. We are not merely the passive receptacles of judgements, beliefs, and traditions. We can re-work these semiotics (signs) and in so doing re-work culture.

screenshot of Rayt comments at the top of www.whitehouse.gov: One thousand comments on the White House web site is like one thousand people with megaphones knocking on White House door.


In the broadcast age of radio, television, and newspapers it was not so easy to publicly present a personal interpretation of culture. We received our information and entertainment through technology controlled by

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Taking Back the Internet

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 17/08/2007 at 13:06

Most of the Internet is like a village square where the rich come to sell you something and the powerful come to remind you who is boss.   The rich don't expect you to interact with them and they don't want you to interact with them unless it will somehow encourage you to buy more.   The powerful  don't expect you to interact with them and they don't want you to interact with you unless it will somehow encourage you to be more obedient.

We have accepted that we can't talk back to the rich and powerful.  But that is a lie. 

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The Election Blogging Guide

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 10/08/2007 at 23:58

Back in 2006 I wrote The Election Blogging Guide with Solana Larsen and Zephyr Teachout. At the time we wrote it, Solana was an editor at openDemocracy, and now she is also co-managing editor at Global Voices. Zephyr Teachout was Director of Online Organizing for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign and also worked with the Sunlight Foundation. Basically, these two women are rock stars and I am honored to have worked with them.

We decided to write the guide because blogs are a new forum for political expression and engagement. They offer a space for freer speech

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