In this e-mail:

Communication and Media News

A frequently updated list of short news items and links on communication and media issues around the world.

ALL THE FOLLOWING NEWS ITEMS ARE AVAILABLE WITH THEIR LINKS AND SOURCES AT: http://www.waccglobal.org/news

SINK OR SKIM

With the growth of Internet news sites and blogs, we're responsible for knowing (at least on a very cursory level) a larger and larger chunk of what is going on everywhere.

I realize more and more that my up-to-date knowledge of events has actually become shallower, and that the information doesn't affect me all that much. Twenty-two dead in Iraq bombing. Married magazine editor caught with call-girl in airplane bathroom. An event pops up, gets knocked around the blogosphere for a while, enters my consciousness, and then fades out just as quickly.

A FUTURE FILLED WITH VANISHING INK

With 50 million Americans going online for news each day, the Web has the edge over print.

PUTTING MEDIAWIKI TO USE IN AN ORGANIZATION

Imagine how useful it would be to have an online knowledge base that can easily be updated created by key people within your organization. That's the promise of a wiki -- a Web application that "allows users to easily add, remove, or otherwise edit all content, very quickly and easily," as Wikipedia, perhaps the best-known wiki, puts it. Why not bring the benefits of a wiki to your organization?

If you're sold on the concept, the first thing you need to do is to pick the software that you're going to use for your wiki. If you want hunt around to find out what's out there, a good place to start is Wikipedia's wiki software wiki. If you say, "I'll use whatever Wikipedia is using," that'll be MediaWiki.

OPEN SOURCES 2.0: THE CONTINUING EVOLUTION - BOOK REVIEW

Open Sources 2.0 is the sequel to Open Sources: Voices from the Revolution (1999), although it is not, strictly speaking, an upgrade to the earlier book. Rather, it is a generously proportioned collection of new essays from some of the leading figures in open source software: business leaders, developers, lawyers, consultants, and academics. Intended for a general readership, the essays avoid technical language and tend to focus on the bigger picture aspects of open source.

DARFUR: ONE-SIDED REPORTING THAT IS DELAYING AN END TO THE KILLING

Western media and US Christian support for the Darfur rebels, guilty of their own atrocities, has held back a peace deal.

By the time you read this, there may be good news from Africa. A peace agreement could have been signed for Darfur, the place often compared with Rwanda as a cause for international shame because warnings of genocide went unheeded. If done by last night's midnight deadline, a deal will surprise most people, since with very few exceptions the world's press has ignored the negotiations that have been inching forward under African Union (AU) mediation in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

RIDICULING CHAVEZ - THE MEDIA HIT THEIR STRIDE

Controlling what we think is not solely about controlling what we know - it is also about controlling who we respect and who we find ridiculous.

Thus we find that Western leaders are typically reported without adjectives preceding their names. George Bush is simply "US president George Bush". Condoleeza Rice is "the American secretary of state Condoleeza Rice". Tony Blair is just "the British prime minister".

The leader of Venezuela, by contrast, is "controversial left-wing president Hugo Chavez" for the main BBC TV news. (12:00, May 14, 2006). He is as an "extreme left-winger," while Bolivian president Evo Morales is "a radical socialist", according to Jonathan Charles on BBC Radio 4. (6 O'Clock News, May 12, 2006)

Imagine the BBC introducing the US leader as "controversial right-wing president George Bush", or as an "extreme right-winger". Is Bush - the man who illegally invaded Iraq on utterly fraudulent pretexts - +less+ controversial than Chavez? Is Bush less far to the right of the political spectrum than Chavez is to the left?

US CHALLENGED OVER DOT XXX DECISION

The backer of a failed bid to create a net domain for porn is trying to get its application reconsidered. In early May ICM Registry's plans for a dot xxx domain were rejected by the net's organising body Icann.

Now ICM is suing two US government departments for access to documents it claims show how they lobbied for the new net address to be rejected.It has asked Icann to reconsider its application because it did not have all the facts about ICM's plans.

FAO MODULE ON BUILDING ELECTRONIC COMMUNITIES

The module covers the approaches, methods, and tools used to build electronic communities, and covers the various steps and procedures for developing and facilitating electronic communities. The total curriculum consists of 29 lessons, ranging from approximately 15 to 90 minutes duration, grouped into five units, for a total of about 16 to 22 hours of self-paced instruction.

See more on the Information Management Resource Kit, IMARK, website Meet The Hackers

Monday 22 May 2006

Cybercrooks are stealing billions. BusinessWeek profiles four individuals identified by law enforcement as the world's foremost online criminals. They're accused of crimes ranging from re-shipping rings to credit card theft and email fraud -- ...all are Russian. Strong technical universities, comparatively low incomes, and an unstable legal system make the former Soviet Union an ideal breeding ground for cyberscams. Also, tense political relations sometimes complicate efforts to obtain cooperation with local law enforcement.

Dimitry Ivanovich Golubov doesn't look like an arch criminal. A baby-faced 22-year-old Ukrainian, he is described by his lawyer as an unassuming part-time student at Mechnikov University in Odessa....

MOROCCO: CONVICTIONS SHOW LIMITS ON PRESS FREEDOM

Journalists Fined and Sentenced Today for ‘Insulting’ Foreign President

Politically motivated prosecutions of independent newsweeklies are rolling back press freedom in Morocco, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper. Today the Casablanca appeals court confirmed a fine and one-year suspended sentence against the director of al-Mash`al (“The Torch”) weekly for “insulting” a foreign head of state.

COLOMBIA: URIBE MUST END ATTACKS ON MEDIA

Government Should Investigate Charges of Extrajudicial Executions, Fraud

Instead of attacking the news media for reporting allegations of criminal activity in a Colombian intelligence agency, President Álvaro Uribe should ensure a full investigation of the charges, Human Rights Watch said.

COMMUNICATING HIV/AIDS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

Panos fellowships on global trade and access to treatment for print and radio journalists

Panos Institute Southern Africa's (PSAf) HIV and AIDS programme seeks to provide information and stimulate public debate on HIV/AIDS to ensure that the response to the pandemic is shared and driven by those most affected.

PODCAST: MEDIAGEEK - YES MEN SPOOF HALLIBURTON, BRINGING TRANSMITTERS TO CENTRAL AMERICA, MUSICIANS SUPPORT INTERNET FREEDOM

Recent guests on the mediageek show were Bill Taylor and Adrienne Bauer from the Primary Communications Project, talking about their plans to bring a 1 kilowatt AM radio transmitter to the Lenca people of Honduras.

Previously guests included Andy Bichlbaum from the Yes Men, discussing their prank at Halliburton’s expense, demonstrating the Survivaball solution to global warming to the Lexis-Nexis Catastrophic Loss conference.

The mediageek radioshow is a weekly half-hour dedicated to grassroots and independent media, while also critically examining our media environment. The program originates Fridays at 5:30 PM on Community Radio WEFT 90.1 FM in Champaign, IL, and airs on nine other stations around North America. The program is available for download and listening every weekend. Or you can automate things by subscribing to the podcast feed.

WE MEDIA

We are at the beginning of a Golden Age of journalism — but it is not journalism as we have known it. Media futurists have predicted that by 2021, "citizens will produce 50 percent of the news peer-to-peer." However, mainstream news media have yet to meaningfully adopt or experiment with these new forms.

Historically, journalists have been charged with informing the democracy. But their future will depend not on only how well they inform but how well they encourage and enable conversations with citizens. That is the challenge.

This report details the important considerations when exploring a collaborative effort between audience and traditional media organizations.

ICTS FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION: ROLE OF ICTS IN POVERTY ALLEVIATION

This report reviews the evidence on how (or if) ICTs should be used in support of poverty reduction exercises.

There is one characteristic that is common to most of the ICT-related poverty alleviation programs. It finds that the most effective ICTs used are typically basic ones – telephone and radio are most common, and when computers or the Internet are involved, they are for restricted, targeted uses.

It finds several common characteristics of successful projects:

• the focus is on poverty alleviation and not on ICT use
• ICT components are kept as simple as practical
• ICT practitioners are involved in the design of the ICT components
• there is significant community involvement
• there is a focus on training to ensure success and sustainability
• there is consideration of a plan for success – how to replicate and scale project if it is successful

RWANDA: THROUGH THE EYES OF THE CHILDREN

Through the Eyes of Children began as a photographic workshop in 2000, conceived by photographer, David Jiranek, and inspired by the founder of the Imbabazi Orphanage, Rosamond Carr - an American woman living in Rwanda for over 50 years. Using disposable cameras, the children originally took pictures for themselves and to share with others, exploring their community, and finding beauty as the country struggles to rebuild.

PARTICIPATORY MEDIA FOR THE SPOKEN WORLD: EXPERIENCES FROM TANZANIA WITH DIGITAL VIDEO FOR ACTION RESEARCH, PARTICIPATORY LEARNING AND POLICY DIALOGUE

In the eighties and early nineties we took part in introducing and developing PRA in Tanzania. As PRA was scaled up in bilateral projects we were frustrated over how difficult it was to capture and communicate the outcomes of participatory learning. A diluted and politically inert form of participatory practice was quickly adopted by the old project hierarchies. We started with video with a somewhat naive purpose of replacing the written report with something people could understand and, at least to some extent, control. The video, however, changed PRA into something quite different. People got voices. Customary institutions and local forms for participation could be accommodated. People took part in iterative cycles of video editing and review, and the 'reports' and 'messages' passed around were verified by groups and individuals who were recognised as authors rather than informants. Ideas were communicated to the next village as well as to the authorities and abroad, in villagers' own words. With video, processes of planning, evaluation, advocacy, mediation and negotiation could be kept in the oral domain where less literate people are not disadvantaged.

The new approaches that begin to emerge are distinctly different also from TV and film practice. Practitioners who come from participatory work see different opportunities in audiovisual media, and are beginning to create entirely new narrative forms for reflection, dialogue and public participation.

GUERRILLA VIDEO GIVES POWER TO THE PEOPLE

If you're 18 to 26 and have a strong point of view, an organization called Film Your Issue (filmyourissue.com) wants to see your best short-form video work - 30 to 60 seconds - on a social concern that winds you up.

Finalists win wide exposure including webcasts on MSNBC.com, film-festival appearances, and a shot at a major movie-studio internship. Deadline: May 21. But don't fold up your tripod at the thought of the feat; in this art form, raw is OK, as long as the message is potent. The 2005 winner took on high school budget cuts.

RWANDA SURVIVORS SAY HOLLYWOOD HAS GOT IT WRONG

Three films in two years about Rwanda's genocide have shocked Western audiences with the scale and savagery of the slaughter, but many survivors in the tiny central African nation are unimpressed.

They say the big-screen depictions of the carnage, when about 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered in 100 days of state-sponsored killings, have got the story wrong.

"My conclusion was that both movies are another Hollywood fiction geared at making money," said Jean Pierre Rucogoza, a 47-year-old university lecturer and genocide survivor who has watched "Sometimes in April" and "Hotel Rwanda."

NEW PROGRESS FOR PROGRESSIVE MEDIA

'There was little expectation that any progressive media strategy could put a dent in the seemingly invincible image of global behemoth Wal-Mart. Yet the release, effective publicity and innovative distribution of Robert Greenwald's documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price [buy DVD and companion book], along with the close cooperation of activist groups, put the corporate giant on the defensive as never before. A series of Wal-Mart PR fiascoes quickly ensued, along with a scramble to try to fix policies and a dropping stock price.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS UNDER ATTACK: GOVERNMENT BEGINS TRACKING PHONE CALLS OF JOURNALISTS

ABC News has reported that a senior federal law enforcement had revealed that the government is now tracking phone calls made by journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post and ABC News. We speak with Brian Ross, chief investigative reporter at ABC News.

MEDIA MATTERS WITH BOB MCCHESNEY

Media Matters is a radio programme and downloadable podcast that features host Bob McChesney in conversation with a variety of guests. Listeners may call with comments or questions. Bob McChesney is a research professor in the Institute of Communications Research and the Graduate School of Information and Library Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has written for WACC publications and participated in WACC events. “The media are central to all our lives,” he says. “Yet the media are the most frequently misunderstood parts of our lives. We want to help people understand the role of media in society.

LIES, TRUTH AND THE CODE - EDITORIAL IN THE TABLET

The Tablet's editorial this week deals with The Da Vinci Code. A perfect media storm seems to have blown up surrounding the novel and film The Da Vinci Code. One of the world’s best-selling novels is about to become one of the world’s biggest blockbuster films, and the rest of the media are caught up in its accompanying multimillion-dollar publicity machine. The Catholic Church, if one believes the more lurid headlines, is shaken to the core by the revelations at the heart of the book and movie, and is busy issuing angry – if somewhat futile – denunciations.

FAST FOOD MARKETERS ON THE HOLLYWOOD A-LIST

Business-page obituaries of the deal between Walt Disney Co and McDonald's have maintained that the studio found the children's obesity debate surrounding the fast-feeder too hot to handle. But the truth is fast-food marketers are still on the Hollywood A-list.

US: JOURNALISTS UNDER SUSPICION

Now, more than ever, the health of the US political system depends on a media that holds power accountable “without fear or favor.” But fear is exactly what the administration seeks to sow in the minds of the media as journalists are targetted by NSA surveillance.

FROM THEORISING ABOUT THE MEDIA TO COALITION BUILDING AROUND FREE SOFTWARE

The Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) was one of the groups that pushed to have a community-focused track at the latest Linux World Philippines. The programme listed themes like free and open source software in government, health and education. The FMA then helped create an open coalition. More recently, FMA has also backed up a bid to set up a regional node of the International Open Source Network (IOSN).

REUTERS INVESTS IN GLOBAL VOICES ONLINE

Reuters has invested in Global Voices Online, a non-profit global citizens’ media project, sponsored by and launched from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School.

NEWSPAPER AIMS TO SUCCEED WITHOUT PAPER, JUST NEWS

Colorado Springs's High Plains Messenger is a new community newspaper attempting to publish entirely online.

At a time when traditional publications are having trouble translating online readers to dollars and cents, Messenger aims to support a full-time editorial and advertising staff solely from revenues generated by its website. There's no print edition now, and none is planned. And unlike online publications such as Slate and Salon, which boast a national reach (if not a consistently high profit margin), Messenger means to focus on a much smaller market: the Springs, a burg with a population just over 360,000.

YAHOO: CONTENT IS NOT KING

Terry Semel spoke Thursday at the Newhouse School of Communication. The chairman and chief executive of Yahoo Inc. said that great media companies have great content, but "content alone will fail. Content and distribution will fail. You have to have technology."

BBC ONLINE CATALOGUE SOFT LAUNCH

The online catalogue includes: Info about every single BBC programme, ever. Details of 948,471 BBC radio & TV programmes, dating back 75 years 503,193 subject categories, from Pig Farming to Pirate Radio 1,185,496 contributors, from Bruce Forsyth to Imelda Marcos.

It doesn't include: Actual programmes to view or listen to -this a prototype information/comprehensive search catalogue which is being soft launched to get feedback from academics etc.

SEE COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA NEWS
http://www.waccglobal.org/news

  Copyright peacejournalism.com