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World View
The Digital Age and the Changing Face of International Media Development
Search for the term "international media development" and you won't find many university departments or publications. Nonetheless, the field is over 50 years old and has exerted a major influence on many regions of the world, accounting for a budget of half a billion dollars a year. The Center for International Media Assistance, a Congressionally-funded think tank, defines media development...
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Business
Truth and Contradictions: The Global News Industry Looks to the Future
In recent years, the global news industry has been battered by the double tsunami of the economic downturn and technological disruption, as managers of newspapers and magazines struggle to integrate digital media into their business models. Now, over the past two years, the tablet and the smartphone have appeared, promising to again rewrite the relationship between digital distribution and content...
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Business
Social Good Summit: Digital Philanthropy Grows Up
The second Social Good Summit, mounted by Mashable and the United Nations Foundation with support from Swedish mobile phone giant Ericsson is, in Mashable's words, a chance for "the most innovative technologists, influential minds and passionate activists [to come together] with one shared goal: to unlock the potential of new media and technology to make the world a better place."
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Business
8 Ways Tech-Based Foundations Are Changing Philanthropy
Business content on MediaShift is sponsored by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, which offers an intensive, cutting edge, three semester Master of Arts in Journalism; a unique one semester Advanced Certificate in Entrepreneurial Journalism; and the CUNY J-Camp series of Continuing Professional Development workshops focused on emerging trends and skill sets in the industry. Not so long ago,...
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Philosophy
September 11th Ten Years On: 'Are You OK?'
There is nothing like an anniversary to force you to notice change. In New York City this weekend, a lot of us are contemplating what's happened over the past decade: to ourselves, to our city, and to the world. One of the most startling realizations is the shift in the role of the media since the attack. We remember watching...
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EducationShift
Wikipedia Taps College 'Ambassadors' to Broaden Editor Base
From what I can tell, most of my fellow educators spend more time criticizing Wikipedia than engaging with it. The conversation tends to go round in a fairly tiresome circle: The first educator points to an article on the subject of his/her expertise and points to a glaring error to demonstrate that the whole enterprise is worthless. The interlocutor responds...
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World View
Despite Blocked Sites, Digital Media to Play Major Role in Opening China
The Chinese masses never experience major Western websites, thanks to China's Great Firewall (along with linguistic and economic barriers). So the Chinese pass their online lives in a parallel universe in which troublesome terms such as "June 4" (anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests) or "Falun Gong" (the banned movement) are filtered out. But the Chinese government also recognizes...
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NewspaperShift
No Gloom Here: In Latin America, Newspapers Boom
If you spend much time in U.S. newsrooms these days, you might contract a serious case of gloom and doom. Talk is still focused on declining circulations, aging readerships, and the absence of new business models to pay for the production of quality content. But it would be a mistake to assume that this is the case for the rest...
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World View
How Mapping, SMS Platforms Saved Lives in Haiti Earthquake
This article was co-authored by Mayur Patel Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the devastating earthquake that shook Haiti last January, killing more than 230,000 people and leaving several million inhabitants of the small island nation homeless. Though natural disasters are common, the humanitarian response this time was different: New media and communications technologies were used in unprecedented ways to aid...
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World View
Vietnam Fighting a Losing Battle Against Free Speech Online
Last October, I had the opportunity to spend almost three weeks traveling through Vietnam, from Ha Long Bay to the Mekong Delta. The breakfast rooms I dined in were always stocked with copies of the government-run English-language daily, the Viet Nam News -- and on its sunny front page, the news is always good. One typical issue heralded plans from...
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MediaShift
Google's Schmidt Talks Mobile Revolution, and How Digital Media Could Empower A 'Rogue Evil Person'
On Wednesday night, over 200 movers and shakers from the fields of finance, law, and policy crowded into a meeting room at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York to hear a talk by Google CEO Eric Schmidt and the new "director of Google Ideas" (and Council fellow), Jared Cohen. The event was part of the Council's ongoing CEO...
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EducationShift
The Challenge of Digital Media in the Classroom
This fall, more than 70 million students headed back to school in America, of which 50 million are going to public elementary and secondary schools, and a record 19.1 million are enrolled in colleges and universities. These students are wired as never before -- in school, at home, and at every stop in between. It is now commonplace to see third-graders with their own cell phones, and even junior high schools expect students to work from a laptop with an Internet connection.
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Free Speech
Crisis in Kyrgyzstan Shows Need for 'Responsible Content'
Back in 1996, my Columbia University colleague Jack Snyder and his co-author, Karen Ballentine, published a ground-breaking article called Nationalism and the Marketplace of Ideas. The essay used Serbian broadcasting and Rwandan radio to illustrate how hyper-nationalist media could be used to incite political violence. Today's online media have the potential to be used in a similar fashion -- and...
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World View
Will 'Telecentros' Transform Cuba's Internet Access?
It wasn't your typical keynote address. Earlier this month, at an event held on the campus of Cornell University, a room of people gazed at a blank screen in rapt attention, listening to a woman speak over a weak cell phone connection originating in Cuba. The speaker was Cuba's 32-year-old star blogger, Yoani Sanchez. The event was the seventh annual...
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World View
Media Development Needs Unified Research for Digital Age
Not so long ago, some Western governments and private donors decided that investing in the media was a good way to support the development of democracy in other countries. Over the years, media development has become a vast enterprise, responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of investment every year. The paradigm was straightforward enough: provide training, equipment, and management...
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