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PoliticalShift
Are You Part of the 2% (of People Who Get Campaign News From Twitter)?
Many of you are, like me, among the proverbial "99%" when it comes to economics and income. But if you regularly learn about the 2012 campaign from those you follow on Twitter, as I do, you're in an elite class of a different sort. A new report out from the The Pew Research Center for The People and The Press...
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Your Take
Poll: What Do You Think About the Anti-SOPA Protests?
Can online protests make a difference? In the past, they've had mixed success but with enough people pushing against the twin anti-piracy bills, SOPA and PIPA, the U.S. Congress was forced to pay heed. They have now put off bringing the bills to a vote, while contemplating rewrites and changes to the bills. Google alone collected more than 7 million...
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Guides
Your Guide to the Anti-SOPA Protests
Today was an important day in the history of the Internet and activism. While the U.S. Congress expected to quickly pass two bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), mounting opposition online has led them to reconsider. That all came to a head today when various sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit decided to black...
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Legal Drama
Wiretapping, SOPA, Occupy: 2011 Was a Tumultuous Year in Media Law
This piece is co-authored by Jeff Hermes and Andy Sellars. This year turned out to be one that could fit well in a Billy Joel song: peppered protesters, jailed journalists, Internet crusaders ... the list goes on. To recap a year that has been chock-full of shifts in media, we put together a list of the top 10 (plus...
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PoliticalShift
How Bloggers, Occupy Wall Street Have Inspired Each Other
From the very beginning, supporters of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) have touted its decentralized nature as one of its greatest strengths. The opponents of a political movement commonly attempt to discredit them by pointing to outside powerful interests secretly pulling strings, thereby jeopardizing its grassroots legitimacy. We saw this with the Tea Party, whose opponents very early on argued that...
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PoliticalShift
Do the Math! How Reporters Squandered the School Loans Story
When President Obama announced his school loan relief plan at the University of Colorado, Denver, a few weeks ago, the mainstream media's coverage followed three predictable trajectories that, for the most part, failed to accurately report the news for the majority of Americans -- and instead contributed to the collective spin-as-news that's all too prevalent these days. This could have...
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PoliticalShift
Convergence 2.0: How Public TV Can Save Democracy
This September, I wrote in MediaShift about the unfortunate effects on journalism that the deregulation of campaign financing could have. The article hinted that public media might be able to offset the damage, and maybe even save democracy. This sounds so grandiose that, to explain how and why, we need to back up a few steps -- quite a few,...
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PoliticalShift
Attack of the Attack Ads: Citizens United and the 2012 Elections
In 2012, two tidal waves will reconfigure the American electoral system and the news media that cover it. A tsunami made of money will buoy up the structure of entrenched political power, while a huge wave of personal technology will disrupt it. I can predict both of these events with certainty because they've happened every election year over the last...
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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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World View
Online Journalism Booms in Egypt, But Not Without Restriction
This post was co-authored by Tanja Aitamurto CAIRO -- The historic revolution in Egypt this spring changed the country's media landscape dramatically. Since the uprising, a plethora of new online initiatives have sprung up. Several citizen journalists have become full-on celebrities. News agencies have started disseminating on Facebook. New TV channels are aired. It would seem then, that freedom of...
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Free Speech
Censorship Prevails in 'New' Burma, Despite Reform Talk
BANGKOK -- A handful of protestors gathered outside the Burmese embassy in Bangkok last Friday to vent their anger against the detention of 17 journalists in Burma, some of whom have been given multiple-decade jail terms for what activists describe as "no more than doing their jobs." The jailed reporters worked for Democratic Voice of Burma, a Burmese media organization...
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World View
How Social Media Is Keeping the Egyptian Revolution Alive
This piece was co-written by Hanna Sistek. CAIRO -- The revolution in Egypt is unfinished business. While new online tools are used to strengthen civil society, activists are still struggling with the digital divide when it comes to mobilizing masses against the army and the remains of the old administration. On a Saturday evening in Cairo, a digital campaign against...
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Free Speech
Online Comments Run Afoul of Thailand's Laws Shielding Royalty from Criticism
BANGKOK -- As a high profile case against a prominent media campaigner returns to court in Bangkok, it has emerged that the long arm of Thailand's lèse-majesté law has reached into California. On Thursday Chiranuch Premchaiporn of the Thai current affairs website Prachatai returned to court in the Thai capital to face vague-sounding allegations that she facilitated third-party remarks about...
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Guides
Your Guide to the U.K. Phone-Hacking Scandal (or 'Hackgate')
From time to time, we provide an overview of one broad MediaShift topic, annotated with online resources and plenty of tips. The idea is to help you understand the topic, learn the jargon, and take action. We've previously covered Twitter, local watchdog news sites, and Net neutrality, among other topics. This week MediaShift U.K. correspondent Tristan Stewart-Robertson looks at the...
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Free Speech
Social Media Plays Major Role in Motivating Malaysian Protesters
More than a week after Malaysian police fired teargas and water cannons at thousands of demonstrators seeking reform of the country's electoral system, a Facebook petition calling on Prime Minister Najib Razak to quit has drawn over 200,000 backers, highlighting the role of social and new media in Malaysia's restrictive free speech environment. One contributor to the page wrote: "The...
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Public MediaShift
FCC Report on Media Offers Strong Diagnosis, Weak Prescriptions
A consensus has begun to emerge around the Federal Communications Commission report, "The Information Needs of Communities," released Thursday: The diagnosis is sound, but the remedies are lacking. The 465-page report (see full report, embedded below) is the result of 600-plus interviews, hearings and reams of research conducted over 18 months. It represents the most ambitious attempt yet to come...
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Social Networking
Weiner Scandal Lesson: Sexting More Trackable Than Real-Life Flirting
My first internship was covering state politics. College parties were nothing compared to the drinking, carousing and eye-opening public behavior I saw during the legislative session. It was the 1970s -- a mere decade after the "Mad Men" '60s. Each week brought a new jaw-dropper, such as when a legislator told me he'd be happy to discuss a bill he...
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Free Speech
eG8 Fails to Protect Net Neutrality, Online Censorship
The eG8 conference held in Paris on May 24 and 25 sounded promising; it was the first event to gather G8 members (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Russia) to discuss views on "civilizing cyberspace." It was also the first forum to talk about the digital economy. At least, that's how it was introduced....
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PoliticalShift
Burmese Media Launch Campaign to Free Jailed Reporters
Hla Hla Win, Sithu Zeya, Maung Maung Zeya, Ngwe Soe Lin and Win Maw are all undercover reporters in Burma, and all are serving jail sentences ranging from eight to 27 years after being caught in one of the world's most draconian media dragnets. To coincide with World Press Freedom Day last week on May 3, Democratic Voice of Burma...
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Social Networking
A Twitter Timeline on the Killing of Osama Bin Laden
[View the story "Timeline of Tweets Around Death of Osama Bin Laden" on Storify] Did you see any other key tweets around the news of Bin Laden's killing? Share them in the comments below and I'll add them to the timeline above. Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report...
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PoliticalShift
European Council Changes Course on 'Tweetwall' After Berlusconi Insults
The social network platform Twitter broke the one billion tweets barrier as it celebrated its fifth anniversary in March of this year. Since October of 2010, the European Council and its President Herman Van Rompuy have contributed to this record result. Twitter gives politicians a chance to better connect with their voters. Political institutions have also recognized the value of...
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PoliticalShift
How Social Media is Being Used in the Scottish Elections
Since Barack Obama successfully tapped into social media during his run to the White House in 2008, every political group has tried to use the digital world to bring in revenue and votes. This year's Scottish Parliament elections, which take place on May 5, will be the first in that country since Facebook and Twitter came to dominate the social...
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Public MediaShift
Defunding Public Media Would Stifle Digital Innovation
Political analysts are dismissing last Thursday's House vote forbidding public radio stations to spend federal dollars on content (HR 1076) as little more than red meat for the Republican base. But even if not a single dollar ends up being stripped from public broadcasting appropriations, the current battle threatens to strangle innovation in a sector that was just gaining new...
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Technology
How French Site OWNI Profits by Giving Away Its Content
Most content sites in the U.S. have two ways of making money: charging for subscriptions or running advertising (or both). But a French site, OWNI.fr, has found an unusual business model for a site with no ads and no subscriptions -- that's also profitable. How do they do it? Their main business is doing web development and apps for media companies and institutions.
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World View
How Technology, Social Media Is Making Life Hard for Dictators
This is the third of our on-the-ground reports from Cairo, Egypt, from Jaron Gilinsky. In this video report, Jaron considers the effects of social media on the Egyptian revolution. I wondered how Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak eventually knew about the hundreds of thousands of people in the streets calling for his resignation. Surely, he had many agents on the streets...
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World View
One Journalist's Survival Guide to the Egyptian Revolution
During the uprising that eventually ended the 30-year reign of President Hosni Mubarak, I became convinced that the most important journalistic work being done today is in those countries where journalists are not wanted. Mubarak and his agents were determined to silence the protesters and their message. But, thanks to the valiant efforts of journalists and the resilience of the...
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PoliticalShift
WSJ Series Inspires 'Do Not Track' Bill from Rep. Jackie Speier
We didn't plan it this way, but the timing was perfect. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) introduced a bill today in Congress that would give the FTC the power to create a "Do Not Track" database so people could opt out of online tracking. And her bill comes right during our special series about online privacy, which included a roundtable...
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5Across
5Across: Online Privacy and the 'Do Not Track' Debate
The debate around online privacy has largely centered around advertising that is targeted at people depending on where they have been online. While somewhat creepy, those ads are perhaps the least of our worries. What many of us don't realize is that there are multiple parties tracking our moves online, some harmless and some possibly nefarious. In fact, one...
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Media Usage
Special Series: Online Privacy
"All the world's a stage," and even moreso with the rise of the Internet, online advertising and social networking. While there is no American "right to privacy" in the Constitution, there are limits to what we want companies, publishers and advertisers to do with our personal information. Do we want advertisers to serve ads based on our web surfing habits?...
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Legal Drama
Will U.S. Government Crack the Whip on Online Privacy?
This week MediaShift will be running an in-depth special report on Online Privacy, including a timeline of Facebook privacy issues, a look at how political campaigns retain data, and a 5Across video discussion. Stay tuned all week for more stories on privacy issues. Online privacy is the new openness. After years of telling all on the Internet, of tweeting about...
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World View
Citizen Media Brings Opposing Political Views to the Maghreb
The Maghreb is generally a term used to refer to five countries in North Africa: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. This article explores the current state of the media in the region, and marks the effect that a burgeoning citizen media sphere is having on democracy. It is based on a contribution by the author, Algerian journalist Laid Zaghlami...
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World View
Will Freedom of Expression Hold in Southern Sudan?
JUBA, SUDAN -- "If someone from southern Sudan trusts you, they will tell you enough to write a book," said Cecilia Sierra Salcido, a Mexican missionary nun turned media entrepreneur who runs Radio Bakhita in Sudan. "We broadcast a special history series, as so much here has not been written or recorded, and so many people have stories to tell."...
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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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Free Speech
Online Freedom of Expression Under Siege in Thailand
BANGKOK, THAILAND -- "Today I have to go all the way to Khon Kaen to report to the police," said Chiranuch Premchaipoen, the editor of Thailand's well-known online news site Prachatai during a recent conversation in Bangkok. The town is 450 km from Bangkok, and Chiranuch has to travel there once a month just to check in with police. This...
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Social Media
How Calgary's Mayor Used Social Media to Get Elected
Naheed Nenshi became mayor of Calgary at the end of October not by outspending his rivals or hailing from the incumbent political class in Canada. Nenshi didn't plaster his campaign message across the television, and he didn't even buy a single newspaper advertisement. Instead, Nenshi led a grassroots effort that mobilized soccer moms and utilized online activism on a Facebook page, on Twitter and on YouTube.
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Free Speech
Suu Kyi Set Free But Media Still Held Captive in Burma
Burma has in recent weeks been one of the top world news stories. The country's November 7 general election was followed less than a week later by the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, one of the world's best-known political dissidents, whose appearance at her front gate on Saturday, November 13, was carried on news networks around the world. However,...
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PoliticalShift
Fundly + Facebook = Millions in Micro-Donations for Campaigns
Political campaigns and non-profits must constantly "feed the beast" with their fundraising efforts. While traditionally that chore has meant going after people with the most money, the Internet has helped spawn networked fundraising and even "social fundraising" efforts where micro-donations add up to a lot more. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, 53% of the $750 million Barack Obama raised...
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Public MediaShift
Inside the NewsHour's Multi-Platform Election Night Bedlam
Elections test how much information a news organization can process and then quickly and accurately share it with an audience. They're also a good time for news organizations to take stock of how far they've come since the last one, and to try the latest journalistic tools (or gimmicks). Four years ago, YouTube was nascent and Facebook had finally opened...
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PoliticalShift
5 Moments When Digital Media Transformed Australian Politics
The Digital Age has seen significant change in the way Australian politicians, political journalists and the public interact and communicate with each other. As a result, MediaShift asked me to identify the top five events in Australia's recent history where politics and new media intersected. My shortlist, compiled with crowdsourcing assistance from my politically engaged Twitter and Facebook communities,...
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PoliticalShift
Live 2010 Election Day Chat on Social Media + Politics
I will be joined by an all-star lineup of new media experts, comedians, and social media gurus to look at how online coverage of Election Day is going -- with pointers to the most innovative mashups, maps, video blogs and more. The plan is to chat today from 10 am to 1 pm Pacific Time, and then again from...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Sunlight Foundation Tracks Money in Politics
In this week's 4MR podcast I talk with Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller about their efforts to track down the biggest donors in this year's election races. On Election Night, they will run their Sunlight Live platform that will give details on who has donated to whom as live video shows the winners and losers. Miller also talks about Sunlight's recent $1.2 million grant from the Knight Foundation.
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5Across
5Across: Politics in the Age of Social Media
5Across is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. As more people use social media such as Twitter and Facebook, politicians and campaigns need to put more time, energy and money into reaching people there. According...
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PoliticalShift
How the Tea Party Utilized Digital Media to Gain Power
The biggest story of the U.S. midterm election has been the growing influence of the Tea Party movement. Since their first rallies in early 2009, these vocal, visible conservatives have succeeded in shifting the center of American political discourse to the right. This election cycle, Tea Partiers have gone a step further, successfully backing primary challengers against moderate Republicans...
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PoliticalShift
Quirky Conservative Canadian MP Gets Real on Twitter
Tony Clement, the federal minister of industry in the current Conservative Canadian government, was home having dinner with his family one Saturday night in July when a woman began banging on their door. She frantically asked for help, saying her friend was drowning in the nearby river. Clement, his wife and father-in-law ran down to the water. He and...
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PoliticalShift
Will Geo-Location Services Play a Role in Elections?
The experiments that took place with Facebook and Twitter during the 2008 presidential campaign are now viewed as standard operating procedure just two years later. Will the same be said about location-based services come 2012? Foursquare and Gowalla are the current crowned kings of geo-location and have been getting regular mentions in the tech blogosphere and beyond. Geo-social is very...
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PoliticalShift
Special Series: PoliticalShift 2010
About this Series After the success we've had with previous in-depth reports -- the Beyond Content Farms series and Beyond J-School, we decided to do another series on MediaShift. This time the series will look at "PoliticalShift 2010," the way that social media, technology and blogs are changing the equation for politicians in the context of the 2010 U.S. midterm...
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PoliticalShift
GOP Beating Democrats with Social Media for Midterm Elections
There is a major shift going on in politics this election cycle, with more candidates and campaigns using social media and technology to boost their chances. From today until the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 2, MediaShift presents an in-depth special report, PoliticalShift 2010, with data visualizations, analysis, a 5Across video roundtable and live CoverItLive chat on Election Night with...
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PoliticalShift
Hallmarks of Good Campaign Sites: Simplicity, Inspire Action
A political campaign website is the place where candidates recruit new volunteers, and where the candidate can get their message out unfiltered. It's more important than ever, and yet many candidates still struggle to get it right. "The website really is that first real encounter with the voter; it's your chance to turn a casual visitor into an actual supporter,"...
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EducationShift
Revamping J-Schools in Australia to Bring in 'Citizens Agenda'
As Australian democracy hangs in the balance, and with the outcome of the August 21 national election unlikely to be resolved for weeks, I'm considering the implications for journalism education -- and how we can invent new models for political reporting.
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PoliticalShift
3 Hot Topics at Supernova: Public Policy, Social Media, Privacy
Supernova, an annual technology conference, recently convened for the first time on the East Coast, a change that was evident in the composition of the conference attendees and the direction of the overall conversation. Below are the top three major takeaways from the conference. Policy matters Harold Feld, legal director of Public Knowledge, earned a place as crowd favorite during...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Politicians Don't Want Wikileaks Protected
In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the recent move by U.S. senators to amend a Federal journalist shield bill to exclude Wikileaks. Many lawmakers are angry at the whistle-blower site for sharing thousands of classified documents about the Afghan war. But what does this mean for a possible shield law, which already passed the House and a Senate committee?
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EducationShift
Learning From Failure in Community-Building at Missouri
I recently had an opportunity that is rarely handed to a journalism school professor: The chance to be a member of the inaugural class of the Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellows in the 2008-09 school year. I already have a unique job.
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PoliticalShift
Politicians Face Consequences If They Don't Secure Name Domains
Search the name of Representative Pete Hoekstra of Michigan's second district and PeteHoekstra.com is among the top results. But click on the site and you'll encounter this tag line: "Dangerous, Polarizing & Bad for Michigan!" How could a nine-term Congressman, a ranking member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and now a candidate for the gubernatorial race in Michigan...
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PoliticalShift
Aussie #Spill Breaks Down Wall Between Journalists, Audience
The spectacular demise of the Australian conservative party's leadership in November 2009 was a turning point for political journalism in the country. This is the third and final installment in a special MediaShift series (read part one here and part two here) about the transformative impact of the biggest Australian political story of 2009, which became known simply by its...
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PoliticalShift
U.K. Conservatives Pushed Online Promotion -- But TV Reigns
The new media evangelists who preached of a revolution in British electoral politics will have to wait until at least the next election to see their prophecies come to fruition. In this country steeped in electoral tradition, the impact of new and social media on the 2010 race was minimal. The British still consume high tea and scones, watch football...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: FCC's 'Goldilocks' Approach to Regulating Net
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition I focus on the proposal by the FCC chairman Julius Genachowski to find a "third way" of regulating broadband providers. His "Goldilocks" approach tries to inforce fairness and Net neutrality rules, but not be too heavy-handed by avoiding setting prices for ISPs or forcing them to open up...
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Public MediaShift
Live-Blogging the FCC Workshop: New Platforms, Strategies for Public Media
This live-blog post is a continuation of the first post covering the FCC's Future of Media Workshop on public media. Panel Discussion III: New Platforms, Approaches and Structures Maxie Jackson III, President and CEO, National Federation of Community Broadcasters Says when he thinks of the future, he wants to stress "independence and impact," in the transition from public broadcasting to...
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PoliticalShift
How #Spill Effect Brought Color, Collaboration to Media Tweets
Twitter distinguished itself as an important new platform for breaking political news in Australia during the Great #Spill of 2009. This is the second installment in a MediaShift series on the "#spill effect." (You can read the first part here.) It draws on a case study of the event and includes online interviews with eight tweeting journalists who are prominent...
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World View
Navigating Media Ethics and Censorship in Dubai
Around the world, dozens of organizations, from Freedom House to Reporters Without Borders, advance the ideal of a free press and a free citizenry. The ideal suggests there is one type of free press to be secured globally: the Western model of a constitutionally protected free press. What stands over and against the free press? The typical examples are the...
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PoliticalShift
How Technology Changed American Politics in the Internet Age
The 2008 U.S. presidential campaign drew the attention of the world. In the aftermath, the Obama campaign's use of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were widely credited with helping secure the historic victory of President Barack Obama. But the Obama campaign wouldn't have been able to make its technological strides without the innovations first deployed by the Howard Dean campaign years...
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World View
Reporters Without Borders Issues 'Enemies of the Internet' List
On March 12, 2010, Reporters Without Borders celebrated World Day Against Cyber Censorship. The goal of the event was to rally everyone in support of a single Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all. It is also meant to draw attention to the fact that, by creating new spaces for exchanging ideas and information, the Internet is a force...
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Public MediaShift
Witness Creates Sophisticated Evaluation Tools for Video Impact
Last month, Jessica Clark and I explored how various Public Media 2.0 projects are measuring their level of success in informing and engaging publics. We found that many public media organizations are struggling to measure impact -- and some are relying only on traditional indicators of reach, as opposed to other elements of impact such as relevance, inclusion, engagement or...
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PoliticalShift
The #Spill Effect: Twitter Hashtag Upends Australian Political Journalism
Australia is gearing up for a national election in 2010 and a core group of influential political journalists in the elite Canberra Press Gallery are tweeting their way along the campaign trail -- and bringing an engaged public along for the ride. Press Gallery journalists are among the most active Australian reporters on Twitter, which entrenched itself Down Under as...
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PoliticalShift
How Mobile Apps Are Revolutionizing Elections, Transparency
The importance of social media in politics was made clear by Barack Obama's 2008 presidential run. But there is a new frontier of Web 2.0 technologies that politicians and political groups are slowly starting to embrace: the smartphone app. These apps have the potential to reshape how politicians communicate, raise money and get out the vote. The biggest player on...
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PoliticalShift
Local Bloggers Step Up to Watchdog Local Government
Traditionally, newspaper reporters were dispatched to cover the mundane proceedings of a local government in action: the city council meeting. But as the mainstream media grapples with its survival in the Internet era, the seats in the audience once occupied by full-time reporters are sometimes being filled by local bloggers and other citizen media outfits. They're using blogs and social...
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World View
2009 Was a Terrible Year for Free Speech Online
2009 was an unprecedented year for online repression. For the first time since the Internet emerged as a tool for public use, there are currently 100 bloggers and cyber-dissidents imprisoned worldwide as a result of posting their opinions online in 2009, according to Reporters Without Borders. This figure is indicative of the severity of the crackdowns being carried out in...
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PoliticalShift
Can Posterous and Tumblr Boost Government Transparency?
If a present-day version of whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was looking for a way to easily release important confidential information, he might find himself drawn to Posterous or its micro-blogging/lifestreaming competitor, Tumblr. These services have the potential to offer a new level of simplicity for releasing government information, and help open up the closed doors of Congress. Beyond becoming tools for...
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PoliticalShift
Best of Twitter: FTC Workshop Discusses Future of Journalism
For two days this week, some of journalism's most high profile executives and experts descended upon Washington, DC, for "How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?" a workshop hosted by the FTC. One exchange of note came between Rupert Murdoch and Arianna Huffington, who spoke separately but did a good job of representing two divergent points of view. Murdoch kicked...
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Public MediaShift
FTC Should Consider Policy Reform to Support Public Media 2.0
It's been a busy season for prognosticators who examine the intersection of public policy and media. Today will be particularly hectic for them, as journalists, bloggers, public broadcasters and policy wonks pack into a session at the Federal Trade Commission to ponder, yet again, "How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?" (Submit your own thoughts via Twitter here). Two weeks...
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PoliticalShift
Young Political Candidates Confronted by Digital Past on Facebook
Last spring Emanuel Pleitez, 26, ran for California's 32nd Congressional seat in a special election to replace Hilda Solis, the new secretary of labor. During the campaign, one of Pleitez's opponents, California State Sen. Gil Cedillo, discovered photos from Pleitez's Facebook profile that showed Pleitez hanging around with various women at parties. The Cedillo campaign used the photos as the...
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PoliticalShift
10 Projects that Help Citizens Become Government Watchdogs
With the 2010 U.S. elections coming into view, many people are looking for more information about the people running for office -- and the individuals and organizations funding these candidates. Fortunately, there are dozens of initiatives that mine and share the data that influence policy and policy-makers. Many are funded by The Sunlight Foundation, which aims to use "the revolutionary...
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PoliticalShift
Politicians Use Social Media to Bypass the Press Corps
Politicians are figuring out what social media technologies like blogs, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have to offer: direct access to voters. More than ever before, they can bypass the professional press and deliver an uncensored, unfiltered -- and unchecked -- message. "[Social media] allows me to gives my thoughts on the events of the day and the complete text of...
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Online Forums
7 Keys to Hosting Successful Chats With High-Profile People
In recent weeks we at De Tijd, a Belgian newspaper, have been experimenting with chat sessions where members of the Belgian government are brought in to discuss politics with our community. I'm very enthusiastic about this because I feel that our newspaper has enabled its community to have a direct, high-quality conversation with policy makers. I reported in a previous...
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World View
Online Reporters in Malaysia Struggle Against Jail, Fines and Filters
Malaysia ranked No. 132 out of 173 countries on last year's edition of Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index, which means it's already a hostile place for reporters. Thanks to recent initiatives aimed at controlling the flow of online information, the country appears ready to tighten its grip on the Internet, too. But bloggers and web journalists continue to...
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PoliticalShift
Local Politicians Use Social Media to Connect with Voters
When television cameras panned across the room full of senators and representatives during the recent presidential address to a joint session of Congress, the audience at home caught a glimpse of several political leaders tweeting away on their BlackBerry phones. At the national level, social media has been embraced by many politicians. Even the White House has a Twitter account...
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PoliticalShift
How the Shift to an Online, On-Demand World of Content Could Impact Political Discourse
Television is still the dominant place for people to get their daily dose of political content. Surprising? No, it's been that way since the late 1990s. But while more than 70 percent of adults in the United States get their political news from television, the growing importance of the Internet on American politics is undeniable. The Pew Internet and American...
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PoliticalShift
How U.S. Departments of Defense and State Differ in Social Media Approach
The Defense Department's new head of public affairs says there is no more powerful communication tool in reaching supporters and critics alike then with a personally delivered message. What's the suggestion? Social media technologies like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter must be thoroughly engaged by civilian and military personnel at DoD in a new era of personal communication. That's what Price...
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PoliticalShift
The Highs (and Lows) of Public Officials on Twitter
Are high profile public officials using Twitter as a noble tool to bypass the proverbial "mainstream media filter" and communicate directly with constituencies? Or do they just see it as yet one more wall in the online echo chamber, something merely to influence and/or amplify mainstream media stories? The answer probably lies somewhere in between as I found from examining...
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5Across
The Importance of Free Speech Online in Iran, China, Kenya
In a crisis, governments will often curtail freedom of the press, censoring or shutting broadcasts and newspapers. But blocking websites, slowing the Internet or cutting off SMS messaging can be harder to do. Stopping the flow of information online can be a difficult task, as the Iranian government has learned over the past few weeks, as protesters have posted images...
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World View
How Will Iranian Protests Change Twitter?
There's been much ado about Twitter's role in the political protests in Iran, and for good reason. With the Iranian government expelling foreign journalists, outlets like CNN scrambled to uncover sources where they could. They found these sources among the din of unverifiable messages surfacing on Twitter. It's been fun reading mainstream media accounts of how Twitter is, in a...
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5Across
Twitter Mania: Will Twitter Change the World?
Twitter has become a multi-headed phenomenon since MediaShift devoted a week to covering micro-blogging two years ago. Twitter is now established as a new form of communication, an early warning system for breaking news, and a startup company in San Francisco that has no discernable income. And with the power of Oprah, CNN and Ashton Kutcher, it has become...
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Public Relations
Issue Advocacy on the Internet, Part 1
The Internet has been alternately characterized as participatory, conversational, and collaborative. By empowering its users to create (not just consume) content, it is by design a more democratic medium than any other. There has been plenty of discussion about how, by giving everyone a public voice, the Internet is upending conventional power dynamics and enabling a new generation of opinion...
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Digging Deeper
Building the Ideal Community Information Hub
Problem: Where can people find the local information they need, whether it's about a school board meeting, a new construction project or a nearby robbery? Solution: A community hub, with all the information aggregated in one online source and pushed out via libraries, in-person meetings, community radio, small run print publications and cable access TV. That's my conclusion after studying...
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PoliticalShift
Live-Blogging Netroots Nation's New Media Summit
SAN FRANCISCO -- I am in the swanky Bently Reserve building in downtown San Francisco for the Netroots Nation's New Media Summit, affliated with the liberal blog Daily Kos. On the agenda today are panels on the evolution of journalism and new media, the wisdom of crowds, social media for social good, and using video to expand your audience....
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MediaShift Innovation Spotlight
ProPublica's ChangeTracker Lets You Watch Government's Moves
The Obama administration has already made strides toward greater transparency and better use of technology in government, but has promised even more. It's important to make sure that President Obama and his people act on those promises. One way to do that is to watch the government's footsteps online. ChangeTracker makes this possible, and not just for government sites -- it can be used to track changes on any website.
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NewspaperShift
Live-Blogging Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting at Berkeley
BERKELEY -- I am at the University of California-Berkeley for the 3rd Annual Reva and David Logan Investigative Reporting Symposium this weekend. It's an invite-only event run by Lowell Bergman, known for his work at "60 Minutes" (and being played by Al Pacino in "The Insider"). The theme this year is "Reporting on Corruption," and included a preview showing of...
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AdvertisingShift
Political Blogs' Double Whammy: Post-Election, Deep Recession
This week several major bloggers -- most politically right-of-center -- will see the shuttering of their blog ad network. Pajamas Media, which launched in 2004 and provided advertising for conservative bloggers like Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin, announced earlier this year that it would close down its display advertising for blogs in order to put more focus on its online...
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MediaShift Innovation Spotlight
Represent Helps New Yorkers Track Their Politicos
The New York Times' Represent is a data aggregator and sorter that points to information about elected representatives in New York City. If New Yorkers enter an address, they can see their political districts (Congressional, Assembly, Senate and City Council) and representatives. Represent will also track what their representatives have been doing through a recent activity feed from NYT articles and congressional votes.
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PoliticalShift
Public Diplomacy in the Digital Age, Part 2
We're a nation at war. At war not with another nation, but with a hateful ideology violently expressed: terrorism. Every militaristic move a terrorist makes is designed to intimidate, frustrate, agitate....in short, communicate. Physical destruction and loss of life, crass as it sounds, are means to those ends. In this sense, the war of ideas is no longer a metaphor or a figure of speech -- it's a literal war in which we now find ourselves. And in a war of ideas, public diplomacy will be an important tool in our national security toolkit.
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PoliticalShift
How Obama Inspired Israeli Politicians' Online Campaigns
Just as television changed the way political campaigns were run in the 1960s, the Internet has changed the way political campaigns are run in the 2000s. Upwards of 70 million people watched the more aesthetically-pleasing JFK debating the more radio-suited Nixon on the tube in 1960. Nearly 50 years later, the YouTube debates of 2008 allowed people to ask their...
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Public Relations
Public Diplomacy in the Digital Age, Part 1
"What is public diplomacy?" was the first question that Ted Koppel posed at the recent Media as a Global Diplomat conference attended largely by public diplomacy professionals. I was surprised that the panelists, including the outgoing Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs, couldn't readily agree on an answer to this foundational question. Koppel continued, "I thought [public...
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World View
Monarchs Use 'Lese Majeste' Laws to Silence Online Critics
"When it comes to a monarchy, all reason goes away," according to a Thai reporter quoted in a Reporters Without Borders report on free expression in Thailand published this week. He was commenting on the multiple charges of lese majeste -- injury or insult to the king -- brought against journalists and writers in his country, where speaking negatively about...
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MediaShift Innovation Spotlight
Washington Post's 'Web Ninjas' Build Map-Timeline Combo
TimeSpace, a Washington Post project, is a coverage mapping framework that displays content from multiple sources in space (via a map) and time (via a timeline). A display map, covering anything from a single city block to the world, is tagged to show viewers where news is being covered. Viewers can also view the news map as it appeared at different points over the preceding hours or days, giving them a picture of how the news events unfolded over time.
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MediaShift Innovation Spotlight
ProPublica Puts Spotlight on Tracking TARP Money
ProPublica's Show Me the TARP Money is a simple map and chart reflecting the recipients of money provided through TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), a federal program that authorizes the U.S. government to buy assets from struggling financial institutions in an effort to remedy the subprime mortgage crisis. The site shows institutions that have been approved for assistance and keeps a running total of the number of institutions, the amount committed, and the amount invested so far. There is an RSS feed and a widget for the site as well.
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PoliticalShift
Obama, Congress Enlist 'Direct to Constituent' Communications
Professional communicators are paying close attention to the rise of "direct to consumer" (DTC) communications. This is a phenomenon largely enabled by the rapid proliferation and adoption of online technologies, whereby organizations can communicate directly to the public without filters or mediation from the press. Corporate blogs or advocacy groups' online "action alerts" are just a couple examples. As a...
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MediaShift Innovation Spotlight
Innovation in Inauguration Coverage
This week, instead of focusing on one innovative journalism project, I'd like to highlight some of the many projects that came up covering Barack Obama's inauguration. The first question I asked myself as I started collecting links was, "Well, this is a cool way to cover the event, but is it journalism? For example, I saw a lot of "official"...
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PoliticalShift
Government 2.0: How Social Media Could Transform Gov PR
It's easy to see governments as nameless, faceless monoliths, something impersonal or, even worse, untrustworthy. Much of that is because government culture remains steeped in traditional ideas about public relations and outreach work, notions that have become archaic in an Internet-enabled, hyper-connected world. Just as private companies are learning to embrace social media to manage brand reputations, governments must adapt...
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World View
Burmese Blogger Sentenced to 20 Years For Reporting on Protests
In many countries, you have to commit a serious crime to be sentenced to 20 years in jail, but in Burma this can happen just for using the Internet. There are almost 69 cyber-dissidents in jail worldwide, yet Burma's Nay Phone Latt has become the first blogger to receive such a lengthy prison term. His crime? To have informed the...
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Legal Drama
Canadian Court Rules Linking to Libel Isn't (Necessarily) Libel
Linking to content is the essence of the online experience -- it's the "Web" in the World Wide Web. But there's a lot of legal gray area around linking, and surprisingly few court rulings providing guidance as to the circumstances when linking could result in liability. A court in Canada has now weighed in on the question of liability under...
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World View
Nigeria Joins List of Countries Harassing Bloggers
On October 19, U.S.-based Nigerian blogger and journalist Jonathan Elendu of Elendu Reports was arrested by the Nigerian State Security Services (SSS) upon his arrival at Abuja airport. It was some days before the SSS announced that Elendu had been charged, first with money laundering and then sedition. Yet another report claimed he was charged with sponsoring a guerilla news...
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Weblogs
Poll Crashers Tilt Unscientific Polls Their Way
During the Republican National Convention, NOW, a PBS weekly TV news magazine, posted an unscientific poll on its website asking viewers to vote on whether they thought vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was qualified for the position. Like most polls the show posts every week, it was taken down from the front page and replaced by a new one after...
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PoliticalShift
LIVE Election Day Chat with Special Guests!
I will be joined by an all-star lineup of new media experts, academics, and social media gurus to look at how online coverage of Election Day is going -- with pointers to the most innovative mashups, maps, video blogs and more. The plan is to chat today from 10:30 am to around 9 pm Pacific Time. Be sure to join...
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PoliticalShift
Citizens, Media Use Social Media to Monitor Election
In a YouTube video uploaded on October 24, a husband and wife couple from Oregon sit at their kitchen table and fill out their mail-in voting ballots for the 2008 election. The wife explains to the camera that Oregon has had mail-in voting for "about the last 10 years," and the two walk the viewer through the entire voting process,...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Current TV's 'SuperNews' Comedy Gauges Success on Web Views
I live about 7 minutes' drive from the headquarters of Al Gore's innovative Current TV in San Francisco, yet my cable system, Astound, still doesn't carry the channel. So when I was visiting my parents last summer in St. Louis, I made a point of checking it out. The first thing I saw was a cartoon spoof of social networking...
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Guides
Your Guide to Political Polling Sites
We are an impatient nation. We can't stand waiting until election day to find out who will win an election -- we want to know who will win now. That explains the popularity of political polling simulations, aggregators and analysis blogs in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election. Because we have such a fascination with winners and losers, we want to see the current state of the race on a daily, even hourly, basis, and the web can deliver that in spades.
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Digging Deeper
Political Fact-Check Sites Proliferate, But Can They Break Through the Muck?
As the U.S. elections near the finish line, the presidential campaigns are throwing around enough verbal attacks and inflammatory advertising to make the average voter's head spin. Fortunately, there are now three excellent sources for fact-checking political discourse online: Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org, the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly's PolitiFact and the Washington Post's Fact Checker blog....
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PoliticalShift
How Greenwald's Brave New Films Spreads Its Political Message Online
Last month, Politico's Mike Allen asked presidential hopeful John McCain the seemingly innocent question of how many houses he owned. McCain's response -- "I'll have my staff get to you" -- became a major focus for both the media and Obama's campaign, who repeated it in just about every speech to illustrate that the Republican candidate was "out of...
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World View
Activists Face Obstacles Online in Winning Women's Rights in Iran
Women in Iran have learned to unleash the Internet's potential to promote freedom. In the country that has, according to the OpenNet Initiative, experienced the most explosive online growth in the Middle East, the Internet has become a battleground between a repressive regime and the increasingly active feminists demanding the end of legal discrimination against women. Women activists, who...
more »Your Take
Where do you get U.S. election news online?
What sites do you follow for US Election coverage?I want to know which sites you trust for news on the US election: blogs, news sites, newspaper sites, aggregators, video sites? Share your thoughts and check out responses at www.pbs.org/mediashift With the U.S. election season hitting its final stages, political junkies are inundated with information online. But where do you go...
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Embedded Report
Blogger Conditions Worsen as Many Defend Palin Pick
Shame on us, the media, for thinking the Republican National Convention would pale in comparison to the Democrats' show in Denver last week. For bloggers on both sides of the aisle here in St. Paul, what the RNC has lacked in strawberry-lemonade smoothies, it has more than made up for with juicy stories. While Hurricane Gustav may have stopped...
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PoliticalShift
Digg Puts Focus on Politics, Bringing Charges of Liberal Bias
Last week, Digg CEO Jay Adelson sat in a crowded room in Denver holding a stack of papers while facing a camera and trying to project his voice over the cacophony around him. Next to him sat a tired-looking U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who had taken a break from the Democratic National Convention to meet with Adelson....
more »Embeds
Blogs Help Humanize, Demystify Life in the Middle East
JERUSALEM -- Blogs exemplify the best and worst attributes of the Internet (and human nature). At their worst, blogs can be untruthful, bad sources of news and gossip. But without the profit motive, the need for immediacy, and the thirst for conflict, blogs can also help show a more complete picture of the Middle East. At their best, they can be a great source of anti-news and help demystify this murky region.
more »PoliticalShift
Bloggers Make Progress Covering Convention at DNC
DENVER -- Even for members of the traditional media here in Denver, access to floor seating at the convention has been scarce, and talk time with politicians and celebrities at the Democratic National Convention is a game of persistence and luck. Some days you see all the newsmakers, other days you're stuck on the outside with the gawkers, watching...
more »Digging Deeper
The Best 2008 Political Convention Coverage Online
In 2004, the major political conventions gave a few dozen bloggers press credentials, a historic moment for the new media outsiders. And this year, the political conventions have tried to be even more open to bloggers, video reporters, podcasters and new media. The Democratic convention credentialed 120 bloggers, and the GOP has credentialed 200 bloggers, according to Forbes. And the...
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PoliticalShift
Will the Big Tent in Denver Help Bloggers Break Through?
As the 2008 Democratic Convention quickly approaches, thousands of journalists will begin swarming into Denver for what is sure to be an around-the-clock media event. Reporters will interview throngs of convention goers to examine every facet of the political landscape and the implications it has for the upcoming election.
more »World View
China Partially Lifts Great Firewall for Media, but Access Remains Pricey
BEIJING -- Journalists scrambling to make Games-time deadlines might not make it to Badaling or Juyongguan during their trip overseas, but they're sure to become familiar with China's other Great Wall: the Great Firewall, that is. On July 31, Olympic officials admitted the International Olympic Committee had not yet secured unfettered Internet access to foreign journalists, leaving everyone to...
more »World View
A Mix of Skepticism and Hope on 'Propoganda Tour 2008'
We wrestle hi-def video cameras into our carry-on luggage, brandish SLRs at tourist attractions and arrange "Skype dates" with significant others half a world away. Blogging is the acceptable (and perhaps preferred) method of communicating with home, and the Internet at our hotel strains under the weight of so many Facebook photo uploads in so few hours. We are journalism students at the University of Missouri and volunteers at the XXIX Olympic Games, self-proclaimed new media experts and hopeless foreigners all at the same time.
more »Digging Deeper
Newspaper Vet Malcolm Finds Blog Religion with 'Top of the Ticket'
If you have preconceived notions about political blogging, Andrew Malcolm is here to shatter them. Malcolm, 64, has decades of experience as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief at the New York Times, and later as an editorial board member and feature writer for the Los Angeles Times. He has ink in his blood, but when he was tapped by the L.A. Times to help write the new political blog, Top of the Ticket, Malcolm became a quick convert to the online religion.
more »Digging Deeper
Net neutrality or network neutrality means that Internet service providers (ISPs) such as cable and telephone companies must treat all traffic equally that travels across their networks. That means that your broadband service provider couldn't block you from seeing a particular site or using a high-bandwidth service arbitrarily.
more »Weblogs
How Bloggers Covered Kenya Violence, Deal with Racism, Sexism
Within 24 hours of the outbreak of the post election violence in Kenya, Kenyan blogs were posting hour by hour reports. On December 31st there was a complete shutdown of the mainstream media.
more »Digging Deeper
Semi-Pro Journalism Teams Give Alternative View of U.S. Elections
Elizabeth Gotsdiner got Joe Biden's errant spittle in her mouth. Shantel Middleton got to ride on a Ron Paul blimp. Mayhill Fowler was following Obama canvassers and ended up helping them carry brochures for the candidate. Each of these folks represents a new class of semi-pro journalist tasked with covering the U.S. presidential election in innovative, more personal ways....
more »Digging Deeper
Politico 2.0: Ruffini Blogs, Twitters, Crowdsources Obama Donations
Patrick Ruffini is the epitome of the new breed of political consultant. He's a numbers wonk who swears by Microsoft Excel. He's a tech geek who's had his own political website since the mid-'90s, and he writes for various big-name group blogs such as TechPresident and TownHall.com -- as well as his own blog. And though he has worked...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Facebook Becomes Catalyst for Causes, Colombian FARC Protest
This morning, I received a notification on my Facebook profile that said if I sent a virtual plant to some of my friends, I'd help them "save the Earth." If you're a Facebook user, you probably wonder how much the incessant pleas by certain applications on the site might actually "change the world." Modules built to help you attack...
more »Open Source Reporting
How Our Next President Should Use Participatory Media
Today is President's Day in the U.S., celebrating the February birthdays of past presidents Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. But rather than looking back, I'd like to look forward to the next president of the United States -- whoever he or she will be -- and consider how they might use technology and new media to be more responsive...
more »Citizen Journalism
Social Media, Google-Twitter Mashup and More on Super Duper Tuesday
11:02 am Pacific Time I'll be live-blogging the Super Tuesday election day here in the U.S. and will be highlighting all the efforts online to cover the day's events and results. I'm especially interested in finding the best social media sites, mainstream news sites and blogs and video coverage -- and am asking for your input on any innovative efforts...
more »PoliticalShift
Iowa Caucuses Blanketed by Twitter, Blogs, Video
If you were anywhere in Iowa yesterday, you might as well assume that anyone around you could report on what you were saying, even in what you thought was a private moment at a restaurant. That's the hard lesson learned by veteran GOP political strategist Ed Rollins, who was repeatedly flummoxed in a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace,...
more »Your Take
How important is digital media in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign?
As the U.S. presidential primary season quickly approaches, the question remains just how important the Internet and new media have been in the election race. While political tracking sites such as TechPresident can show how many Facebook friends the candidates have, or how many video views they've had on YouTube, there isn't a direct correlation between online popularity and actual...
more »Digging Deeper
TechPresident, 10Questions Put Spotlight on 'Voter-Generated Content'
Just as the Internet and technology have shifted the playing field in media, allowing bloggers and podcasters to help set the news agenda, so has the realm of politics been disrupted by technology that gives voters more power to inject their own issues into the fray. And in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, that disruption has been strongest in...
more »Weblogs
Can Internet, Blogs Sustain the Saffron Revolution?
When the ruling military junta in Burma cracked down on protesters, killing unarmed Buddhist monks, the world was watching. While mainstream journalists have to work undercover in Burma for fear of the junta's wrath, Burmese citizens and tourists were able to shoot photos and videos of the protests and transmit them to the outside world. The contrast between this...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
YouTube, Flickr Become Forces for Cultural Change
The term "social web" brings to mind images of people around the world interacting with each other without borders or barriers. With the arrival of more and more sites that help us connect, express ourselves and share media, it seems like we're advancing toward a more open Internet, in which everyone has the right to view or post whatever...
more »Your Take Roundup
Internet Offers Unlimited Time for Presidential Debates
One of the complaints most people have about televised politics and debates is the prevalence of the sound bite. There's never enough time for candidates to discuss issues in-depth or argue their point for more than a minute. Instead, we are stuck with the tyranny of zingers and one-liners, perfectly fit for highlights on SportsCenter, uh, I mean the...
more »Your Take
How would you update the presidential debates for the Internet Age?
The New York Times Op-Ed page recently asked a few experts to answer this question: If the CNN/YouTube presidential debates still had too much scripting and canned answers, how can we create a real new-media debate? Various folks answered, with Kevin Kelly saying candidates should have webcams attached to their heads 24/7, and Tom Brokaw joked that candidates should answer...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Face-to-Face Networking Trumps Panels at Conference
SAN FRANCISCO -- In my account of Supernova 2007 yesterday, I didn't mention one of the things that really irked me about the conference: the silence. When panelists were on the huge stage at the main ballroom in the Westin St. Francis Hotel, the large audience sat silent typing away at their laptops. While some sessions ended with a...
more »Your Take
Should online video of presidential debates be free for public use and remix?
Just who owns the video of presidential debates? Up until this point, the TV networks that broadcast the events held the copyright to that footage and could post it online, monetize it in whatever way they wanted, and restrict usage by other folks. But Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, a proponent of Creative Commons "copyleft" systems, started an online petition...
more »PoliticalShift
Online Presidential Debate Distances the Candidates
The handshake at the beginning. The sideways glances and furious note-taking. The occasional interruption. The partisan cheering. These are the hallmarks of presidential debates of years past. Yet, Yahoo, Slate and the Huffington Post believe that having the candidates in distant locations hooked up virtually online will make for a better "user-generated" debate. The troika of websites recently announced...
more »Digging Deeper
Sunlight Foundation Mixes Tech, Citizen Journalism to Open Congress
When people talk about corporate cutbacks in mainstream journalism organizations, there's almost a fervor about how our very democracy is in jeopardy because of the failings of Big Media in holding our government accountable. What such critiques fail to consider is that as citizens we can and will hold our government accountable, with or without the media apparatus. One...
more »PoliticalShift
Escaping the Bubble in Campaign Journalism
This week Arianna Huffington and I announced at the Huffington Post and PressThink a new project in campaign journalism.
more »PoliticalShift
2008 Candidates Jump Online with Early Blog Ads
There has been a delicate dance between political operatives and the Internet. While activists have been using blogs and new media to spread the word about politics or specific candidates for years, the politicians and their consultants have been wary of spending too much of their campaign chest on online marketing. They have largely stuck to the tried and true: TV ads.
more »Digging Deeper
TPMmuckraker Thrives as Political Corruption Runs Rampant
If Roosevelt lived today, he might add in "blog" to the list of places where muckrakers do their work -- and he probably would be a bit more scared of the work they're doing. One hundred years after Roosevelt coined the "muckraker" term for journalists who uncover corruption and fraud, bloggers have taken the mantle once reserved for investigative print journalists and created a new brand of muckraking that moves at the speed of the Net and involves collaboration with readers.
more »Citizen Journalism
Keeping an Eye on the Kenyan Parliament
One of the things I'm most proud of as far as my accomplishments go is being the co-founder of Mzalendo. At a basic level Mzalendo intends to monitor what Kenyan Members of Parliament are doing for their constituents. The Kenyan government generally operates in a very opaque manner and it is very difficult to obtain access to public information both online and offline. While there are some government offices that are trying to remedy this (the Office of Public Communications is one example), most of the information provided is generic.
more »PoliticalShift
Live Blogging the U.S. Mid-Term Elections
Today is election day in the United States, so despite my overall bad feelings about politics at the moment, I'm going back to my roots as a political junkie and watching the results as they come in around the country today. I'll be watching on TV and online at the same time, and considering the differences in media coverage in both mediums. The following post will be updated live throughout the day and night, with the most recent information at the top, and the time it was posted.
more »Your Take
Do you think we should vote in elections by mail or online?
As the mid-term U.S. elections are today, I thought it would be a good idea to consider the intersection of technology and politics once again. So far, the mix has been pretty toxic, with so many electronic voting machines coming under fire for a lack of paper trail or being susceptible to hacks. Oregon has gone around precinct voting problems entirely with a vote-by-mail system where people have a few weeks to mail in ballots or drop them off at their convenience, which raises the participation level. Jeremy Wright, who helped push through the system in Oregon, explains how it works on the Daily Kos blog. What do you think? Should other states switch to mail-in ballots? Or should we create a safe way to vote online as well? What would the problems be with online voting besides security concerns? What other ideas do you have to eliminate the problems of long lines, voting machine irregularities, and intimidation at polling places? Share your thoughts in the comments below and I'll run the best ones in the next Your Take Roundup.
more »PoliticalShift
Gallaudet University Protests Gain Global Audience
If you're a non-deaf person who generally follows U.S. national news, you probably have a vague idea that there have been protests going on at the only university for the deaf, Gallaudet University, in Washington, DC. You might not be sure why the protests are happening, except that the students don't want the incoming president, Jane Fernandes, to assume her new duties in January.
more »Your Take
What sources do you check for political news on the U.S. mid-term elections?
Now that the mid-term elections are less than a month away, we can ignore them no longer. With the Mark Foley page-enticement scandal smoking in the Beltway, the various nationwide races are heating up as the Democrats try yet again to take control of one or both chambers of Congress. There are plenty of news sources online to follow the races, from mainstream media sites such as CNN's Inside Politics to the conservative-blog aggregator, Pajamas Media's PoliticsCentral to liberal power-houses such as Talking Points Memo with its Election Central clearinghouse of polls. So where do you go online to follow the election races and results? Who do you trust for good information, and where do you feel you can have a say in a political community online? Or tell us if you prefer TV and newspapers for political coverage. I'll run the best comments in the next Your Take Roundup.
more »PoliticalShift
Transparency Key to Constructive Partisanship
Among the oddities of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act effort was that many of the major advocates -- who spanned the political spectrum from left to right -- had never worked together and did not meet in person until the day President Bush signed the measure into law.
more »PoliticalShift
Campaigns 2.0::Most Senate Candidates Shy Away from Blogs, Podcasts
Can a candidate's blog or podcast make a difference in a campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2006? No one knows yet. What we do know from 2004 is that Howard Dean's groundbreaking blog didn't help elect him to the presidency -- though it did build buzz and make him a short-lived frontrunner in the Democratic race. A recent...
more »NewspaperShift
Digging Deeper::Can Newspaper Letter Editors Stop Astroturf Onslaught?
People are so outraged by the Medicare drug program overhaul that they're writing letters to the editors of many newspapers to complain. And people are equally upset by gay marriage and are writing letters in support of the Marriage Protection Amendment. But there's one problem with these two sets of letters: Each set contains largely the same text, taken...
more »World View
Digging Deeper::Blogs, Wiki, Google Bomb Used to Free Egyptian Activist
Last August, when I was working on a story for Online Journalism Review about activists using technology to organize protests in Egypt, I made the mistake of focusing too much on blogs. One of the people I interviewed, Alaa Abd El Fattah, was quick to pounce on me for asking about blogs and only blogs, when Egyptians were using...
more »Legal Drama
Sock Puppetry::Are Blog Commenters Paid in Net Neutrality Debate?
When I posed a question to my readers on March 31 -- Should the government regulate Net neutrality? -- I was surprised to see how many readers opposed Net neutrality regulation. In the Your Take Roundup the following week, I even headlined it, "People Wary of Government in Net Neutrality Debate." Now word is spreading through the blogosphere that...
more »PoliticalShift
Free Hao Wu::Blogosphere Unites to Help Jailed Chinese Filmmaker
It's a strange sensation reading through the personal musings of Hao Wu on his Beijing or Bust blog. There is an entry, Teacher for Life, in which Hao recollects a recent meeting with a former teacher. The entry is dated February 22 -- the same date that the Beijing division of China's State Security Bureau arrested Hao, jailing him...
more »Digging Deeper
Digging Deeper::Singapore Tries to Squelch Political Blogs, Podcasts
While many Americans have been focused lately on online censorship in China, few have noticed a similar practice in other countries such as Singapore. That island state is a parliamentary republic in theory, but has really been run by one dominant party in its history of independence since 1965 (see a Singapore historical timeline here). The mainstream media is...
more »Wikis
Email Debate::Wales Discusses Political Bias on Wikipedia
Conservative blogger Robert Cox, who writes the National Debate blog, told me he was amazed at the quality of Wikipedia and thought it was a great resource. But there was something about the free online community-generated encyclopedia that was getting under his skin -- what Cox believed was a liberal bias in many hot-button topic entries, despite Wikipedia's principle...
more »Your Take Roundup
Two-Tiered Net::People Wary of Government in Net Neutrality Debate
The debate over "Net neutrality" has heated up immensely over the past few weeks. Why the hubbub? Broadband service providers -- mainly telephone and cable companies -- want to charge some heavy-use sites such as Google and Yahoo more money for carriage on their systems, creating a kind of two-tier Internet. The issue has pitted companies such as Amazon,...
more »Weblogs
Israeli Elections::Live Blogging the Next Best Thing to TV
Before the 2004 U.S. elections, I considered political news on the Internet to be an addendum to the breaking news I would get from cable TV or the serious journalism of newspapers and magazines. But as the 2004 elections neared in October of that year, I realized that any serious political junkie was getting a much better fix on...
more »Your Take Roundup
Your Take Roundup::Email Trumps Blogs for Political Action in '06
As more people have broadband, more people are going online to get their news. The latest research from Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that 50 million Americans went online for news in a typical day in late 2005 -- up sharply from the number in 2002. And with the upcoming 2006 mid-term U.S. elections, you can count...
more »Digging Deeper
Digging Deeper::Internet Gives All Sides in Israel-Palestine Debate
Many people living outside the Middle East would like to understand the political situation in Israel and Palestine. But the more you read online at blogs and opinion sites, the more you realize that it's not a simple situation of good vs. evil, or us vs. them. There are many ways to view the highly charged issues in this...
more »Online Forums
Riding Talk Revisited::Politicians Speak Out About CBC Forums
In early February, I looked at an interesting project by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) called Riding Talk, where they provided a moderated forum for each and every riding (electoral district) in Canada before the late January elections. I had hoped to include the thoughts of a few politicians who participated in the forums but I didn't hear from...
more »Digging Deeper
Digging Deeper::Reporters Without Borders Backs Online Freedom Act
While the Republican-majority U.S. Congress has favored less regulation of big business, one GOP lawmaker, Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, has shown a willingness to regulate technology and Internet businesses in their dealings with China. Smith held prominent hearings on Capitol Hill on Feb. 15, compelling representatives from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco to answer criticism of their...
more »Your Take Roundup
Your Take Roundup::Congress Takes Action on China Collusion
Various technology companies in the West have helped the Chinese government in its longtime efforts to censor the Internet and do cyber-surveillance. Over the years, these companies have excused their behavior with a variation on the same theme: We have to follow local laws when we do business in China, and we can't ignore China as it has become...
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Digging Deeper::CBC Offers Moderated Forum for Every Precinct
The hodge-podge of political discussion boards online can give you a headache. Usually it's a matter of who can scream the loudest and attack the fiercest. And if the subject is economics, someone will spout off on abortion. Plus, how can you find the right forum for the issues that concern you or your locale? The Canadian Broadcasting Corp....
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