World View

How a Protester Pulled Off the Clandestine Radio Broadcast in Beijing

by Mina Martin

The voices of Chinese human rights activists can be heard on the radio. A former journalist describes the censorship she experienced, and a human rights activist explains the increasing crackdown on Chinese dissidents that has occurred these past few months. A former political prisoner complains about the appalling conditions in which he was held. Have the Chinese authorities gone wild and suddenly opened the airwaves?

• August 25, 2008
• No comments

Weblogs

How Bloggers Covered Kenya Violence, Deal with Racism, Sexism

by Sokari Ekine

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.

• March 25, 2008
• 6 comments

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

Facebook Becomes Catalyst for Causes, Colombian FARC Protest

by Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

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...

• February 22, 2008
• 3 comments

Digging Deeper

Can Citizen Journalism Make a Difference in Jordan?

by Mark Glaser

Ramsey Tesdell would like to bring the concept of citizen and community journalism to Jordan, an Arab country that has a long history of state-controlled media. Tesdell, 23, along with three other early 20somethings, launched the site 7iber in May as a place for "people-powered journalism," hoping that average folks would tell the stories overlooked by mainstream media in...

• September 6, 2007
• 6 comments

Digging Deeper

Can Witness, Global Voices Make Human Rights Video Go Viral?

by Mark Glaser

There is an impulse when we see quirky videos we like on YouTube to email them on to friends or co-workers. When those catchy videos start accumulating viewers, marketers say it's gone viral through word-of-mouth popularity. So what if you could take videos shot by citizens of human rights violations, such as police brutality or torture, and got them to go viral, bringing more attention to the crimes?

• September 20, 2006
• 7 comments

Digging Deeper

Stanford Fellow Imagines Every Cell Phone as Citizen Media Outlet

by Mark Glaser

Perhaps some day in the not so distant future, every person on the planet who has a cell phone camera will be able to snap a photo of a newsworthy event happening in front of them and easily send it to a web clearinghouse of such news images. That's the dream of Erik Sundelof (pictured at left), a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford University, a program that aims to develop technology to advance humanitarian goals in underserved communities.

• July 18, 2006
• 10 comments