James Borton on Web Journalism, Digital Technology and Life in a More Connected World.

It’s a wired world and even the most isolated neo-luddhite is now informed about the impact of weblogs. Asia, now home to more than 3.3 billion citizens, making up nearly three fifths of the world’s population is now logging on and joining the Web conversation through emergent weblogs.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia defines the term weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log) as a web application used for entering, modifying and displaying periodic posts.  There’s even an avalanche of new books on the subject including the vastly popular and influential blogger, Hugh Hewitt. His pioneering opus is Blog: Understanding The Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World.

Did I say networked global community? The search engine Technorati tracks in excess of 12 million blogs. This valuable source has proven itself to be one of the most comprehensive information links for the current conversations on the Web.

As an intrepid Asia reporter and self-proclaimed “badjao”, tribal sea gypsies located in Mindanao in the Southern Philippines, I have observed first hand or up close and personal, the impact of globalization in remote Internet cafes in General Santos City, Phnom Penh and Hoi An, Vietnam.  Born out of the Internet, the blogosphere is now making its mark in Asia.

The citizen-journalists or bloggers are pushing the media to transform itself. These alternative voices, independent-minded tribal diarists have shifted the techno-info plates in Asia.

The efforts of these tribal digital news networks became brilliantly evident as a major tidal wave of integrated disaster links and information flooding the world wide web during last year’s tragic Asian tsunami. I wrote about this new Asian connectivity in an article in Asia Times Online.

Thanks largely to the efforts of Dr. Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon at Harvard more and more Global Voices are connecting. In a recent interview on BBC, Zuckerman stated, that Global Voices is instrumental in bringing together bloggers from places like Iraq, Latvia, Malaysia and China.

Mainstream media luddhites vs. bloggers

Sure there remain traditional editors who cling to their antiquated Royal typewriter as a badge of honor in a feeble defense of mainstream media (MSM). For many reporters, the golden age is over and for others it is just beginning. The image of what’s news has shifted dramatically because of the  Drudge Report and other clones. What clear to me is that there has been a long slide in the public’s respect for the media since Watergate. Read Anne E. Kornblut’s article in the NYT Sunday June 5, “The News Media is Still Recovering From Watergate”.

The larger problem today with journalism is not inherently in the delivery of news, anonymous sources, or the editing or collection. There’s a reporting war front emerging between the mainstream media and the blogosphere. Even the recently held Editor & Publisher conference in New Orleans confirms this.

If there is any convergence of New Media evangelists and at last count, there are over 35 million bloggers making up this universe of global voices than it’s time for all of us to listen or read more carefully the sometimes shrill messages of advocacy over prescience.

That is not taking away from the significant role of blogs in bringing about social and political change and shared networks of information. But few of us can deny that at the heart of all media, mainstream and alternative is the need for some barometer to measure, not monitor, the chatter and gossip disguised as news.  Take a look at "Voices from Asia: Editorials and Opinions from Asia Newspapers."  

Digital Asia Blooms

How fast is digital Asia growing? Chinese broadband penetration grew 99% last year. Fixed-line broadband connections in all of Asia soared 50% in 2004, to 62 million, according to research firm Gartner Inc. What does all this signal for the development of a new Asian news website? Most recent media surveys, including those by the trade publication, Ad Age, reveal that news consumption is increasing on the strength of the Internet as a general news source versus a continuing decline of readership in the traditional print media. This article in Asia Times confirms that growth pattern about digital Asia. 

Today and tomorrow, we need the proliferation of  weblogs and we should expect more from them too.

Comments

[George Tang]

Great content, but a pain to the eyes due to the light grey color of the text.
Please show darker text (best in black), so I can read longer hours.

[MeriWrele]

Cool, good job, i like you site.
i am wishing you a new clients and be happy with your further projects.
Mark (ex-golden boy:-))