Monday, August 23, 2004
Blog On
Reuben was so kind as to induct me into this fine group, though I'm still not clear what "wetware" or "Zoo station" refer to. Chalk it up to me being officially old and out of touch.
I have resisted blogging for a long time, but I jump into the blogosphere knowing I'm surrounded by very smart people. I'm eager to find more viewpoints - your viewpoints. You see, my area of research is exactly this type of dynamic - participatory journalism. Most of my work concentrates on wikis, and specifically, studying the collaboratively edited free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and how communities self-organize in environments without strict editorial policies or operational hierarchies. It's one of the few examples of an "intercreative" space and a "writable" web, originally envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee.
One person who is a pioneer in both web logs and wikis is Isaac Mao, a China-based netizen who has effectively used both publishing tools, in a country not exactly know for freedom of information. Isaac started one of the first web log hosting servers in China. He's also used wikis to coordinate the translation of Larry Lessig's book Free Culture into Chinese, all by having volunteers come to the site to translate a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, or whatever they can contribute. This is where the wiki concept truly shines. Lessig's book talks about technology, law, history, business and politics. Finding a single translator knowledgeable in all these fields would be a challenge. With a wiki, folks from multiple disciplines can pitch in their expertise, without having to worry about the daunting task of full translation. (Many other fine examples are told by journalist, and teaching colleague, Dan Gillmor, who has put out a fine book, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism, By the People, For the People.)
Participatory journalism has filled a knowledge gap that has traditionally existed between the news and the history books. I like to describe it this way - if news is the first draft of history, then Web logs are the first commentary on history and Wikipedia is the working draft of history.
Most strikingly, it is ordinary citizens, not the mainstream media outlets, creating this new content as grassroots efforts. While these are largely text- and photo-oriented right now, this activity of citizen-generated content is starting to extend to audio and video, with the proliferation of broadband and P2P networks. Exciting times are ahead for both mature and developing economies alike.
So I look forward to posting on all things about technology, China, India, greater Asia, East-West politics, online communities, sociology and anything that will change the world.
I have resisted blogging for a long time, but I jump into the blogosphere knowing I'm surrounded by very smart people. I'm eager to find more viewpoints - your viewpoints. You see, my area of research is exactly this type of dynamic - participatory journalism. Most of my work concentrates on wikis, and specifically, studying the collaboratively edited free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and how communities self-organize in environments without strict editorial policies or operational hierarchies. It's one of the few examples of an "intercreative" space and a "writable" web, originally envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee.
One person who is a pioneer in both web logs and wikis is Isaac Mao, a China-based netizen who has effectively used both publishing tools, in a country not exactly know for freedom of information. Isaac started one of the first web log hosting servers in China. He's also used wikis to coordinate the translation of Larry Lessig's book Free Culture into Chinese, all by having volunteers come to the site to translate a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, or whatever they can contribute. This is where the wiki concept truly shines. Lessig's book talks about technology, law, history, business and politics. Finding a single translator knowledgeable in all these fields would be a challenge. With a wiki, folks from multiple disciplines can pitch in their expertise, without having to worry about the daunting task of full translation. (Many other fine examples are told by journalist, and teaching colleague, Dan Gillmor, who has put out a fine book, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism, By the People, For the People.)
Participatory journalism has filled a knowledge gap that has traditionally existed between the news and the history books. I like to describe it this way - if news is the first draft of history, then Web logs are the first commentary on history and Wikipedia is the working draft of history.
Most strikingly, it is ordinary citizens, not the mainstream media outlets, creating this new content as grassroots efforts. While these are largely text- and photo-oriented right now, this activity of citizen-generated content is starting to extend to audio and video, with the proliferation of broadband and P2P networks. Exciting times are ahead for both mature and developing economies alike.
So I look forward to posting on all things about technology, China, India, greater Asia, East-West politics, online communities, sociology and anything that will change the world.
