Undercurrent

Inspired by last week’s We Media conference in London and Leonard Witt’s ideas for next year’s conference, here’s a few reactions & suggestions:

• Present new material: More than most subjects, the discussions on the future of media, journalism, blogging etc tend to be dominated by an exchange of views. Organizers can commission new research into essensial topics, and present the material for discussion at the conference (or maybe even before, so participants can have a good look at methodology and results before they arrive. This year’s opinion poll about trust in media didn’t have much impact on the conference because the questions seemed rather irrelevant). This can be both quantitative and qualitative studies. If it’s case studies, the people behind the cases should be present as well.
• Time for discussions: A mantra heard during the breaks and in blog entries this year was “there’s too much lecturing”. So all sessions should be shorter to allow more questions, answers and discussions. Many people didn’t get to ask their questions at the end of sessions. Also, allow for longer breaks, many of the best discussions take place then.
• Know more about “We”: Compile a list of participants’ blogs before the event (participants can do this themselves in a wiki or other format). Then everyone will be in a better position to know who you want to hook up with during the conference. One of the best things for me was to learn about many extremely interesting new blogs and sites.
• More global voices: Arguably the best – most informative, most surprising – sessions were those about China, India, Africa, Middle East. Just add more voices: From different European countries, from Latin America, from regions of Africa… You can’t fail. And just assume that most of the US/Brit debates are known already.

Sessions about China/Asia, India/South Asia and Africa here at the We Media conference. Good discussions that illustrate how variations in the way people relate to blogging and other user-controlled tools and genres can only be understood by considering the local and national contexts – such as different press and media traditions (previous post on this point). Some notes:

• China: EastSouthWestNorth. Blog written in Hong Kong that tracks and translates material from Chinese blogs and media. Rebecca MacKinnon: Web 2.0 is very Chinese, they are natural networkers. Andrew Lih: Studies Wikipedia globally. Wikipedia is blocked in China. One Chinese Wikipedia faction is open to accept censorship of “difficult” words. Several participants noted that there’s an implicit contract/compact between the Chinese authorities and the people: Politics, democracy is a no-go zone. In return you get extensive freedom in the economic and cultural sphere. But how can you really, in the long run, stop a civil society from emerging?
• India: Kamla Bhatt thought the mobile phone would be a more important platform than the PC in India (the same point was made about China). She described vividly the creative web 2.0 scene in Bangalore. Nitin Desai of the UN: Freedom of speech is seen as an absolute moral right in India. Neha Viswanathan follows Indian blogs for Global Voices.
• Middle East: Lisa Goldman directed the attention to contact between Arabic (Lebanese, Jordanian among others) and Israeli bloggers. She had been to Amman and met Jordanian bloggers there). The founder of cairolive Tarek Atia noted that people in the Middle East used to get their news from only one source, now their impulse is to check different sources.
• Africa: Matthew Buckland from Mail & Guardian: Although there is a big problem with connectivity in Africa, because of low costs of entry blogging is perfect for the developing world. Megan Knight: In Africa, citizen journalism connects with a long tradition for alternative media. Radio still most important medium.

Several ways to consult different angles to the We Media conference:

• Rafat Ali & co of paidcontent.org
• Flickr photostream
• PJNet.org
• BBC News We Media blog
• Reuters coverage