Rex Sorgatz has taken the trouble to compile a list of the “Best Blogs of 2006 that You (Maybe) Aren’t Reading”. Corporate social responsibility buzz has hit a new high with the Grameen Bank vs Telenor controversy. So let’s just call what Rex is doing “blogger social responsibility” (BSR) at its best. For my part I have only visited two of the 30 blogs on the list. Great pre-Xmas gift (*rubs hands*).
Category Archives: Weekend recommendations
I want that photograph
In a wonderful Atlantic article (sub.req.) about the architecture photographer Julius Shulman, Virginia Postrel writes:
An architectural photograph can conjure three possible desires: “I want that photograph,” “I want that building,” or “I want that life.” Shulman’ls best work evokes all three. At a time when the public thought of modernism as a cold, impersonal style suited only for office buildings, he made its houses look seductively human. His photos do not merely record modern architecture, California style; they sell it.
By looking at the photos displayed in the online Shulman exhibition, I for one understood exactly what she means!
The article also contains an interesting discussion of how modern architecture has taken different forms in the very different physical and mental environments of California and New York.
This weekend # 9: Grbavica
“Grbavica”, the winner of this year’s Berlin film festival, is one of those films that risk being put in a potential cinemagoer’s mental category for “important” films that he “should” see, then ends up avoiding, fearing that the point of the film is more giving a political statement than presenting an independent work of art. In this case, staying away would be a sad mistake, because “Grbavica” is first and foremost a story that grows on you and captivates from the first to the last shot. A film that radiates the humanism and hope of the Sarajevo artists of survival, as Die Zeit recently titled its portrait of the city (“Grbavica” is now showing at Norwegian cinemas.)
This weekend # 6: Photography
A photography-dominated current affairs web magazine – does it exist? It should. Or you can put together your own. From Flickr clusters to Magnum masters. Or just start with Nina Mangalanayagam’s story of her father.
This weekend extra: The Economist’s new Chicago survey gives me the perfect excuse to publish my own favourite Chicago photo! Taken on a very warm evening last October.
This weekend # 5: Glenn Reynolds
Judged by its title, Glenn Reynolds’ new book “An Army of Davids. How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths” puts all the usual pro-blogging, anti-media rhetoric to use. The book excerpt starts that way, with tales of small bloggers taking on the tremendous power of “Big Media” (Reynolds actually goes so far as to claim that media power hasn’t been countervailed by other institutions such as political parties, churches and labour unions since before the 2nd world war. Though researchers generally agree that media power has been on the rise in industrialized countries – see Norway – clearly debates about media power and the rise of blogging will be somewhat different when held in other regions).
But read on, and you will find that Reynolds’ argument isn’t one-sided after all. In fact, he can be interpreted in much the same way as recent statements by other “we media” champions like Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales and Craigslist’s Craig Newmark: They don’t want to “defeat” media and journalism – they want better journalism, investigative stories, more reporting, community-building media. Here’s CNET indirectly quoting Newmark from a discussion between the two this week:
But where some in the blogosphere are increasingly calling for the death of the so-called mainstream media, he said, it is important to have professional writers and editors, since such work is difficult. Further, he said, it is important to have professionals willing to spend long days devoted to covering crucial stories. Still, he noted that the mainstream press has increasingly dropped the ball and that society suffers because of it. Thus, he said, the ideal situation would be for the mainstream press and citizen journalists to join forces.
Recently, Wales said something similar: “Asked if traditional media would be squeezed out by the proliferation of user-generated content, Mr Wales repeated that: “everybody makes jokes, but we still need professional comedians”.”
Reynolds arrives at a related conclusion after a tour of extraordinary examples of a new kind of journalism. The most surprising is Michael Yon. I, for one, have always thought that war reporting would be the ultimate border between amateur and professional journalists. Yon maybe proves otherwise, though of course he must acquire some of the same skills as war reporters to survive.
Reynolds’ prediction, then, sounds much like Newmark’s:
Over the coming decade, we’lll see the growth of alternatives to traditional Big Media, and-if we and Big Media are lucky-we’lll see the Big Media Goliath moving to ally itself with the Davids, rather than positioning itself against them. We’lve seen a few signs of that. After the Indian Ocean tsunami, and again after hurricanes like Katrina and Rita, we’lve seen newspapers and television stations incorporate citizen journalism into their coverage via blogs, chat boards, and other mechanisms. In a crisis, the value of having thousands of potential correspondents out there with computers, digital cameras, and other technology is obvious. But in fact, the value is there all the time. Noticing that may take them a bit longer, but I suspect that they will notice it in the end. Those who don’lt may wind up being replaced by those who do.
Opinion leaders for “we media” forming an informal movement for the improvement of big media? Why not. And pushing it further: Imagine that the whole bunch of media-critical bloggers (discovered a new one today) in fact are nothing else but a people’s movement for – better media.
This weekend #4: Head east
At irregular intervals during the last 17 years, Europeans of the old communist Eastern Bloc countries have taught their spoiled Western neighbours the real values of liberal democracy. Little more than a year ago, Ukrainians camped in the cold streets of Kyiv for weeks, determined to fight for their democratic rights (compare with Florian Illies’ diagnosis in the hit book “Generation Golf”: West Germans – just extend that to West Europeans – don’t demonstrate anymore, it’s just too cold outside).
In the coming days, we might experience a new Ukraine – in Belarus. In an in-depth article in New York Times Magazine, Steven Lee Myers tracks the very steep uphill campaign of dictator Lukashenko’s rival Aleksandr Milinkevich. The campaign, Milinkevich explains, is not about the election on March 19. That will be won by Lukashenko anyway. Milinkevich, a “58-year-old physics professor and the unlikeliest of revolutionaries”, is campaigning for an uprising: “If our campaign is successful, then we will get people out into the street”. Lukashenko has threatened with severe consequences:
Any attempt to destabilize the situation will be met with drastic action. We will wring the necks of those who are actually doing it and those who are instigating these acts.
In this climate, newspapers in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have challenged colleagues in other countries to print cartoons depicting Lukashenko. Check out the gallery.
The EU and US institutions support the Belarus opposition with funding of different projects and much-needed alternative information sources.
According to Myers, the group Zubr will provide the first demonstrators if there is to be an uprising in Belarus. UPDATE March 13: The Zubr website on www.zubr-belarus.com/index.php?id=1849&lang=2 now seems to be down, replaced by an advertising site. You have to rely on the Google cache.
This weekend # 3: Norwegians in Damascus
This weekend, read Aatish Taseer’s strange and unsettling story about young Norwegian students in Damascus, in the period leading up to the anti-cartoon riots and burning of the Norwegian and Danish embassies. Document.no’s Hans Rustad compares the students’ fascination for islam with the Norwegian marxist-leninist movement of the 1970s (which is returning as hit movie these days).
This weekend # 2: Svenska dialektmysterier
This friday’s recommendation will be tough for non-Scandinavians. Come on, a TV series about Swedish dialects? But yes. In the programmes (many still available from the web page) Fredrik Lindström (photo) is the cool flaneur who travels around Sweden and discovers all the idiosyncrasies and historical peculiarities of dialect. Interviews with real people are interspersed with short excursions into history. In the programme about Stockholm, we learn through a young web development guy that home page is not “hemsida” any longer, but “hemsa”! Which inspires a new stroll into the archeology of language from Mr. Lindström. A piece of public TV at its best. Maybe television is the future after all?
This weekend # 1: Die Zeit
Hopefully a regular feature from now on: A weekend recommendation from Undercurrent. This week, what better than to pick an opinion piece from Die Zeit, the great German liberal weekly newspaper which this week celebrates its 60th anniversary. Freiheit und Hass by Thomas Assheuer. Excerpt:
Irgendwann wird sich zeigen, was die größere Faszinationskraft abstrahlt: die Energie der Selbstbeobachtung oder ein religiöser Dogmatismus, dessen Argument darin besteht, niemals zu argumentieren, niemals nachzugeben und sich in heiliger Monotonie zu wiederholen bis zum Jüngsten Tag.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Birthday interview with editor Giovanni di Lorenzo.