The World is Not Flat--Notes 2 in the Wikimania 2007

Interested in the development of the citizen journalism, I went to the session 1006 of the Wikimania 2007. There were two parts in this session: the first, "Citizen media: Why Global Voices isn't trying to be a news agency", by Rebecca MacKinnon; the second, "Wikinews: How it is unique, and what the future holds", by Craig Spurrier.

Basically, the two speakers just introduced what they did for their media sites. I didn't get quite much from their speeches since I had viewed their sites for many times. However, I still made some notes from their speeches, which I thought would be important for those who concern about the citizen journlism as a trend of media to be understood.

Most of the notes from Rebecca's speech.

1.it's citizen media, not citizen journalism;

2.right to speak, right to be heard, give perspectives, rather than cater to those requirements or standards of main-stream journalism.

3.random-act journalist--we are going to link to you

4.The world is not flat: obstacles: Attentation: The caring problem, what people need to know vs. what they enjoy knowing and talking about; language: The internet is becoming more multilingual...translation requires efforts; Access: The people whose voices we effort most need to hear are the ones who are least able to speak out online; Censorship

5. motivation, really humble process, We don't see us as a end-point. 摸著石頭過河

There was a thought (or question) continuingly intrigued me from the speeches. Maybe it can be called "many-to-nothing effect". My argument is that while more and more citizen-joined media burgeoned, it lowered the gate to be a journalist, or even a reporter. Therefore, anyone might claim his own concerned as a "news" if only he found something "new" in his perspective. It might arouse more people to join the "game of post" in the name of "my own news". In the end, too many news in personal perspectives might make nothing new. And mainstream media still get the control.

I will explain more when I get the chance next time. Hope I can clear more next time.