Citizen journalism and blogging in Asia: What role for media development organisations? Sanjana Hattotuwa

Old Media in Sri Lanka

New Media in Sri Lanka

Growing recognition

Sanjana with Iresha Dilhani at “Can Bloggers be taken seriously?” session at Galle Literary Festival, February 2008

Blogging in Sinhala

CPA’s new media initiatives

  First and only citizen journalism website in English

  First citizen and only journalism website in Sinhala and Tamil

  First and only mobile phone citizen journalism video initiative

  First and only YouTube Video Channel

  First and only podcast (Internet radio) station in English, Sinhala and Tamil

  First and only Twitter channels (micro-blogging) for election violence updates

Vikalpa

VOR Radio

Vikalpa YouTube Video

Advocacy online: Google Maps

Election violence http://tinyurl.com/5rxbda

High Security Zone mapping http://tinyurl.com/5s3rx3

Groundviews

Groundviews   Started in 2006

  The first citizen journalism website in Sri Lanka

  700+ avg. readers a day

  Over 530 submissions, almost all original, through text, photos, videos

  SNCR Award of Excellence in 2007. The first ever international award won by any news website in Sri Lanka.

  No funding since February 2007

  Working journalists, civil servants, NGO workers, HR activists, diaspora, civil servants, students, lawyers, diplomatic corps, political parties and more contribute and comment

Vital statistics

  "For ongoing analysis of the conflict, the citizen journalism site groundviews.org provides interesting and often tragic reporting” Freedom House

  Groundviews got over 144,280 page views and close to a million hits in 2007.

  Groundviews is currently referenced on 65 other blogs globally and has a Technorati rank of 131,962 out of the over 70 million blogs.

  Groundviews is the only citizen journalism website in Sri Lanka to be directly indexed on Google News and ranked Number 1 on Google by keyword.

  Articles on the site are regularly republished in other local media, including media websites such as InfoLanka News, Tamil Canadian and Tamilnet

JasmineNewswires

After the tsunami

  The web is littered with examples on how SMS helped in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

  “I'm standing on the Galle road in Aluthgama and looking at 5 ton trawlers tossed onto the road. Scary shit.”

  “Found 5 of my friends, 2 dead. Of the 5, 4 are back in Colombo. The last one is stranded because of a broken bridge. Broken his leg. But he's alive.”

  “Made contact. He got swept away but swam ashore. Said he's been burying people all day.”

  “Just dragging them off the beach and digging holes with his hands.”

Regime change in Thailand

  Bloggers helped overthrow Thaksin by galvanizing public opinion.

  Thailand has a minimum of seven hundred blogs—most written by young, university-educated urbanites—that feature daily reporting and commentary on domestic politics.

  Life under a military government was worse than Thaksin’s regime. The junta, in a sign of how seriously it took the citizen journalists, made it a priority to block hosting sites.

Project mumbaiVOICES.com

  It is an endeavor aimed at capturing the voices of the city’s survivors - so that the citizens of Mumbai can have their own say in the protection of their beloved city.

  The project offers ordinary citizens an opportunity to reflect on the disaster response in the aftermath of the blasts, examine the strengths and weakness, and collectively discuss desirable next steps to strengthen our response in the future.

  This project was piloted among 160 citizens of Mumbai – their testimonies are posted here.

First Online Free Expression Day

Burma, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Egypt amongst others

Green with envy?

  In June 2007, bloggers in Sri Lanka reacted to plagiarism by a leading Editor of a English newspaper.

  Bloggers formed a united front

  Violent, abusive reaction by Editor

  Plagiarism continues – stories, photos taken without attribution

  Proves the significant appeal of new media!

Lessons learnt

  If you work in journalism, you work for an online news organization whether you want to or not.

  News is a conversation

  Product vs. place

  Blogs represent the most open public communications platform for political discourse.

  The peer-to-peer architecture of the blogosphere is more resistant to capture or control by the state than the older, hub and spoke architecture of the mass media model.

Guidelines on Groundviews

  Guidelines proved invaluable

  Please treat others with respect. Flaming and trolling will not be accepted on Groundviews. Attack the issue, not the person. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved. Comments that seek to inflame tensions on the ground, or are of a defamatory nature, will not be approved, or will be taken off the website as soon as possible.

  Groundviews is a place for original and creative writing, not repetition or regurgitation.

No   Potentially libelous statements.

  Obscene, explicit, or racist language.

  Personal attacks, insults, or threats.

  Commercial product promotions.

  Information taken from another source without permission.

  Private personal information published without consent.

  Comments unrelated to the topic of the forum.

  Nothing from CPA or NGO press releases!

Staying sane, going insane!

  Dealing with hate speech psychologically draining

  Increasingly dangerous – “providing solace and relief to terrorists”

  Time consuming and generally thankless

  Transference of skills problematic

  English knowledge ESSENTIAL even if blogging in the vernacular (interfaces, tags, content management)

Old media waking up

Daily Mirror evolution

2003

2008

The Observers: France24

Yahoo

CNN iReport

Challenges for New Media growth

  UNICODE in Sinhala

  Cost of access even though footprint of wired / wireless broadband expanding apace

  PC based mentality of Government’s ICT Agency

  Voters not citizens in Sri Lanka

  Communications illiteracy in civil society / NGOs

State of the News Media 2008

  In the absence of revenue, most appear to be running on the owners’ blood, sweat and tears. (I can personally attest to this!)

  In the midst of the uncertainty that surrounds the business model for citizen journalism sites, NGO funded initiatives have become a more visible presence in online journalism.

  This is especially true at the hyper-local level, where nonprofits have contributed money to encourage and support citizen reporting.

Barack’s dilemma

  “His website was thus a vast social networking site (one of his chief organisers was a founder of Facebook)—a mechanism not just for translating enthusiasm into cash but also for building a community of fired-up supporters.”

  About turn on wire-tapping Bill

  Bloggers revolt on his own website!

Limits of free speech online?

Limits of free speech online?

  Earlier this year, 22-year-old IT professional Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid based in Haryana was arrested by the Indian Police because he had said he hated Sonia Gandhi in Orkut, Google’s social networking site.

  In 2007, the International Federation of Journalists hit hard against Google for its censorship deal with the Thai government.

  Five-month ban on YouTube after Google installed filters to block Thais from accessing any videos deemed “offensive” to the monarchy.

Limits of free speech online?

Funding for media in 2008

$794,103 Sri Lankan Rupees 85,564,598

Funding for new media

?

Funding for new media

0

Imagining the future

  Print still important

  Complementarity not competition

  Mobiles (11 million SIMS in Sri Lanka / Population 20 million)

  Vernacular content growth

  Citizens report the news. Journalists analyse the news.

  The distinction between new and old media will disappear.

Why support?

  Put your money where your mouth is!

  It’s already proven to work

  Traditional approaches to media reform under repressive regimes don’t work

  Journalists under attack can still publish using new media

  Leverage the growth of web media for development, democracy, human rights, good governance, transparency, accountability and peacebuilding

Hope

  “I don’t agree with what you say, but I see why Groundviews is there. Keep it up!”

Thank you!