[WSIS CS-Plenary] WSISblogs.org: an idea worth developing?

[Elizabeth Carll, PhD]

Sounds like an excellent idea about organizing central place for info and
discussion.  Also agree that it is important to get mainstream media
interested in covering these important issues.  Lot depends on what
competing events are occurring in the news at the time of press releases and
pitches to our media contacts.

Best regards,

Elizabeth

Dr. Elizabeth Carll
Focal Point to WSIS
International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies;
Chair, Media/ICT Working Group,
UN NGO Committee on Mental Health, New York

-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
Behalf Of Andy Carvin
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 7:26 PM
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] WSISblogs.org: an idea worth developing?


Last night on a whim, I went online and bought the domain names
wsisblogs.org and wsisblogs.com.

As you all know, we’re less than a year away from WSIS 2005. During the
the first summit in Geneva, there was a small contingent of bloggers in
Geneva, including myself and the amazing folks at DailySummit.net.

Undoubtedly there will be many more at the next summit, including
delegates, professional journalists, civic journalists and others. And
let's not forget the prepcoms and thematic meetings. Should we expect
much of media presence at all of these events, particularly when the
major policy decisions will take place? Precedence suggests otherwise.
At the last prepcom meeting in Tunisia last June, I was one of a handful
of bloggers present, all of whom -- as far as I know -- represented
civil society; there was practically no mainstream media present, nor
any noticeable media coverage after the fact.

Just 10 days ago, Rebecca MacKinnon lamented in her blog on the lack of
mainstream media coverage regarding Internet governance, which was
discussed at a recent ICANN meeting in Capetown. The event was covered
by numerous bloggers, she noted, “But no meaningful mainstream media
coverage so far. Maybe it’s not as easy to understand or as exciting as
the FCC, but isn’t it just as important (if not more so) for our global
communication future?”

So all of this got me wondering about WSIS, the upcoming prepcoms and
other WSIS thematic meetings, and the dearth of quality media coverage.
 From my perspective, it’s incumbent upon civil society – including
civic bloggers – to embrace a bigger leadership role in publicizing the
policy outcomes that are currently at stake, and mobilize the online
public to take interest in the issue.

With all of this swirling through my head last night, I purchased the
domain names WSISblogs.org and WSISblogs.com. I haven’t thought through
what should be done with it, but I can envision something like Dave
Winer’s ConventionBloggers.com, which aggregated all the bloggers
covering the Democratic and Republican National Conventions here in the
US this past summer. In other words, a site where you could find all the
latest posts from all the bloggers participating and/or observing the
WSIS process. The site could be organized by major policy outcomes and
related WSIS topics, so users could explore the latest blogs on Internet
governance, the digital divide, protest activities, human rights issues,
etc, as they occur. It would also be great to allow bloggers to add
their RSS feeds to the site, since it’s not always possible to get an
authoritative list of who’ll be blogging prior to WSIS-related events.

Even if we do nothing, chances are there will be bloggers galore at
WSIS: dozens of bloggers, blogging on a variety of issues, in a variety
of styles and languages, giving the public unfettered, unfiltered access
to the WSIS process. Imagine if we could organize them all in one place.

Anyway, it’s just an idea. Would love to hear what others think. -andy

--
-----------------------------------
Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldivide.net
Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com
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