Blogosfera, Democracia y Ciudadania: Por favor ayuda con una entrevista!

¿De qué manera la actividad de blogear y las redes distribuidas formadas en torno a ésta, es decir la blogosfera, puede contribuir al fortalecimiento de la democracia y a una forma de ciudadanía con mayores capacidades que las actuales?

Algo así es de lo que se tratará un programa de la Radio Universidad de Chile a la que me invitaron para mañana (11-Sept). Tengo varias ideas en la cabeza pero les agradecería mucho si pueden aportarme – ya se aquí o vía correo- con el o los impactos más notorios que a su juicio han tenido o podrían tener los blogs en el perfeccionamiento de la democracia y la ciudadanía.

El programa se grabará hoy a las 15.30 horas en la Radio U. de Chile, pero se emitirá el 19 de septiembre a las 10.30 horas en el 102.5 FM y en la web (www.forociudadano.cl) a partir del 21 de septiembre, junto a un artículo asociado.

Updates: Voy a comenzar a auto-ayudarme con algunos copy-paste. Disculpen el desorden de lo que sigue, pero este post será un cuaderno de notas para la entrevista de mañana!

1. Blogs como herramientas contra la opresión:

BLOGGING DOWN THE DICTATOR?
The Kyrgyz Revolution and Samizdat Websites
Svetlana V. Kulikova and David D. Perlmutter
Abstract / This article evaluates the impact and significance of Akaevu.net, an advocacy blog that
was linked to the recent “˜tulip revolution”™ in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic of Central Asia.
The study assesses (1) to what extent do samizdat (that is, unofficial) blogs serve as sources of oppositional
information for citizens of the nation as well as international observers and (2) what
evidence is there of the effects of the samizdat blogs on political events, such as, in this case, the
revolution itself? The authors found that the blog did indeed become a unique and rich source of
information not available from other local sources or the world press. They suggest that samizdat
blogs can serve to incite or sustain democratization in Third World countries, even those undergoing
uneven economic development.
Keywords / blog / Internet / Kyrgyzstan / managed democracy / samizdat / “˜tulip revolution”™ /
weblogs

The International Communication Gazette
COPYRIGHT © 2007 SAGE PUBLICATIONS
LONDON, THOUSAND OAKS & NEW DELHI 1748-0485 VOL. 69(1): 29″“50

2. Blogs, vigilancia y resistencia

Theorizing Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond
David Lyon, (ed.),Willan Publishing, Devon, 2006,

Resistance to surveillance regimes, a topic all too often glossed over, is
explored in another set of chapters. Economist Toshimaru Ogura focuses on
the role of surveillance practices based on information and communication
technologies (ICT) and rooted in the evolution of the modern capitalist
nation-state and its emphasis on rationality and efficiency. These techniques,
he claims, “undermine the modernist preconditions of the state and individuals.
. . . not only privacy and civil liberties but also democracy and identity
politics” (p. 270).He suggests that one form of resistance against “surveillance-
oriented societies” is to turn the tables, as it were, and use ITC (eg blogs, wikis,
etc.) to create multiple identities that form a decentralized inter-subjectivity.

3. Blogs y libertad de expresión

Web 2.0 as a Social Movement

Conclusion

The values of a right to communicate””interactive communication, user participation, collaboration””collate with those of the current discussions surrounding Web 2.0. It is the extent to which the values embodied in a right to communicate are shared by those involved in the most recent research and development of the Web that it can be argued that Web 2.0 development can be seen as part of a larger human rights movement. In the dynamic environment of the Web we can anticipate the angst over the specific meaning of Web 2.0 will quickly dissipate or be resolved. However, the movement for a right to communicate will only gain in momentum. Therefore, it is critical the direction of Web development be within a framework enhancing a right to communicate.

4. Medios tradicionales versus la blogosfera

Journalism, Vol. 8, No. 3, 235-261 (2007)

Mapping the blogosphere

Globalization and the internet have created a space for news and political discourse that overrides geography and increases opportunities for non-mainstream, citizen-based news sources. Drawing a distinction between emerging citizen and professional media, this study examines one rapidly expanding and increasingly influential citizen news source “” weblogs. We analyzed the linking patterns, the online network led to by six of the most popular news and political weblogs to study their relationship to other weblogs and the traditional professional news media in the USA and internationally. Findings suggest a more complementary relationship between weblogs and traditional journalism and less echo-chamber political insularity than typically assumed. The blogosphere relies heavily on professional news reports and half of its linked-to sites can be considered non-partisan.

5. Blogs & Gobiernos Autoritarios

Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 2 (June 2007)

“PROMISES AND PERILS OF WEBLOGISTAN:
ONLINE PERSONAL JOURNALS AND THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN”
Liora Hendelman-Baavur

Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iranian printed and broadcast media has been strongly controlled by the state. However, the state’s authority has been compromised due to online publishing and the free flow of information, especially through “Weblogistan”””the Iranian cyber-sphere of online self-publishing journals. This has generated much concern among the Islamic Republic authorities. Along with satellite television and mobile phones, weblogs have irretrievably changed the way people in the entire Middle East interact with one another and with the rest of the world. The Islamic Republic of Iran”™s ways of coping with challenges posed by the internet in general and weblogs in particular are especially intriguing, considering that the most famous blogger in the country is the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

6. Blogosfera y formación de redes en torno a temas controversiales

Mark Tremayne, Nan Zheng, Jae Kook Lee, Jaekwan Jeong (2006)
Issue Publics on the Web: Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphere
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (1), 290″“310.

Discussion and conclusions

Our examination of 79 blogs and 899 posts concerning the war in Iraq revealed several patterns that shed light on the evolution of networks and suggest ways in which the increasing influence of blogs may shape news flows in the future.

If we cast the Iraq War blogosphere as an “issue public,” it is not one that resembles the general population. Bloggers on this topic were overwhelmingly male, with 99% of posts coded as such. This finding echoes previous research that found filter blogs more often created by males than females (Herring, Kouper, et al., 2004; Trammell & Keshelashvili, 2005). The bloggers in our sample were also highly educated, a significant percentage holding graduate or law degrees. Three professional backgrounds emerged as the most common: academics, professional writers or journalists, and those working in the technology industry. The first two groups proved to be very successful at acquiring links from other war bloggers; the third was decidedly not. The quality of writing, although not measured for this study, is likely a significant predictor of success in the blogosphere.

Most of the posts in our sample (97%) were coded as either opinion or surveillance, with opinion being the most common. Only 2% of posts were categorized as reporting. While war bloggers were not very involved in creating original reporting, they were linking to it. Half of all links in the sample went to online news stories and another 10% went to news editorials. Only 23% of links went to other blogs, despite the perception by some that the blogosphere is insular. These findings are similar to those of other researchers who have examined this issue (Herring, Scheidt, et al., 2005; Reese, Rutigliano, Hyun, & Jeong, 2005).

Our study revealed several other variables associated with acquiring incoming links. These included use of links to other blogs, opinion posts, reporting posts, surveillance posts, and links to media sites. Being female was negatively associated with acquiring links on this topic.

A multiple regression analysis revealed two variables as the key predictors of incoming links: links to other blogs and reporting posts. The first finding is perhaps to be expected, in as much as the culture of blogging promotes reciprocity. The latter finding is very interesting, primarily because there were so few reporting posts in the sample, only 20. Nevertheless, it was a powerful predictor of incoming links. This result bodes well for the future of original reporting as opposed to hearsay and opinion. If blogs that engage in original reporting are rewarded with links and more traffic, we should expect this type of activity to increase over time. The prevalence of links to mainstream news sites in blogs is another indicator of the continuing relevance of sites that produce original reporting.

Finally, the mapping of the Iraq war blogosphere revealed two distinct halves but also a fairly robust cluster of blogs that serve as conduits between the sides. Although it is clear that many bloggers on each side choose to isolate themselves by linking only to ideological compatriots and to media supportive of their point of view, there is at least a place in the middle where ideas can be debated and, possibly, positions changed.

The findings of this study are limited by the design and scope of the project. The focus of this study is on political blogs, which represent only part of the broader blogosphere. Additionally, a network was constructed based solely on posts about the war in Iraq that were published on 16 systematically selected days over the study period. Posts about other topics, or those appearing during other time periods, may reveal different patterns. Nevertheless, we believe that the two primary predictors of incoming links identified by multiple regression analysis, use of outgoing links, and original reporting, are significant and worthy of further study.

7. Blogs e instituciones políticas tradicionales

“Parliamentary Democracy Online: Lessons from Europe”

Xiudian Dai and Philip Norton. The Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol.13, No.3, September 2007, pp.477″“482

The relationship between parliament and new information and communications technologies (ICTs), in particular the Internet, is becoming ever more complicated. By means of conclusion, we highlight the key findings from our comparative study of four parliaments, the British, European, Portuguese and Swedish Parliaments, which have all adopted the Internet as an essential element of their parliamentary communication strategy. It is clear from our research that the Internet is already having a significant impact upon the operation of parliamentary institutions. Parliamentary and parliamentarians’ use of the Internet has also raised important issues that ought to be considered cautiously by policy makers, and further academic study is important to the search for solutions.

Tags: blogosfera, ciudadania, democracia, gobierno, Polí­tica, Universidad de Chile