Participatory journalism, and particularly how participatory journalism is practiced online, has been one of our key interests in the course so far. You will remember the definition offered in the We Media report:
- “Participatory journalism: The act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.” (We Media, pg. 9)
The We Media report is concerned with looking at how New Information Technologies can be used to promote participatory journalism online. In other words, its authors argue that NITs are making it possible for the audience to take an active role in the process of creating news rather than simply receiving news produced by professional news organizations. They further argue that the new media ecosystem enabled by NITs is changing the nature of journalism and democratizing the process of creating news.
We Media looks at how a number of different online technologies (discussion groups, user-generated content, weblogs, collaborative publishing, RSS syndication, and so on) help users provide commentary, filter and sort news, check facts, engage in grassroots reporting, and other news oriented tasks.
There are many examples throughout the report showing this process in action at various websites. However, the sites in the report are mostly based in the United States and are exclusively in English. This makes sense for the report, which is concerned with presenting a recent phenomenon in the context of the practice of journalism in the U.S.
The problem for us, though, is that this presentation is too limited. It doesn’t tell us about the potential for online participatory journalism outside of the U.S. And particularly, it tells us nothing about online participatory journalism in this region.
We have looked a bit at online participatory journalism in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, primarily by exploring the neweurasia.net websites. However, this tells us only about the neweurasia (English language) sites, and not much about how people are using NITs here. For one thing, this is just one set of sites, and although there are a number of people writing for the neweurasia sites from this region, others are located far away. For another thing, Kazakhstan’s dominant languages are Russian and Kazakh, and sites in English cannot fully represent the experiences of people here.
Our task now is to discover whether there is something we might call online participatory journalism being practiced in Kazakhstan, and to try to develop an initial profile of that practice. We will begin this process by working in groups and creating profiles of a few weblogs. (Each group will examine one weblog. Post your profile as a comment on this entry by 1 pm Friday, 2 Nov. and be prepared to present it in class that day.)
- ru.kazakhstan.neweurasia.net, neweurasia’s Russian-language weblog on Kazakhstan
- kz.kazakhstan.neweurasia.net, neweurasia’s Kazakh-language weblog on Kazakhstan
- adam-kesher.livejournal.com, Adam Kesher’s Russian-language Livejournal site
- Askar Shushekov’s Media Support Center site (rus)
Provide the following information about the site you are profiling:
- Site name and URL
- Language(s) used on the site
- Who authors the site? Is it a group weblog? Individual weblog? Are full names available? First names? Pseudonyms?
- Where is/are the author(s) located?
- How long has the site been active? How active is the site? (How many entries per week, on average?)
- Does the site allow users to comment? If so, are there many comments? Or few comments?
- Does the site provide an RSS feed?
- What community does this site connect with? Look at links in entries, at the blogroll, and at the comments section: What are the sources of information the site uses? What sites does the author consider important?
- Overall content: What kind of topics are addressed at the site? Are they personal? News oriented?
- Impressions: Is the site engaging in participatory journalism in the sense described in the We Media report? What qualities does it have (or lack) that make you see the site as an example of online participatory journalism?
- What else of interest do you observe about the site?
7 responses so far ↓
urimtal // November 1, 2007 at 11:59 am |
It looks really cool! I’ve discovered this blog only now. Thank you for you effort. But it’s a pitty that is in English…
Could you ad in links also blogs in Kazakah languages? Thank you!
Gulnara // November 1, 2007 at 11:42 pm |
1. http://ru.kazakhstan.neweurasia.net/
2. Site uses Russian language
3. It is a group weblog. The information about the authors of the site is available, but their full names are not. Mostly of them writes under some pseudonyms.
4.The authors of this site are living in the different sides of the country, what is very interesting.
5. This site is existing from the May 2006. On average on the site appeares about 5 -6 articles per week.
6. Site allows to leave a comments but I suppose that there are a few comments on the given articles.
7. Site provides an RSS feed.
8. I think that site uses reliable sources and their links are goes to the most known newspapers of the Republic, also they have blogrolls to the International Mass Media.
9. The topics are very interesting for me they are not personal, authors are really discuss the important issues whether it is a political, educational, sport or cultural event.
10. I suppose that this site uses a participatory journalism because the authors of this site are from the different spheres. Here you can see the articles of the physicist, georapher etc, however the professional journalists are also writing here.
Group # 2 // November 2, 2007 at 2:48 am |
1. Neweurasia Kazakhstan – http://kz.kazakhstan.neweurasia.net/
2. The site uses Kazakh, Russian and English languages.
3. The site authors are:
Leila is an authour of neweurasia-Kazakhstan and execucutive editor of the neweurasia weblog in general. She also contributes to the Global Voices Online, and blogs on her LiveJournal.
Her email is leila@neweurasia . net.
Askhat Erkimbay is coordinator and the editor of the news in kazakh language on “Neweurasia.net” weblog.
His E-mail: urimtal@gmail.com and his personal weblog: http://urimtal.wordpress.com
Bakhytgul Salykhova is an advisor of CAECN (Central Asia Education Cooperation Network). When she has free time out of work she writes an articles in kazakh langauge on different blogs including Neweurasia.
Her e-mail: baqytgul@gmail.com and weblogs: http://adebiet.wordpress.com/ http://qazaqblogshilar.wordpress.com/
Adam is a coordinator of the neweurasia’s Kazakhstan weblog.
Skype: adam_kesher2000, icq: 174-421-941
Kuanish Magzuov is a blogger who dreams to increase the popularty of Kazakh language inside the internet. E-mail: huanysh@gmail.com
neweurasia is a network of weblogs coordinated and written by bright young individuals from Central Asia and the Caucasus together with their peers around the globe.
4. All authors of Neweurasia Kazakhstan site are from Kazakhstan, and live in Almaty city.
5. The site has been active since Sep. 2005. It has unlimited number of users and members that publish their own articles. There are 5 or 6 entries per week.
6. Yes, the site allows it’s users to leave comments, but there are few articles in the site, probably the reason os that it is not so popular at the moment, but it develops and I hope it will attrac many people in near future.
7. Yes, the site provides an RSS feeds. If someone would like to subscribe for its RSS feeds here is the link to so.
8. What community? Community of CIS countries (almost all countries of CIS). Also group of different people with different tastes and points of view, but all of them are attracted by the interest to think, write and talk about the development of journalism and mass-media.
9. Topics are mostly news oriented.
10, 11. Well, when you visit the website for the first time you see very simple and primitive project, but when you start to observe and explore it from the title to the core you become a person who realises that his/her first impression was misleading… it has really huge data, information, news, articles and so much more…
juldyz // November 2, 2007 at 10:32 am |
1. http://ru.kazakhstan.neweurasia.net
2. russian
3. People who are interested in journalism(participatory journalists) and this site is not an individual weblog, others are able to a part of it. In most cases writers use their own names but the pseudonyms are also acceptable.
4. The authors came from the differernt cities of our country.
5. It was developed in May 2006. I am not sure, but per week they publish 6 entiriers.
6. Yes, this site allows users to comment. The quantity of comments depends on the topic. I mentioned that people are interested in commenting articles
7. Yes, it’s provides RSS feed.
8. Site is oriented on all of us, so I can say that the community- origin person, who are interested in news. Their links connected with the most reliable site of Kz , they also have links to the international mass media sites.
9. In mind all topics are very interestng and which is good that they are don’t consider author’s opinion. All news were wrote in the easiest way fro understanding them. Also site provides ridders with all kinds of new (polotics, economics, society, culture etc)
10. After visiting this site I had a good impression. This site supports participatory journalism. They provide the Interactivity which makes to use this site with pleasure.
zhanna (welovefilms) // November 2, 2007 at 12:30 pm |
1. Neweurasia
http://ru.kazakhstan.neweurasia.net/
2. Russian, English and Kazakh, Uzbek, languages
3. It is a group weblog, the authors of the posts are different, and all they have as their own names, as pseudonyms.
4. Information about authors is very interesting. All they are professional journalists and this blog is the part of their work. Their location is also different. For example one of them from Ekibastuz, another from Karagandy, one from Russia, etc. It is a big plus!!
5. The existence of this site began from May 2006. Articles are posted almost every day. Per week there are 5-6 articles.
6. The site allows users to comment the posts, but there are not so many of them.
7. The site provides RSS feed.
8. The community of this site is people from all over the world with different background, who are interested in writing articles and news about Central Asia and Caucasus. They are; students, journalists, analytics, politics, etc. The sources of the site are the Informational Centers of Kazakhstan: as TV channels, as newspapers, and International Informational Centers: radiao, newspapers, TV.
First of all the authors consider important Kazakhstani sites and blogs. Also, Transition Online (TOL).
9. They try to observe the new from all spheres, such as politics, culture, sport, business, traveling and many-many others!!! Mostly news oriented.
10. Impressions are only good. Very interesting and useful site. In future will use it!!! I liked it because, first all it is participatory jpurnalism site, secondly, there observed news from all Central Asia and Caucasus in almost all spheres of life!!! Also, one plus is that site has a lot of partners and readable on different languages.
11. My observations: they try to develop this kind of journalism-participatory. Also, develop blogging in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, because nowadays it is very popular, especially in America and Europe. Blogging is the “selfpublication”, so in such way it can be found a lot of young, new, talented people!!!
nataliya88 // November 2, 2007 at 1:13 pm |
1. http://adam-kesher.livejournal.com/
2. russian and english
3. It is a individual weblog. The author is Adam Kesher. Pseudonyms.
4.Author live in Almaty.
5. From September 2004. Author publish posts every day.
6. Site allow users to comment. There are many comments.
7. Site provide an RSS feed.
8. The community of the site are the people from different countries? but all of them is russian-speakers.
KUB
Neweurasia.
9. News oriented.
10. Not good impressions. It is look like fun.
group4 // November 2, 2007 at 1:30 pm |
4. Askar Shushekov, Media Support Center site
1.http:// pressing.wordpress.com
2. Russian
3.Askar Shushekov, it is individual blog. there is no full names.
4. The author located in Pavlodar city and its regions
5. The site was created in October 2006 (1 year), It is not active about 2-3 entries a month.
6. It allows users to comments. there is a few comments.
7. the site provides RSS feed.
8. The site connect with journalists from differen regions but generaly focuses in Pavlodar region. The Information sources are different Kazakhstan Centres, as: Statistic, newspapers and different governmental documents. The author consider important Kazakstani sites and blogs.
9. Freedom of the speach, important political issues, all that concern Kazakhstani journalism. The articles are news oriented.
10. Impression is bad the ste is boring and not intersting but it is usefull for journalists. We glad Kazakhstan have sites like this and it help to develop Kazakhstani on-line journalism.