Costa Rica puede ser un reflejo, un microcosmo, de lo que acontece en forma global con respecto a los medios de comunicación, el periodismo, la libertad de expresión, y la democracia. Siempre contiene sus idiosincracias internas, pero en el escenario globalizado, ocurren patrones que se repiten alrededor del mundo.

Por ejemplo, el dueño de uno de los canales de televisión (Repretel Canal 6) y estación de radio (Monumental) más populares en el país, es también dueño de otros dos canales de tele, y doce estaciones de radio, además de 30 canales de tele y 70 de radio en toda América Latina. Ángel González, mexicano, podría decirse que es una versión miniatura de Rupert Murdoch: extranjero, dueño de una conglomeración de medios en muchos países, capitalista de la información.

Para que una democracia funcione, la participación es clave. Si votar es el alcance de nuestra participación, podemos de una vez concluir que vivimos en una farsa democrática. Por eso, aún no existe la democracia, sólo el anhelo a ella. Para lograr en verdad llegar a la democracia, debemos ir más allá de ser espectadores del poder y crear nuestros propios espacios dentro del poder. Y al mismo tiempo, debemos ir más allá de nosotros mismos e interactuar (escuchar, debatir y actuar en conjunto) con los espacios de poder de los demás.

Lo mismo podemos concluir de los medios de comunicación, y de la información en general. Sino participamos en la creación de nuestra información, y nos resignamos nada más a ser lectores pasivos (espectadores) de lo que ocurre alrededor del mundo, somos vehículos que se pueden manipular fácilmente por aquellos que sí crean su propia información y la propagan de forma masiva. Nosotros sí pensamos, pero pensamos lo que otros piensan, hasta que nosotros mismos podamos llegar a producir e imaginar nuestro propio mundo.

(This is part of what we hope will be a larger series; a more comprehensive look at the communities using Sourcemap and those interesting uses they have developed.)

The University of Montana's School of Journalism collaborated with us over the past term by using Sourcemap as part of a class on online news. Our collaborator, Lee Banville, wanted to connect journalism students in his class with tools and technologies that construct perspectives and develop narrative frameworks for the web. In practice, this ranged from ideas on crowd-sourced feedback and commentary to devices like web mapping that drive new presentations of stories.

Open Park, a new project in collaborative digital media production of the Center for Future Civic Media, is now accepting applications for its Spring Semester Internship.

Are you a full-time student with a creative mind and cool concepts for re-creating collaboration? Do you have in mind an ideal model for digital news and media production? And would you like to work with your own team of collaborators on these ideas, all the while gaining great experience in an interestingly challenging and innovative environment, and a great portfolio to show off at the end? And for credit of course!..

If so, check our application requirements at:

http://openpark.media.mit.edu/node/174

Contact: Florence Gallez
fgallez@mit.edu

"The pictures told the story of all of them, from different planets, representing different ethics, united by a common bond - the galactic Co-operation."

"Once you find your place in the galactic Co-operation - and I assure you that it is an important place - your fighting will stop. Why should you fight, which is an unnatural occupation, when you can push?"

"Specialist," Robert Sheckley

Recently over at Populous we've been grappling with a few huge questions--none of them are new but they have interesting facets when put in the context of a college (or community) newspaper:

1) What is the exact relationship between user generated content and news gathered by a newsroom?

In larger-scale newspapers, there are comments, large maps and photo uploads. We, at the Daily Bruin, where we'll be testing our software, have a readership that can interact with the content on a local level (notwithstanding the epic amounts of sports fans and alums/parents visiting the site from around the country and globe) so rather than a spread out community, our readers generally live next to each other in dorms and congregate in large auditoriums and stadiums--what does this mean for the way they will develop online content and read hyperlocal news?

2) What are new revenue models for news or old ones that can be reconfigured online?

Collaborative online news production: Introducing Open Park

Now that the spring semester is in full swing, I thought I would write a little Intro about my project for the Center for Future Civic Media [C4FCM] where I work as a Research Assistant, and the ideas and ideals behind it.

For those who are unfamiliar with the project - Phase I, defining the new professional journalistic practice of collaborating with colleagues and competitors on news stories, was conducted in the fall semester. Its results were the subject of my final paper for the C4FCM, as well as for the CMS class 'Media in Cultural Context, which is accessible in the Projects section of this site.
The Projects section also details Phase II, which focuses on refining the functions of an effective model for collective news-reporting by testing in the community what works and what doesn't with concrete real life-based collaborative news-writing experiments.

Let us hope that this will apply to all aspects of media coverage...
Hopefully this review is a good sign.

Gates orders review of policy barring military-coffin photos

By The Associated Press
02.11.09

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered a review yesterday of a Pentagon policy banning media from taking pictures of flag-draped coffins of U.S. military dead, signaling he was open to overturning the policy to better honor fallen soldiers.

At least two Democratic senators have called on President Barack Obama to let news photographers attend ceremonies at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and other military facilities when military remains are returned to the United States. Obama told reporters at his Feb. 9 news conference that he was reviewing the ban.

"If the needs of the families can be met, and the privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better," Gates told reporters at a Pentagon news conference yesterday. "So I'm pretty open to whatever the results of this review may be."

I personally have my doubts on the merits and sustainability of obsessive focus on the local, and worse, on the latest born of 'cool' beats, the 'hyperlocal'...

But the World Economic Forum's proposal for "a new global, independent news and information service whose role is to inform, educate and improve the state of the world," to quote its report, leaves me with plenty of questions. To start with, about its independence, as a quick look at who is on its Council on the Future of Media may prompt one to raise such questions...

Here is the link to the WEF's 4-page proposal, entitled "Future of Media," which starts on page 180:
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/globalagenda.pdf

followed here below by a review of the WEF's recommendation based on a report by Cliff Kincaid of of Accuracy in Media, much of which I agree with.
What do you think?

Emerging global elite to use new global media to educate 'global citizens'

Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia's few remaining independent newspapers, is burying this month its fifth murdered journalist in the past eight years. [see AP and Moscow Times stories here below].

I wish I could say these are rare and unusually horrifying events, but I used to read about such news on a weekly, if not daily basis throughout my eight years in Moscow as a foreign correspondent. [Arguably it's a big country - 9 time zones, but still...].