Berkman Buzz: Week of November 3, 2008

November 07, 2008

BERKMAN BUZZ:  A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations.  If you'd like to receive this by email, just sign up here.

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*The Internet & Democracy Project looks at the Obama and McCain campaigns' differing approaches to the blogosphere
*Ethan Zuckerman discusses persuadable and sorted voters
*Corinna di Gennaro examines the importance of the internet as a news source during the 2008 US election
*The OpenNet Initiative introduces us to a new way to experience the Chinese Internet
*Harry Lewis writes an op-ed on Internet censorship
*Sam Bayard discusses a defamation suit filed by a GOP official in Michigan
*Weekly Global Voices: "The votes are in: An overwhelming loss for mainstream media" from Voices without Votes

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"Today’s Columbia Journalism Review has an article by Renee Feltz on the election blog study we are working on in partnership with Columbia’s Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Reporting and John Kelly. Renee writes that the results of her interviews with bloggers and blogger outreach coordinators shows '…a fundamental difference in the candidates’ approach to the blogosphere...'"
From the Internet & Democracy Project blogpost, "Campaigns Differ in Approach to Political Blogosphere"

"Yesterday was election day here in the US, and was interesting to see how much like a holiday my colleagues (and I) are treating it. Roughly one third of my colleagues wore Obama shirts - there’s a surprising absence of McCain/Palin gear. We celebrated our non-holiday (because, oddly enough, election day isn’t a day off for most people, even if polling places are experiencing multiple-hour waits) with a lunch talk by Professor Sunshine Hillygus, political science professor at Harvard and author of 'The Persuadable Voter...'"
From Ethan Zuckerman's blogpost, "The sort, the election, the hope"

"There were many firsts in this 2008 election cycle: amongst them the pivotal role played by the Internet in engaging voters, raising funds and organizing volunteers and party supporters. But the most striking trend to emerge was that the Internet has overtaken newspapers as the main source where people look for campaign news..."
From Corinna di Gennaro's blogpost, "Internet overtakes newspapers as main source of campaign news"

"Anyone who has followed OpenNet Initiative's research or even the mainstream media knows it's no secret that China filters the Internet. China has made headlines time and again for its pervasive policies toward censorship. In 2006, Nart Villeneuve of ONI partner institution Citizen Lab (at the Munk Centre of University of Toronto) created a side by side comparison of Google.com and Google.cn..."
From the OpenNet Initiative blogpost, "Firefox Add-On Allows Users to Experience Chinese Internet Censorship"

"I have an op-ed in the Boston Globe today about Internet Censorship. The FCC proceeding to which the piece refers is Proceeding 07-195 (pdf). Here’s the beginning of the Globe piece: 'Suppose that government regulators proposed to read all postal mail in order to protect families from things they should not see. Anything not legally prohibited would be delivered. Any unlawful words, pictures, or videos would be thrown away...'"
From Harry Lewis' blogpost, "Internet Censorship"

"Just because the election is over, it doesn't mean that some of this season's political fights won't continue on in the courts.  Here's one from our legal threats database, Carabelli v. The Michigan Messenger. James Carabelli, chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, sued The Michigan Messenger, a news site owned by the Center for Independent Media, for defamation in Michigan state court in October 2008..."
From Sam Bayard's blogpost, "Don't Blame The Messenger: Political News Site Faces Defamation Lawsuit By G.O.P. Official"

"The votes are in. Barack Obama is the definite winner. In many minds, however, the clear loser is the mainstream media. Bloggers and others working in citizen media around the world have long raised complaints about the mainstream press. Regular citizens have also been voicing their displeasure, especially if you count the falling fortunes of newspapers in the United States and some other parts of the world...'"
From John Liebhardt's blogpost for Global Voices' Voices without Votes, "The votes are in: An overwhelming loss for mainstream media"