Berkman Buzz: Week of May 25, 2009

May 29, 2009

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

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*Lokman Tsui: "Jiang Min: Spaces and Dynamics of Chinese Online Public Deliberation"
*David Weinberger: "Initial reaction to Google Wave: Maybe transformative"
*Dan Gillmor: "Oh, Please: USA Today’s Ridiculous Twitter Experiment"
*danah boyd: "when teachers and students connect outside school"
*Citizen Media Law Project: "NY Legislature Proactively Considering Whether Shield Law Applies to Bloggers? How Novel!"
*Internet & Democracy: "Facebook and Iranian Election Redux"
*MediaBerkman: "Radio Berkman 123: It's Not Fair! (Use)"
*Weekly Global Voices: "Honduras: Strong Earthquake Shakes Country"

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"Prof Jiang proposed the concept of 'authoratarian deliberation' in last year’s CIRC and the concept has received much attention so far. We’d like to hear about her most recent research along this line. Jiang worked for CCTV, Chinese media international etc. The practical experience helped her to think about Chinese mass media. The question she tries to answer is 'what is Chinese Internet'. Framings: 1. self-containing system that is censored by govn, which leads to protests against the censorship; 2. increasingly talk about civil society and public sphere, which are likely to emerage. She thinks Chinese internet may be sth in between. A better frame is to look at it as a different type of spaces..."
From Lokman Tsui's blog post, "Jiang Min: Spaces and Dynamics of Chinese Online Public Deliberation"

"I’m excited about Google Wave, based on TechCrunch’s description of it, and my own fervid projections of what I’d like it to be. If I’m understanding it correctly — and the likelihood is that I’m not … take that as a serious warning — this could be bigger than Facebook and MySpace in terms of how it terraforms the Net..."
From David Weinberger's blog post, "Initial reaction to Google Wave: Maybe transformative"

"OK, the Twitter media bubble has now reached an apex. Today’s USA Today has a Money section cover story that it touts in this way: 'Reporting cover story for USA Today entirely on Twitter.' The piece collects quotes from some important business people, including some CEOs, and purports to be a great and valuable example of how the latest hyped media tool is being used..."
From Dan Gillmor's blog post, "Oh, Please: USA Today’s Ridiculous Twitter Experiment"

"In my last entry, I made a comment about the value of "cool" teachers interacting with students on social network sites. I received some push-back from non-educators. Most of the concerns revolved around teachers' ethics and their responsibilities with respect to legal structures like the Federal Rights and Privacy Act. There were also concerns that teachers who would interact with students in these environments would be putting themselves at risk..."
From danah boyd's blog post, "when teachers and students connect outside school"

"As anyone who's been faithfully reading the CMLP blog knows, the law hasn't been particularly good at dealing with the intersection of media shield laws and bloggers.  Although there seems to be a modest trend towards application of shield laws to anonymous commenters on news stories, the judiciary's application of shield laws to bloggers specifically has been pretty hit and miss (and sometimes avoided all together)..."
From Arthur Bright's blog post for the Ciztizen Media Law Project, "NY Legislature Proactively Considering Whether Shield Law Applies to Bloggers? How Novel!"

"Hamid Tehrani and CNN report that Facebook is up again in Iran. Berkman’s new Herdict Reporter tells us that over the last few days Facebook was indeed inaccessible to some users in Iran, but, reflecting the distributed filtering model that Iran seems to employ, it was still accessible by some users depending on their ISP. These days I always go straight to Herdict to see what actual users in country are saying about filtering in real time instead of relying solely on press reports, and I’m deeply appreciative of the users in Iran that give us reports of what is blocked. For more on filtering in Iran check out Hamid’s excellent overview at Global Voices..."
From Bruce Etling's blog post for the Internet & Democracy Project, "Facebook and Iranian Election Redux"

"In this day of camera phones, automatic uploading to YouTube, blogs, and twitter telepathy we are all content creators. But if you’re not careful you might get sued for copyright infringement. Making a fan tribute, borrowing something for educational use, or even taping your vacation could open you up to thousands of potential claims for copyright infringement..."
From the MediaBerkman blog post, "Radio Berkman 123: It's Not Fair! (Use)"

"Honduras awoke early in the morning of May 28 when an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale shook the country. The epicenter was located 130 kilometers northeast of the city of La Ceiba, along the Atlantic Ocean coast. At 2:24 a.m. local time, the earthquake caused residents to emerge from their houses in the darkness in order to find safety. Five deaths were confirmed, more injured, and slowly there is the discovery of damages to the country's infrastructure like buildings, bridges, and highways..."
From Leonidas Mejia's blog post for Global Voices, "Honduras: Strong Earthquake Shakes Country"