Blogging in Africa
At last night’s blog meeting, we talked about Ethan Zuckerman’s initiative to get more blogs about Africa. Part of the reason why he’s doing it is because he selected a continent that isn’t covered much by our media. His interest immediately brought some things to my mind:
1) Has he approached any foreign correspondents in Africa about his work? (Not necessarily to publicize it, but because they might be interested in blogging and be able to do it.)
2) What happens in countries and areas where the government controls the meda? Would they control the blogs, also? Or would blogs be a way to communicate without government interference?
3) What about technological issues? How do you convince people who may not have reliable electricity that blogging is important? How do you get people to blog in areas where there’s no infrastructure to support electricity, phone lines, etc.? (Michael talked about some of these issues, too.)
4) What about language barriers?
