Journalism is the first rough draft of history.
– Philip Graham, Publisher, Washington Post

Digital Media Mash Up, October - Week 2

In this Issue

Upcoming Events - In Washington, D.C. and Beyond
In the News:

Research

Upcoming Events - In Washington, D.C. and Beyond

Tweeting the Revolution: Agency, Collective Action, and the Negotiation of Risk in a Networked Age
Tuesday, October 18 12:30pm
Featuring: Beth Coleman, MIT
About: This paper looks at the impact of social media platforms on collective action. In particular, it focuses on spheres of activism where personal risk (bodily or otherwise) is the condition of participation. For this analysis, I discuss interviews conducted with Egyptian activists around the events of Tahrir Square. Issues of copresence, witness, and visibility are central to my discussion.
Location: Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor
Webcast: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/webcast

Public Conference to Showcase Innovative Ideas for the Digital Public Library of America
Friday, October 21, 2011
12:30pm
Featuring: David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States; Deanna Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services at the Library of Congress; Susan Hildreth, Director of the Institute for Museum and Library Services; Brewster Kahle, Founder of the Internet Archive; Jill Cousins, Executive Director of the Europeana Foundation; and Carl Malamud, President of Public.Resource.Org
About: The first Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) conference will bring together government leaders, librarians, technologists, makers, students, and others interested in building a national digital library at the National Archives in Washington, DC. Conference participants will share their visions for the DPLA effort and explore multiple points of entry for public participation in the initiative's work.
Location: National Archives, Washington DC
Register: http://dp.la/get-involved/events/oct2011plenary/

Internet and Democratic Change - Net Activism, Empowerment and Emancipation
Wednesday, October 26
9:00am
Featuring: Hanna Hellquist, State secretary , Ministry for Foreign Affairs; Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Director General, Sida; Marcin de Kaminski, The Julia Group; Scott Lucas, Professor, Birmingham University (UK); Anita Hunt, Social Media Curator for Human Rights (UK); Jacob Appelbaum, Researcher and Hacker, The Tor Project (USA); Måns Adler, CEO, Bambuser (Sweden); Stephan Urbach, Hacktivist, Telecomix (Germany); Mahnaz Afkhami, Founder and President, Women's Learning Partnership, WLP; Slim Amamou, Computer programmer, Entrepreneur and Blogger (Tunisia); Salma Said, Political blogger (Egypt); Hamza Fakhr, Activist (Syria); Maryam Al-Khawaja, Human Rights Activist (Bahrain)
About: "New media" has overtaken the international pages of daily newspapers. Twitter is now a portal not only to the latest from publications in Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, Libya, and Brazil - it is the opening to the latest from NGOs, activists, financial institutions, and other actors. Rather than waiting for hours for a US publication to confirm a report, an active participant in new media can navigate a route picking up events (and interpretations of events) almost as they happen. In short, the "gatekeepers" --- both in politics and in the media --- have been brought down. From my room in central Britain, I can observe from Egypt to Libya to Bahrain to Iran to China to Sudan. "New media" offers a window on the changing landscape of negotiation, and it is also the location where much of that negotiation takes place.
Webcast: http://www.sida.se/Svenska/Kontakta-oss/Konferenser1/Development-talks/Internet-och-demokratisk-forandring/Programme-internet-and-democratic-change/

Hack 4 Transparency
Deadline for application: October 17, 2011
About: The Hack4Transparency event will take place from Tuesday 8 to Wednesday 9 November 2011 and will be the first-ever 'hackathon' within the premises of the European Institutions, more specifically in the European Parliament in Brussels.
Info: http://euhackathon.eu

In the News

Global Censorship Update

Slovakia: New Draft Law Threatens Internet Freedom
The Slovak Ministry of Finance has published a draft law that would allow blocking web servers that provide online gambling without a Slovak license. Internet providers would have to block web sites from a list updated twice a month - not by the court, but by the Tax Office. (Global Voices Online, 10/7)
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/10/07/slovakia-new-draft-law-threaten...

Internet Censorship Growth Hampers News, Study Says
A detailed study of Internet censorship in China and Iran shows that blocking techniques are changing rapidly and are becoming significant new obstacles for news organizations, governments and businesses. (New York Times, 10/11)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/business/media/battling-internet-censo...

BlackBerry Gives Way to Pressure from Governments
Reporters Without Borders is worried about the concessions that Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian company that manufactures the BlackBerry smartphone, is making to governments that want access to the encrypted data transmitted over its networks. RIM recently reached secret agreements with several countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, after they threatened to suspend its mobile phone services. (Reporters Without Borders, 10/11)
http://en.rsf.org/blackberry-gives-way-to-pressure-11-10-2011,41159.html

Digital Media News Affecting Activists

Detained Blogger Maikel Nabil to Be Retried
A military court decided Tuesday to drop a three-year prison sentence handed down to Maikel Nabil, who he will be retried in another district. (The Daily News Egypt, 10/11)
http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/detained-blogger-m...

Ahmadinejad Criticizes Flogging of Blogger
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke out Tuesday against the weekend flogging of a student convicted of insulting him. "Since influential people can freely defame us, I disapprove of flogging a young man for insulting the president," Ahmadinejad said, according to an official text message sent by the government information office. (Daily Star, 10/12)
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2011/Oct-12/151040-ahmadine...

As Russian Bloggers Gain Prominence, The Kremlin Takes Notice
Armed with an iPhone and sporting his trademark dark blonde afro, Ilya Varlamov surveys the handicapped section of a parking lot near the headquarters of Moscow's traffic police. Gone are the gleaming Mercedes-Benzes of the past. In their places are more modest vehicles with badges in their windshields identifying the drivers as disabled. Chalk it up as another small victory for the 26-year-old Varlamov, whose blogging campaign for "A Country Without Idiocy" and letters to the prosecutor's office successfully shamed those who were illegally using the handicapped parking spots. (Trustmedia, 10/12)
http://www.trust.org/trustmedia/news/rferl-as-russian-bloggers-gain-prom...

A User Guide to Orbot: Anonymized Tor Browsing on your Mobile Phone
Orbot is an anonymizing and circumvention app that connects Android phones to the Tor network. Developed by The Guardian Project, it is currently the only way to use Tor on a mobile phone. (MobileActive, 10/13)
http://www.mobileactive.org/howtos/user-guide-to-orbot

Update on Digital Media Companies and Outlets

Facebook for SIM Uses SMS; No Data Plan Required
Hundreds of millions of handset owners worldwide without data plans have a new way to access Facebook while mobile, thanks to Gemalto. The Amsterdam-based company manufacturers SIM cards for GSM phones and has a new card that leverages SMS to provide Facebook access. Facebook for SIM is launching first through Personal Argentina, allowing that carrier's 17.4 million customers to use Facebook on the go, regardless of their handset make or model. (GigaOM, 10/6)
http://gigaom.com/mobile/facebook-sim-card-uses-sms-gemalto/

Facebook Hit With 5 Lawsuits For Tracking Logged-Out Users
Facebook was hit this week with three new potential class-action lawsuits stemming from reports that it tracks logged-out users, bringing to five the total number of cases against the company. (MediaPost, 10/7)
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/160136/

Twitter Secures "Tweet" Trademark
Twitter has settled a lawsuit that will give the company control over the "tweet" trademark, according to a new report. (Mashable, 10/10)
http://mashable.com/2011/10/10/twitter-tweet-trademark/

Facebook, Twitter Users Differ In Mobile Usage
When it comes to sharing content via mobile applications, Facebook is the most popular social media tool, but Twitter users are more active individually. That's the key finding of a new study by app analytics firm Localytics that looked at usage across thousands of apps on Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 devices from January through July. (MediaPost, 10/11)
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/160221/facebook-twitter-us...

Facebook Moves Closer to Becoming a 'Mobile Company'
Only weeks after Facebook mobile chief Erick Tseng said the social networking giant would soon "become a mobile company," Facebook unveiled several new features to show that it's quickly moving in that direction. (Adweek, 10/11)
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-moves-closer-becoming-mob...

Facebook Users Brace for Site's Redesign
When Facebook announces major changes to their site, some users hang eagerly onto CEO Mark Zuckerberg's every word, but others, especially users who are concerned about their privacy, cringe. Last week's announcement was no different. (Al-Jazeera, 10/11)
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/20111098113952819.html

Investor Says Momentum Builds for Breakup of Research in Motion
The call is growing louder for Research in Motion to explore a sale of all or part of the company. On Tuesday, the Jaguar Financial Corporation, a Canadian activist investor that is leading a campaign to agitate for change at RIM, the BlackBerry maker, announced on Tuesday that it had the support of shareholders representing 8 percent of the company's shares. (New York Times, 10/11)
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/investor-says-momentum-builds-for...

China's Tencent Launches English Microblog Site
Chinese Internet giant Tencent has launched an English version of its Twitter-like microblogging service in a push to tap the overseas market, the official Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday. (AFP, 10/12)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hi3Zciq27Yo_Sop3ky7C-...

Google Translate Conversation Mode Expands to 14 Languages
Google Translate for Android conversation mode, which allows two people to speak in different languages and have their words translated in near real time, is now expanding beyond English and Spanish and is available in 14 languages. The new languages are: Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish. (GigaOM, 10/13)
http://gigaom.com/2011/10/13/google-translate-conversation-mode-adds-14-...

Digital Media in the Middle East

Facebook Users Demand Justice for 2 Copts Killed Sunday
Information and photos of two youths named Mina Danial and Michael Mosaad, whose lives were lost during violence outside the state TV building late on Sunday, circulated on the internet on Monday. (Al Masry Al Youm, 10/10)
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/503521

Social Media Accounts of Violence in Cairo Challenge Official Narrative
As my colleague David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, at least 24 people were killed and more than 200 wounded on Sunday night in Cairo when a demonstration by Christians angry about a recent attack on a church in Upper Egypt devolved into violent clashes with the military. (New York Times, 10/10)
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/social-media-accounts-of-vio...

Yemen's Electronic Army: The Facebook Phase
The opposition in Yemen has begun an online offensive to establish its internet presence and counter rumors spread by Ali Abdallah Saleh's regime. (Al Akhbar, 10/11)
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/yemen%E2%80%99s-electronic-army-fac...

Arab Bloggers Meeting in Tunisia - Podcast
Global Voices Online has posted the 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting. (Global Voices Online, 10/11)
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/10/11/global-voices-podcast-3rd-arab-...
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/10/11/global-voices-podcast-3rd-arab-...

Lebanese House Committee Discusses Electronic Media Controls
Parliament's Media and Telecommunications committee began discussions Monday on regulating electronic media as part of studying amendments to the media law. (Daily Star, 10/11)
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2011/Oct-11/150996-house-com...

'Twitter Trolls' Haunt Discussions of Bahrain Online
"Arabloggers, a recommendation: Don't hashtag the name of the country we're discussing - you'll get the nastiest trolling"...That bit of advice about Bahrain, delivered to Twitter followers of a conference of Arab bloggers in Tunisia last week, highlights an often aggressive effort on social media to cajole, harass and intimidate commentators and journalists who write about the protests in Bahrain and the government's response. (New York Times, 10/11)
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/twitter-trolls-haunt-discuss...

A Blogger at Arab Spring's Genesis
She felt the stinging fumes of tear gas billowing through the streets here nine months ago and saw police officers firing live ammunition at protesters. She watched families weeping in grief over the bloodied bodies of their loved ones left lying on the ground. (New York Times, 10/12)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/world/africa/a-blogger-at-arab-springs...

Lebanon Web Suffers from 'World's Slowest Connection'
In March this year web users in Lebanon were shocked to learn the internet speed in their country ranked rock bottom in the world. (BBC, 10/13)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15273510

Russian Silicon Valley Skolkovo

Moscow's New High-Tech Hub: Riddle, Mystery or Enigma?
Russia's version of Silicon Valley - an "innovation city" built from scratch on the outskirts of Moscow - is finally starting to take shape. The project, popularly known as Skolkovo, has already lined up over $1 billion in financing from Western tech giants such as Cisco and Nokia as well as the official government support of both Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev. (Washington Post, 10/11)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/moscows-new-high-te...

Here's a Trend to Watch: Innovation, Made in Russia
The first trip to the Silicon Valley often has a profound impact on foreign entrepreneurs. But for 13 Russian startups currently touring the region, visiting the Valley is not just about changing their own point of view - it's about changing their country. The startups, all part of the state-sponsored Skolkovo IT Cluster, are accompanied by a reality TV crew that documents their every move. (GigaOM, 10/12)
http://gigaom.com/2011/10/12/russian-startups/

The Guardian Opens up to Readers

An Experiment in Opening up the Guardian's News Coverage
We often report big breaking stories as they happen, but have you ever wondered what stories we're working on - and what's about to drop? To help you find out, the Guardian newsdesk is opening its doors. (The Guardian, 10/10)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/insideguardian/2011/oct/10/guardian-newslist

Guardian to Readers: Here's Our Upcoming Stories List
In an effort to elevate transparency in the newsroom, UK newspaper The Guardian is making its schedule of upcoming stories available to the public in a two-week experiment. The paper is inviting readers to contribute by contacting the reporters assigned to each story. (Mashable, 10/10)
http://mashable.com/2011/10/10/guardian-public-newslist/

Memo to Newspapers: Let Your Readers Inside the Wall
The Guardian, the U.K. newspaper that has been one of the biggest mainstream-media champions of a "digital first" approach and a proponent of "crowdsourcing" the news, says it's now going to experiment with allowing readers to help decide what news to cover. The paper announced Monday that it's going to make its "newslist" - the daily schedule of stories the media outlet thinks are worth covering - public, something which the paper has previously kept carefully guarded. But the Guardian seems to have realized what many newspapers have not: If you allow your readers to be part of the news-creation process, they will be more engaged. (New York Times, 10/10)
http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2011/10/10/10gigaom-memo-to-newsp...

Digital Media for Journalists

Twenty More Software Ideas Aimed at News Engagement, Reporting or Journalistic Challenges
Here's a great way to kick-off your Monday morning and to get your synapses popping: Twenty more software product proposals from #MozNewsLab graduates aimed at news engagement, reporting, or journalistic challenges. (Phillip Smith, 8/15)
http://www.phillipadsmith.com/2011/08/twenty-more-software-ideas-aimed-a...

What Newsrooms Can Learn from Open-Source and Maker Culture
"Newsosaur" blogger and media consultant Alan Mutter some time ago suggested that journalism has to become a lot more like Silicon Valley. Newspapers are too risk-averse, he said, and so they "need some fresh DNA that will make them think and act more like techies and less like, well, newspaper people." (Nieman Journalism Lab, 10/7)
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/what-newsrooms-can-learn-from-open-sour...

Tool of the Week for Journalists - Codeacademy
The rise in data journalism, an interest in Hacks/Hackers meetups and collaboration between journalists and developers has led to many journalists to express a wish to start coding. (Journalism.co.uk, 10/11)
http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2011/10/11/tool-of-the-week-for-journalists-codeacademy-for-those-who-want-to-start-to-code/

Around the Blogosphere

Media Futures- Policy, Politics and Power
In the 20th century we spoke of the 24-hour news cycle with the advent of cable news stations and the internet. But the 21st century news cycle is best measured in minutes, not hours, making this the decade of the 1440 news cycle. The obsession with scoops that has dominated news media for much of its modern history has been amplified in the era of the 1440 news cycle. This accelerated news cycle feeds off mobile, video, and social, once considered by the news business as separate audience or revenue categories but now better understood as dimensions of the convergence phenomenon that is occurring both at the hardware level, with internet-connected mobile phones and other devices like tablets that defy categorization within existing frameworks, as well as the content level, as news becomes multimedia, user-generated and integrated within our social spaces. (Arab Media, 10/9)
http://www.radsch.info/

Rebellious Media Conference: Leading the Way in the Information Age
Last weekend saw a Rebellious Media Conference in London. I went along and enjoyed it, particularly one of the smaller sessions on Saturday: 'Mind the Gap: What's Missing from the UK Radical Media Scene'. It was an opportunity to discuss where the non-mainstream media of the left was failing, and how we could do better. I say 'we' because while OurKingdom publishes from across the spectrum, I think of us as 'on the left' in terms of supporting equality, democracy and openness. (Our Kingdom, 10/10)
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/niki-seth-smith/rebellious-media...

China's Growing Army of Paid Internet Commentators
Since 2005, observers of the Chinese blogosphere have noted the presence of users who are paid to support the authorities in online discussions, often referred to as the "50 Cent Party" for the alleged fee they collect for each posted comment. (Freedom House, 10/11)
http://blog.freedomhouse.org/weblog/2011/10/chinas-growing-army-of-paid-...

What is Civic Media?
On September 20 2007, we officially launched the MIT Center for the Future of Civic Media, a joint venture of the Media Lab and the Comparative Media Studies Program. Our launching event include myself, Chris Csikzentmihalyi, Mitchell Resnick, Beth Noveck, and Ethan Zuckerman. At the time, Chris, Mitch and I were the co-directors of the Center. It was announced several months ago that Ethan Zuckerman would now be taking over the leadership of the lab starting this fall, and a review of the first four years of the Center's research by John Palfrey was made public. I was asked if I would be willing to participate in a conversation about the nature of Civic Media. (MIT Center for Civic Media, 10/11)
http://civic.mit.edu/blog/henry/what-is-civic-media-revisited-a-conversa...

#Occupytheweb
While the so-called "Facebook revolutions" in the Arab world were nothing of the sort, what's going on in America right now may be the world's first genuine social-media uprising. (The Economist, 10/11)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/10/social-media-a...

US Citizen Facing 15 Years In Jail For Linking From His Blog To An Unauthorized Bio Of Thai King
I'm curious if Thailand is purposely trying to kill off its rather lucrative tourism business. We've discussed in the past that Thailand has strict laws against "insulting" the king. These lèse majesté laws are used widely in Thailand to stop any sort of political criticism. They've been used to block entire sites including YouTube, and to arrest website owners for the comments on their site. (Techdirt, 10/11)
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111010/09533116283/us-citizen-facing-...

Etc.

Kenya: Free Expression Standards Should Guide Fight against "Counterfeit" Mobile Phones
The Communications Commission of Kenya plans to deny service to between nine and 20 per cent of mobile phones in the country, either because the phone was made without an IMEI registration code, or because the code has been removed. In a country where mobile phones have enabled Kenyans to amongst other things, track the price of commodities, plan farming around the weather, or uncover corruption - successfully realising the rights to freedom of expression and information - such a denial of service would be manifestly disproportionate and ARTICLE 19 calls on the Commission to revise its decision. (Article 19, 10/6)
http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/2762/en/kenya:-freedom-o...

Social Media Offer View into U.A.W. Contract Talks
For generations, labor negotiations here have been the stuff of closed doors and tight lips. Just four years ago, when the United Auto Workers settled on contracts with the Big Three, the rank-and-file learned the details by crowding into union halls for meetings that were often chaotic and confusing. Many workers complained that they had not seen the fine print until the deals had been ratified. (New York Times, 10/9)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/business/social-media-offer-view-into-...

Millions Reportedly without BlackBerry Service
Millions of BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa were reportedly without Web and texting service Monday because of an outage that BlackBerry maker Research in Motion said it was investigating. (CNN, 10/10)
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/10/tech/mobile/blackberry-outage/index.html

Sierra Leone Gets Fibre Optic Link to Internet
Sierra Leone secured its first fibre optic connection to the outside world on Monday with the arrival of the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable in the capital Freetown. (Reuters, 10/10)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/10/sierraleone-fibre-idUSL5E7LA2W...

Google Hands Wikileaks Volunteer's Gmail Data to U.S. Government
Gmail users got a hefty dose of reality today when it was revealed that Google handed over one user's private data to the U.S. government, who requested it without a search warrant. (New York Times, 10/10)
http://nyti.ms/qWkbf5

GSMA Announces That the Proliferation of Connected Devices Will Create a US$1.2 Trillion Revenue Opportunity for Mobile Operators by 2020
The GSMA with the support of AT&T, Deutsche Bank, KT, Telenor Connexion and Vodafone, and in partnership with Machina Research, today released research that outlines the market opportunity and revenue potential for connected devices. The research shows that the number of total connected devices(1) is expected to increase from approximately 9 billion today to more than 24 billion in 2020, and within that, mobile connected devices(2) will grow 100 per cent from more than 6 billion today to 12 billion in 2020. (PR Newswire, 10/10)
http://prn.to/qGDV4l

The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches from the Information War
Whether they know it or not, Britons are hugely indebted to journalist and freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke, the woman who revealed the MPs expenses scandal and who has in many other ways sought to disinfect our decadent democracy with daylight. (Open Democracy, 10/11)
http://bit.ly/oGMkFg

US Intelligence Unit Aims to Build a 'Data Eye in the Sky'
More than 60 years ago, in his "Foundation" series, the science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov invented a new science - psychohistory - that combined mathematics and psychology to predict the future. Now social scientists are trying to mine the vast resources of the Internet - Web searches and Twitter messages, Facebook and blog posts, the digital location trails generated by billions of cellphones - to do the same thing. (New York Times, 10/11)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/science/11predict.html

Students Go Old School, Create Newspaper with Typewriters, Xactos, Film Cameras
See what happened when journalism students at Florida Atlantic University published an issue of their newspaper without the help of digital technology. (PBS Mediashift, 10/11)
http://to.pbs.org/pmmivc

Southern Africa: Digital Migration Body Wants Region's Radios, Televisions Interconnected
The chairman of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), Stephen Mcube, said Tuesday in Luanda it is his institution's purpose to contribute to the creation, divulging and presentation of interconnected radio and television contents involving all countries of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). (fesmedia, 10/12)
http://bit.ly/pW1KyF

Use Cases for Digital Media: comScore Report Shows Why They Matter
Audiences aren't what they used to be, especially for the news business. Once upon a time, publishers and advertisers mostly cared about were audience demographics. That's because most people-regardless of age, income, etc.-know how to find and use a newspaper, magazine, tv, or radio. But technology (especially mobile) is radically changing how people engage with and are influenced by media. So media outlets can no longer take their "use case" for granted... (Knight Digital Media Center, 10/11)
http://bit.ly/pSffBu

Dutch Senate Goes Digital Thanks to iPads
The Dutch Senate is going paperless, and the iPad is going to get them there. The upper house of parliament for the Netherlands was told two weeks ago it would only have paper to rely on for one more week, after which point, the iPad and a special Senate-specific app would replace documents and printouts. (New York Times, 10/12)
http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2011/10/11/11gigaom-dutch-senate-...

Where New Media and Religion Meet
Religion has been getting an upgrade - digitally speaking. The Pope has sent his first Tweet, and there are any number of religion-themed applications available for download (for free and at cost). However, a new social media application, The Table, may lead to an even greater engagement by Christian Church attendees online, as well as other communities should the start-up choose to expand its scope. (Washington Post, 10/12)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/where-new-media-and...

Mobile Devices Account for a Growing Portion of Web Traffic
The prediction that Internet traffic originating from mobile devices will eventually exceed that of desktop computers connected to the Internet is on its way to a reality. (new York Times 10/12)
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/mobile-accounts-for-7-percent-o...

Dispute Over Apple Image Shows Internet's Reach
Few personal journeys can shed as much light on the age we live in as the one traveled by Jonathan Mak in the past week. Mr. Mak, a university student in Hong Kong, went from being an unknown, aspiring graphic designer to an Internet sensation after an image he produced spread rapidly across digital platforms following the death of Steve Jobs. (New York Times, 10/13)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/technology/dispute-over-apple-image-shows-internets-reach.html

Research

Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com
Do online consumer reviews affect restaurant demand? I investigate this question using a novel dataset combining reviews from the website Yelp.com and restaurant data from the Washington State Department of Revenue. Because Yelp prominently displays a restaurant's rounded average rating, I can identify the causal impact of Yelp ratings on demand with a regression
discontinuity framework that exploits Yelp's rounding thresholds. I present three findings about the impact of consumer reviews on the restaurant industry. (September 2011)
http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/12-016.pdf

Report: Latin American Governments Need to 'Friend' Social Media and Technology
A report by Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer Carl Meacham on the growing adoption of new technologies and social media in Latin America and what it could mean for U.S. foreign policy. (Washington Post, 10/5)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/documents/meacham-report.html

Casting a Wider Net
Lessons Learned in Delivering BBC Content on the Censored Internet (Munk School of Global Affairs at University of Toronto, October 2011)
http://munkschool.utoronto.ca/downloads/casting.pdf

Detecting Emergent Conflicts through Web Mining and Visualization
Abstract - An ocean of data is available on the web. From this ocean of data, information can in theory be extracted and used by analysts for detecting emergent trends (trend spotting). However,
to do this manually is a daunting and nearly impossible task. We describe a semi-automatic system in which data is automatically collected from selected sources, and to which linguistic analysis is applied to extract e.g., entities and events. After combining the extracted information with human intelligence reports, the results are visualized to the user of the system who can interact with it in order to obtain a better awareness of historic as well as emergent trends. A prototype of the proposed system has been implemented and some initial results are presented in the paper. (Swedish Defense Research Agency/Recorded Future AB, October 2011)
http://irevolution.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/detecting-emergent-confli...

Frontiers of Censorship - North Korea
Investigative Report (Reporters Without Borders, October 2011)
http://fr.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/rsf_north-korea_2011.pdf

Mapping Digital Media: Italy
The Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs. (Open Society Foundation, October 2011)
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/media/articles_publications/publication...

Evaluating Media Interventions in Conflict Countries
The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Fondation Hirondelle, Internews Network, the United States Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict, and Peacebuilding at the United States Institute of Peace commissioned this report following a five-day multistakeholder meeting of donors, implementers, and academics on how to better evaluate media's impact in ameliorating conflict, at the Caux Conference Center in Switzerland. The report both reviews the state of the art in evaluating media interventions in conflict and outlines the Caux Guiding Principles (hereinafter, Caux Principles) for improving the evaluation process. It stresses effective evaluation as a critical step forward for using the media in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
http://www.usip.org/files/resources/PW77.pdf

UNICEF Study Explores the Social Networking Habits of Young People
Ask the parent of the average South African teenager what their child gets up to in the evenings, and many will tell you that their sons or daughters are probably typing away on their cellphones, on South Africa's largest social network - MXit. And it comes as no surprise. A recent survey conducted by UNICEF in partnership with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, MXit, and the University of Cape Town, revealed that 30 per cent of MXit users admitted to spending most of their after-school time socialising on the platform. 25,876 South African youths recently took part in the survey, which looked at how young people interact on the social media platform. (UNICEF/Berkman Center for Internet and Society, October 2011)
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/7128