The US Embassy in Colombo has put out an ad for a new media assistant. I think it’s the first diplomatic mission in Sri Lanka to expressly call for a position that engages with new media, suggesting the growing importance of public diplomacy leveraging the web and mobiles post-war. The ad reads, Are you fluent [...]
Archive | September, 2009
The internet through mobiles: ODR solutions must follow?
Four years when Melissa and I published our paper on An Asian Perspective on Online Mediation, we were sort of mavericks in the Online Dispute Resolution community for even harbouring the thought that mobiles would dominate the field in less than a decade. The resistance from the ancien régime was expected – hundreds of thousands [...]
Backing the wrong side in Iran
Timothy Garton Ash writes in the Guardian today, A textbook example of what democracies should not do was provided last year by a joint venture between Siemens and Nokia, called Nokia Siemens Networks. It sold the Iranian regime a sophisticated system with which they can monitor the internet, including emails, internet phone calls and social-networking [...]
Al Jazeera questions media freedom in post-war Sri Lanka
Al Jazeera’s path-breaking The Listening Post programme looks at enduring challenges facing media freedom in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan media war continues critically looks at the video broadcast by Channel 4, the sentencing of journalist J.S. Tissainayagam and the continued violence against independent media. This programme features at the end very short submissions made [...]
Reactions of Sinhala bloggers to Tissainayagam’s sentence
Ajith P. Perera’s Dare to be Different blog has an excellent overview of the Sinhala blogging community’s reactions to the sentencing of journalist J.S. Tissainayagam. It’s heartening to note the far more nuanced, creative and defiant approach to the sentence in the Sinhala blogosphere as opposed to the fear, self-censorship and outright subservience that frames [...]
The Rule of ‘Low’ in the Year of ICT and English
This is apparently the Year of ICT and English in Sri Lanka. We do not know exactly what this means or what it entails. However, we have already established that ICTA spends an inordinate amount of money on useless music videos promoting the Year of ICT and English. We have also already established that Prof. [...]
Mainstream media behaviour in Sri Lanka and new media impact
A presentation based on media monitoring conducted by CPA pegged to: Mainstream media coverage of the LTTE’s defeat Coverage of the IDP camps and the flooding in Menik Camp in August Journalist J.S. Tissanaiyagam’s verdict and its impact on the media sector Perspectives of media coverage over the next three months
American Centre hosts discussion on blogs and new media
A presentation and discussion hosted by the American Center titled Beyond the Blog: How media can use Web 2.0 tools to engage the public will take place on 10th September 2009. Details here. Should be interesting. Indi Samarajiva, who I interviewed on this blog in 2007, is a key speaker. Topics covered will be: Crises [...]
BBC on Citizen journalism: Democracy or chaos?
Speaking about Groundviews and new media in Sri Lanka, I’m featured on a good BBC Radio podcast on exploring the nature and potential of, as well as the challenges facing citizen journalism. Michael Buerk analyses the potential – and the dangers – of citizen journalism. In part one, he talks to bloggers and critics from [...]
