Week 1: What is the biggest issue facing blogging, citizenship and the future of media?

According to http://www.dictionary.com/, a blog is “an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page. Blogging has replaced the physical entity of a diary through a virtually visible and endless diary of thoughts which maybe changed and altered with time stamps, as opposed to scratches and white-out on actual (scented, coloured) paper. We are in the future of the media we had imagined some generations ago. Anyone with access to the internet is considered a citizen of blogging, but is every citizen in this world a citizen of blogging as well? No, not every citizen is. In fact most third world countries do not even have CPU’s let alone access to the internet and therefore weblogs. The digital divide is the biggest issue facing blogging, and citizenship and the future of media.

North America inevitably has access to the internet, as well as laws that support the future of the media. I would like to put my focus towards the South of our borders, where newly emerged internet access, leading to blogging, is being demoted. I have looked at 2 cases in which internet bloggers were persecuted for typing out their thoughts and views online on their personal blogs. The first case includes a man named Wei, who was beaten to death in China recently. Wei observed a confrontation between villagers and inspectors. The villagers were protesting against the dumping of waste near their homes. Wei took out his cell phone to capture the protest, and within a few seconds he was attacked by over 50 municipal inspectors. In another case taken place in Saudi Arabia, a blogger (who was also an IT professional) was arrested on December 10th, 2007 for including politically revolting writings and thoughts. His blogs included resistance and criticisms of religious extremism. In both these cases, freedom of speech has cost 1 man his life, and another man his health (we still do not know what will become of him). Although China is considered a middle class country and is emerging tremendously economically, its citizens freedom of speech and rights are still not protected. Saudi Arabia condones any person who goes against the governments teachings. These are the biggest issues facing blogging right now that in some nation’s blogging and freedom of expression costs people their lives, even though those people are citizens of that nation. Where the internet exists, and blogs exist, anyone is a citizen of blogging and the internet, but unfortunately blogging doesn’t have its own laws and regulations on a global level. Blogging should not lead to arrests of citizens. If a country accepts the internet, they must with it accept everything that the internet has to bring with it, which is freedom of expression and thoughts and freedom of the exchange of information.