Editor Virginia L. Farris

Managing Editor Charlene Porter

Contributing Editors Jenifer Bochner

 Kara Breissinger

 Rhobyn Costen-Sykes 

 Eileen Kane 

 Cynthia LaCovey

 Cheryl Pellerin

 Gerri Williams

Associate Editor Rosalie Targonski

Reference Specialists Lynne Scheib

 Joan R. Taylor

Art Director Tim Brown

Photo Researcher Maggie Johnson Sliker

Publisher Judith S. Siegel

Senior Editor George Clack

Executive Editor Richard W. Huckaby

Production Manager Christian Larson

Assistant Production Manager Chloe D. Ellis

Editorial Board Alexander C. Feldman

 Jeremy F. Curtin

 Kathleen R. Davis

 Kara Galles

Th e Bureau of International Information Programs of 

the U.S. Department of State publishes fi ve 

electronic journals under the eJournal USA 

logo—Economic Perspectives, Global Issues, 

Issues of Democracy, Foreign Policy Agenda, and 

Society & Values—that examine major issues facing the 

United States and the international community, as well as 

U.S. society, values, thought, and institutions.

One new journal is published monthly in English and 

followed by versions in French, Portuguese, Russian, 

and Spanish. Selected editions also appear in Arabic 

and Chinese. Each journal is catalogued by volume (the 

number of years in publication) and number (the number 

of issues that appear during the year).

Opinions expressed in the journals do not necessarily 

refl ect the views or policies of the U.S. government. Th e 

U.S. Department of State assumes no responsibility for 

the content and continued accessibility of Internet sites 

to which the journals link; such responsibility resides 

solely with the publishers of those sites. Journal articles, 

photographs, and illustrations may be reproduced and 

translated outside the United States unless they carry 

explicit copyright restrictions, in which case permission 

must be sought from the copyright holders noted in the 

journal.

Th e Bureau of International Information Programs 

maintains current and back issues in several electronic 

formats, as well as a list of upcoming journals, at http://

usinfo.state.gov/pub/ejournalusa.html. Comments are 

welcome at your local U.S. Embassy or at the editorial 

offi ces:

Editor, eJournal USA

IIP/T/GIC

U.S. Department of State

301 4th Street SW

Washington, DC 20547

United States of America

E-mail: ejglobal@state.gov

GLOBAL ISSUES 

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006 eJOURNAL USA

Cover: All photographs from AP/Wide World Photos
 GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

I

nnovation in information technologies has 

thrust the world into an era of democratic 

media in which 

people have access to 

news and information 

unbound from 

traditional barriers of 

time and geography. 

Innovation gives rise 

to new media formats 

with new models for 

information distribution, 

consumption, and 

use. Traditional lines 

between the audience 

and media institutions 

are crossed as citizens 

gain access to platforms 

from which to express 

their own ideas and 

opinions, circumventing 

media corporations and 

governments, the longstanding gatekeepers of 

information.

Established media institutions—newspapers 

and broadcasters—struggle to adapt to a new 

climate, just as media consumers seize their own 

territory in the information landscape to create a 

form of participatory journalism.

Experts and pioneers in these changing 

technologies share their thoughts on the following 

pages, describing the innovations unfolding and 

off ering a vision of what may lie ahead.

Dale Peskin and 

Andrew Nachison of the 

American Press Institute’s 

Media Center envision a 

collaborative information 

society in a model 

they call “We Media.” 

Blogging pioneer Dan 

Gillmor describes how a 

new form of journalism 

infl uences public events. 

Television veteran Jeff 

Gralnick looks around 

the corner to the next 

new thing. Daniel Larkin 

explains how the U.S. 

government’s Internet 

Crime Complaint Center 

pursues complaints about 

fraudulent and criminal 

activity online, which has 

burgeoned at the same 

pace as new media and 

technological innovation.

Th ese and other experts share their thoughts in 

Media Emerging.

eJOURNAL USA

Photo montage: The expansion of Internet technology and other electronic 

innovations has set off a media revolution, encompassing newspapers, television and 

radio, the motion picture and music industries, and libraries. (All photographs from 

AP/Wide World Photos)

About Th is Issue


MEDIA EMERGING

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE / MARCH 2006 / VOLUME 11 / NUMBER 2

http://usinfo.state.gov/pub/ejournalusa.html

Emerging Media Reshape Global 

Society

Dale Peskin, Co-Director, and Andrew Nachison, 

Director, The Media Center at the American 

Press Institute

New technologies create new media, changing the 

distribution, consumption, and use of information 

and revolutionizing public consumption of 

information.

Newspapers Recreate Their Medium

Brian L. Steffens, Executive Director of the 

National Newspaper Association

Community newspapers are creating multimedia 

platforms for the delivery of their products, 

attempting to attract younger readers and an 

Internet audience.

How Community Newspapers Adapt 

to New Technology

New technology allows newspapers to make 

advantageous content, production, and delivery 

changes.

Broadcasters Getting Online, Staying 

On Air

Michael Murrie, Professor of 

Telecommunications, Pepperdine University, 

Malibu, California

Th e broadcasting industry has transformed the 

delivery and production of programming to survive 

in a changing marketplace.

Public Libraries in the Internet Age 

Maurice J. (Mitch) Freedman, Former President, 

American Library Association; Director, 

Westchester, New York, Library System (retired)

Using the Internet, library professionals reach 

beyond the library walls to provide information 

services to their patrons.

Connecting Cultures on the Internet

Th e U.S. Library of Congress is launching an 

ambitious international eff ort to put precious items 

of artistic, historical, and literary signifi cance on the 

Internet.

Readers Make a Newspaper Their 

Own

An Interview with Lex Alexander, Citizen 

Journalism Coordinator, Greensboro, North 

Carolina, NEWS & RECORD

An urban newspaper creates the Town Square 

concept online, off ering readers more interactivity, 

community journalism, and involvement.

The $100 Laptop

One Laptop Per Child is developing a machine to 

bring advanced technologies to more youngsters in 

poorer countries than ever before.

4

11

18

7

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006 eJOURNAL USA

15

19

23

10
 Global Issues / March 2006

Bloggers Breaking Ground in 

Communication

Dan Gillmor, Founder, Director, The Center 

for Citizen Media; Author, We the Media: 

Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the

People

Blogging is a conversational and collaborative 

medium that furthers the democratization of 

media.

Online Albums

Photobloggers share their lives and ideas in photos.

Making Connections a World Away

Average people are able to reach far beyond their 

own communities to connect with new people, 

sharing interests and experiences. Three online 

projects are profiled.

Wikipedia makes great progress in providing 

non-English material on the Internet.

Native Youth Magazine.com allows isolated 

tribal populations in the United States and 

Canada to share culture and language and 

preserve them for the next generation.

Youth Radio allows media-savvy youngsters the 

experience of producing programming.

Internet2—Creating Tomorrow’s 

Internet

Heather Boyles, Director of International 

Relations, Internet2

More than 200 universities are working with 

industry and government to develop and deploy 

advanced applications and technologies to accelerate 

the creation of tomorrow’s Internet.

Fighting Online Crime 

Daniel Larkin, Unit Chief, Internet Crime 

Complaint Center (IC3), Federal Bureau of 

Investigation

IC3 investigates the growing number of complaints 

about fraudulent, deceptive, and criminal activity 

online.

What Every e-Consumer Should Know

A prominent U.S. consumer advocacy group offers 

guidelines for avoiding fraud and deception online. 

The Next New Thing Is Here

Jeff Gralnick, Special Consultant on the 

Internet and new media technologies to NBC 

News; Adjunct Professor of New Media at 

the Columbia University Graduate School of 

Journalism

The rapidly expanding capabilities of wireless 

devices will make them the newest platform for 

delivering video in whatever form—games, news, 

and entertainment.

Bibliography

Additional readings on new and emerging media.

Internet Resources

Online resources.

33

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39

eJournal USA

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49

24 44

47

Videoblogs Online

In “Family,” Michael McIntee remembers his father’s 

life and stories in a discovery of the importance 

of family history. It is from the videoblog site 

Minnesota Stories [http://mnstories.com], where 

viewers are invited to share their lives with an online 

audience, creating “an evolving showcase for local 

citizen media.” Used by permission.

[http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/0306/ijge/

ijge0306.htm]


Th e relationship between traditional media and the public 

is changing, a trend these information professionals call 

“We Media.” Th is emergent journalistic process allows the 

Web’s social network to produce, analyze, and disseminate 

news and information to technologically interconnected 

publics unbounded by geography.

Dale Peskin and Andrew Nachison are co-director 

and director of Th e Media Center in Reston, Virginia. 

Th e center is a nonprofi t media think tank committed to 

building a better-informed society in an interconnected 

world. It is a division of the American Press Institute.

I

nnovation in information technologies has thrust 

humankind into an era of democratic media in which 

almost everyone can have immediate access to news 

and information, and become creators and contributors 

in the journalistic enterprise. As a result, news now moves 

in unconventional ways with unpredictable consequences.

How does a shared experience of digital media 

aff ect what we know and how we know it? How do the 

creators and keepers of stories behave when anyone can 

be a journalist, a publisher, or an archivist? What are the 

implications for our global society?

Th ese questions are at the heart of “We Media,” 

a phrase Th e Media Center coined four years ago to 

describe the emerging phenomenon of global access to 

content from infi nite sources, content that empowers 

participation and civic engagement in the news and 

information that aff ect society.

Emerging Media Reshape Global Society

Dale Peskin and Andrew Nachison

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006 eJournal USA

Photo montage: Information technologies allow people to connect with each other 

like never before in trends that span generations and cultures. Participants in the “We 

Media” revolution use cell phones to record and distribute photographs and video; 

employ powerful search engines to retrieve information tailored to their particular 

needs; play sophisticated games with networks of other players; and view satellite 

channels, such as al-Jazeera, that reach a global audience. From preschool to college, 

the technologies are tools in basic education, channels to unlimited information, and 

opportunities to learn the skills of the future. 

(All photographs from AP/Wide World Photos)
eJOURNAL USA  GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Google is one expression. Th e Internet search engine, 

whose mission is no less than to organize the world’s 

information, enables individuals to take control of 

their worlds. Th ey become empowered to seek and fi nd 

information that refl ects their personal preferences and 

take action. Individual access to news and information is 

no longer determined by powerful institutions with the 

authority or wealth to dominate distribution.

Blogs are another expression. Th ese online journals 

create and connect individuals and their ideas throughout 

the world. Sites such as Global Voices [http://www.

globalvoicesonline.org] aggregate stories and perspectives 

from everyday people: citizen storytellers with authentic 

voices from unique 

circumstances and cultures. 

So compelling is their power 

that Internet sites such as

http://www.technorati.com

have been created to track 

more than 25 million blogs—

about one-fourth of the ejournals in the blogosphere.

A third expression is 

the rise of international 

satellite channels. Th e 

democratization of media 

has opened the airwaves to 

cultures everywhere. Using 

low-cost digital technologies 

and satellite distribution, 

more than 70 international 

channels cross borders to 

reach the edges of the planet 

with news for every point of 

view. Th e government-funded 

BBC has created a new kind 

of British empire, with hundreds of channels and Internet 

sites, reaching 100 million people worldwide, translated 

into 43 languages. Al-Jazeera defends media freedom 

and infl uences Arab thought in a volatile and turbulent 

region. Al-Jazeera seeks to expand its infl uence later in 

2006 with the launch of an around-the-clock, Englishlanguage newscast.

We Media also encompasses the ubiquity of personal 

media devices, stimulating the most powerful media 

connection—word of mouth. At the end of 2005, more 

than 2 billion people—almost one-third of the world’s 

population—had a cell phone. Nearly 800 million new 

cell phones are sold each year throughout the world. By 

2008, an estimated 600 million people will be able to 

capture events with sophisticated digital cameras, many 

as a capability of their cell phones. Th ese devices create a 

“global content generation” that has the unprecedented 

power to create, produce, share, and participate in life as 

it happens. Global networks allow people to post news, 

thoughts, ideas, and images anywhere, anytime.

What emerges is the most powerful expression of 

We Media—participation. Everyone is part of the story. 

Everyone exerts infl uence.

We Media is marked by the changing relationship 

between traditional institutions. We Media is a bottomup, emergent process in which little or no editorial 

oversight or formal 

journalistic workfl ow 

dictates the decisions of a 

staff . Instead, it is the result 

of many simultaneous, 

distributed conversations that 

either blossom or quickly 

atrophy in the Web’s social 

network.

Th e act of a citizen, or 

group of citizens, playing 

a role in the process of 

collecting, reporting, 

analyzing, and disseminating 

news and information rivals 

edited institutions and the 

journalists who work for 

them. But the intent may 

be the same: providing 

independent, reliable, 

accurate, wide-ranging, and 

relevant information that a 

democracy requires.

Once at the fringes of traditional journalism, We 

Media has become a phenomenon that cannot be ignored. 

Communities, businesses, government agencies, pundits, 

stand-alone journalists, columnists, journalism schools, 

and, yes, even news organizations, are getting into the 

act. Projects have sprouted throughout mainstream 

media. Th ey derive from the surprising experience of Oh 

My News [http://english.ohmynews.com/] in South Korea, 

which organized tens of thousands of citizen reporters in 

Photo montage: While communications giants like Yahoo!, MSN, and Google provide 

citizens access to information resources, in today’s connected society, the diversity of 

media prevents any one institution from controlling the fl ow of news and ideas. (All 

photographs from AP/Wide World Photos)


a tech-savvy nation where a single issue often dominates 

the political discourse. Th ree years after its launch, Oh My 

News is credited with toppling a government and eroding 

the power of Korea’s media barons.

Th e venerable profession of journalism fi nds itself 

at a rare moment in history, when for the fi rst time its 

hegemony as gatekeeper of the news is threatened by new 

technology and competitors and by the audience it serves.

Th e trends have sparked considerable debate about 

journalism’s key values. Clearly, journalism is in the 

process of redefi ning itself, adjusting to disruptive forces. 

At the center of the debate are the critical issues of 

control, credibility, and profi tability.

Can every citizen be a reporter? Many traditional 

journalists are dismissive of participatory journalists, 

particularly bloggers, characterizing them as selfinterested, unskilled amateurs who don’t subscribe to 

institutional standards of fact checking, fairness, balance, 

and objectivity. Conversely, many bloggers look upon 

mainstream media as an arrogant, exclusive club that puts 

its own version of self-interest and economic survival 

above the societal responsibility of a free press.

What most traditional journalists fail to understand 

is that, despite a participant’s lack of skill or journalistic 

training, the Internet itself acts as an editing mechanism. 

Th e diff erence is that editorial judgment is applied at the 

edges, frequently after the fact, not in advance. In this 

information ecosystem, citizens rely on each other to 

report, distribute, and correct a story as it goes. A story 

is no longer fi xed by deadlines or distribution schedules. 

Rather it is organic, spiraling through multiple forms of 

media, changing as it goes. Th e story belongs to no one 

save the audience.

Th e fl uidity of this approach puts more emphasis 

on publishing information than fi ltering. Conversations 

happen in the community for all to see. In contrast, 

traditional news organizations are set up to fi lter 

information before they publish it. Editors and reporters 

collaborate, but the debates are not open to public 

scrutiny or involvement.

Th e most obvious diff erences between participatory 

journalism and traditional journalism are the structures 

and organizations that produce them. Traditional media 

are created by hierarchal organizations that are built 

for commerce. Th eir business models focus on profi ts 

derived from advertising. Th ey value rigorous workfl ow, 

profi tability, and integrity. Networked communities that 

value conversation, collaboration, and egalitarianism over 

profi tability create participatory journalism. Participatory 

journalism does not show evidence of requiring a 

classically trained journalist to be mediator or facilitator. 

Many weblogs, forums, and online communities function 

eff ectively without one.

Some view digital media’s disruption of traditional 

information consumption and distribution patterns as 

little more than an economic shakeout reaping short-term 

havoc on media companies and creating new business 

opportunities for the next generation of communications 

giants. Under this scenario, companies like Google, 

MSN, and Yahoo! displace local newspapers, television, 

radio, and magazine publishers as the dominant 

gatekeepers of our media experiences.

But the notion of dominance is obsolete in the 

connected society. Individuals exert unprecedented 

power over how and when they access information and 

with whom they share it. In this sense, digital media is 

profoundly disruptive to the interests of any institution 

premised on power and control. What we know, the 

information we could access, once depended on where 

we lived. In the connected society of global nomads, our 

social capital can expand through vast personal networks 

spanning the globe.

We Media is a force that will soon exceed the 

infl uence of institutions that control news and 

information. It suggests that voice—the authentic, 

cultural expression of the individual—is resurgent in the 

craftwork of our media. ■

Th e opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily refl ect the views 

or policies of the U.S. government.

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006 eJOURNAL USA
eJOURNAL USA 

Newspapers large and small have a long history of 

adapting to technological and market change. Small-town 

and community newspapers are fl ourishing in a new 

technological age that allows them to provide coverage 

of local events with detail and delivery speed that they’ve 

never had before.

Brian L. Steff ens is executive director of the National 

Newspaper Association (NNA). Founded in 1885, NNA 

is the oldest and largest newspaper association in America, 

representing 2,600 community newspapers. Mr. Steff ens 

is also an adjunct associate professor of journalism at the 

Missouri School of Journalism.

I

n the 21st century, newspapers have become 

chameleons, adapting with the changing 

environment. Th at’s the way it’s always been: from 

sheet-fed to rotary presses, linotype machines to desktop 

publishing, black and white to color, and now paper to 

electrons.

Newspapers continue to off er unique-value 

propositions that ensure their long-term future even as 

they change to encompass new forms of presentation and 

distribution. Newspapers remain the only medium that 

is primarily news; information that is usually verifi able, 

accurate, fair and in search of truth.

Radio is primarily a music and talk medium. 

Television is dominated by entertainment. Th e Internet 

is a search medium, off ering access to a wide range of 

information with no assurances about the quality or 

veracity of content.

Local, community newspapers off er something that 

readers prize—local news. 

Newspapers Recreate Th eir Medium

Brian L. Steffens

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Photo montage: Traditional, printed newspapers still provide readers with a low-cost, 

portable, and comprehensive source of news. The Internet has made it possible for 

newspapers—even weekly, community papers—to report up-to-the-minute news 24 

hours a day, seven days a week, on their Web sites, frequently with more content and 

photographs than in the newspaper itself. (All photographs from AP/Wide World 

Photos)


Television stations and large-city dailies serve regional 

audiences spanning large cities, sprawling suburbs, and 

communities with total populations numbering in the 

millions. Cable channels and the Internet serve national 

or international audiences. None have the staff , time, 

space or pages to cover truly local, neighborhood news in 

a comprehensive and consistent way. Th ey are limited to 

covering the bigger stories, the controversies, not day-today life that is the hallmark of community newspapers, 

including local government, schools, local health care and 

medical resources, neighborhood sports, social events, 

service clubs, and church activities.

Th is explains why the number of American dailies, and 

subscribers to those papers, has declined, while the number 

of community, nondaily newspapers has grown from about 

5,500 to more than 7,000. Readership of the nondailies 

has almost tripled, to nearly 70 million every week.

New technologies pose challenges to the traditional 

newspaper business—a new learning curve and untested 

business models—but these technologies also bring new 

capabilities and opportunities to local news organizations.

Local Newspapers Meet the Competition

Local weekly papers no longer have to forfeit breaking 

news or sports to local radio stations.

Pre-Internet, reports on the Th ursday night local 

government or school board meetings or the Friday night 

high school sports games would not see print until the 

following week. Th e Internet gives community weekly 

newspapers the ability to compete head to head with daily 

newspapers, radio, and television for breaking news and 

sports.

But even the Web is becoming old news. My local 

paper now sends me news alerts and sports updates and 

scores as they happen, throughout the game, via text 

messages on my cell phone. When the local coach resigned 

unexpectedly, I was among the fi rst to know, and my thirst 

for details pushed me toward my computer to access the 

paper’s Web site (I was traveling in another state and a 

print edition paper was not available). When I returned 

home, I eagerly anticipated the next edition of the paper 

for further developments and interviews. Americans don’t 

carry their newspapers or computers everywhere, but we 

carry our cell phones everywhere. Now newspapers can 

reach their audiences virtually anytime, anywhere.

Newspapers no longer have to cede color, video, and 

photography to television. Community newspapers can 

now deliver more visual elements to local stories than 

regional television stations. Th e TV station might have a 

fi ve-second clip of the Friday night game between the two 

largest high schools, but the community newspaper’s Web 

site can put an unlimited number of color photographs or 

video clips on its Web site from all the area high schools, 

junior high schools, and community sports leagues.

Even better, community newspapers have learned that, 

by posting more pictures to their Web sites, they receive 

more requests for reprints, thus creating a growing revenue 

stream. If the paper had previously printed one picture 

from an event, and Johnny was identifi ed, his parents and 

relatives might buy a couple of pictures from the paper. 

But when pictures of Johnny and all his teammates are on 

the Web site, the opportunity for more family purchases 

grows exponentially.

Newspapers are delivering a wider reach for advertisers 

by combining the still-vibrant print distribution of 

community newspapers with the new and growing 

audience of those papers’ Web sites and text-messaging 

alerts. Most newspaper Web sites or electronic editions 

are now considered profi table, while the print products 

continue to generate profi t margins averaging about 20 

percent. Th at’s the top line.

Emerging technologies have an impact on the 

bottom line, too. Th e nationally-distributed Christian 

Science Monitor print edition costs about twice that of its 

electronic edition. Th e common assumption was that the 

more print editions sold, the more revenue the company 

would generate and the more profi t it would realize. More 

sales revenue would result in more profi t.

WRONG. Th e print product generated more revenue 

but the print product cost much, much more to produce 

and distribute. Th e profi t from each print edition sold was 

only about half that of producing and distributing a single 

electronic copy. Without the need for more newsprint, 

more ink, and expensive distribution channels, the 

electronic edition could sell for less yet earn more profi t.

Newspapers are learning that electronic distribution is 

a viable alternative to traditional print editions, especially 

for distribution outside the core market area. Papers sent to 

vacationing readers, retirees who’ve moved away, or those 

who have moved to a new region but want to keep up on 

news of family and friends back home often arrive weeks 

late and damaged.

Digital editions are delivered the same day, no rips, no 

tears. Births and deaths and news of a local sports hero are 

available to friends, family, vacationers, and retirees near 

and far ... in time to send a note of congratulations or 

condolence.

eJOURNAL USA

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006


All in all, new technologies help news companies 

improve customer service and control costs. For decades 

to come, millions of Americans will value the inexpensive 

price, availability (no need to buy a computer) and 

portability (no need for a power cord or batteries) of a 

printed newspaper. But there will also be those who value 

urgent alerts and updates (cell phones) and more depth 

and context (Internet) than a printed 

newspaper can deliver.

If a reader is jogging, he or 

she can’t read a print paper but can 

listen to a news podcast (a newscast 

recorded to an iPod). If riding a train 

or bus with no power outlet, a reader 

will value a print edition (or a good 

battery for the laptop). If a reader is 

outside a major metropolitan area, he 

or she may not have wireless access for 

a laptop or a strong signal for a cell 

phone. Newspapers have to be where 

the news consumers are, and delivered 

on a device they can use wherever they 

are, whatever they’re doing.

For the near term, those devices 

include paper, computers, cell phones, 

and iPods. Tomorrow can and most 

assuredly will introduce even more 

ways to share information.

Newspapers that capture that 

vitality and deliver the news when, 

where, and how the audience is 

equipped to receive it will enjoy a long 

and prosperous future.

The Ties That Bind a Community Together

A current theme in the media is an exploration of 

how to engage citizens in civic activity. Newspapers are 

experimenting with expanded online letters to the editors, 

local and personal blogs, online forums, and various forms 

of citizen-originated content.

Some argue that community newspapers have never lost 

touch with their communities, that the emphasis on new 

technologies is misplaced. Readers in small towns have always 

had access to editors, reporters, and even the publisher. Th ey 

chat while in line at the supermarket, at service club meetings, 

at church functions, and in the barbershop or salon. Th e 

distance between reader and newspaper is smaller than in 

large cities or metropolitan areas.

A perhaps unforeseen benefi t of the new technology 

to community newspapers is the expansion of the oldfashioned network of correspondents. Small newspapers 

have always been challenged with small staff s and too 

few reporters or photographers to be everywhere at once, 

especially when the school board, city government, local 

sporting event, and church social all occur on the same 

evening.

Community newspapers have 

long relied on part-time or occasional 

volunteers to contribute reports from 

meetings or events that staff could 

not get to, or to contribute columns 

on local topics of interest. Wireless 

laptops and digital cameras have 

made it easy for virtually the entire 

community to become reporters 

and photographers for their local 

newspaper.

Th is has strengthened not 

only the connection between the 

community and its newspaper, but 

connections within the community as 

well.

Many American newspapers are 

producing issues that are fi lled with 

content submitted by local residents. 

In Columbia, Missouri, MyMissourian.

com [http://www.MyMissourian.com]

is a citizen-produced collection of 

stories, columns, commentary and 

photos published online under the 

umbrella of the local newspaper and 

(traditional) newspaper Web site. It 

doesn’t replace the newspaper or the newspaper’s Web 

site—it complements it. It is news and information that 

doesn’t necessarily fi t the space requirements of the print 

newspaper nor the hard news orientation of the paper’s 

Web site.

It is full of pictures of newborns and college graduates 

posted by proud parents and grandparents, community 

social events, and even the largest vegetables grown 

locally and favorite pets. Th ere are personal stories, 

remembrances, reports from meetings and events that 

reporters could not attend, notes on church and school 

eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Photo: MyMissourian.com publishes online articles and photographs by residents of the 

Columbia, Missouri, area who want to share stories about life in their communities. 

The best submissions are printed in the weekly edition of the Columbia Missourian

newspaper. (Courtesy MyMissourian.com)
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

committees that often do not get covered in a newspaper, 

local recipes, and columns, commentary, and letters to the 

editor.

Th e best of these are assembled in the weekly print 

publication—news of, about, and by your neighbor.

Technology is a neat thing, and early adopters drive 

key portions of economic growth. But sometimes it’s just 

another tool to help people and communities do what 

they’ve always done: connect with each other. ■

Th e opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily refl ect the views 

or policies of the U.S. government.

News

• Weeklies can function as dailies for little added cost.

• Th e newspaper is no longer limited by 12, 24, or 48 pages.

• Photographs and color are no longer limited by press position or space.

• Web site links give readers more depth and context.

• Th e newspaper and its archives are searchable. Once community papers have digitized their back issues, staff 

and the public can easily keyword search through the history of a community with much more ease and speed 

than previous methods. Many such systems are set up on a fee basis, providing another revenue stream for the 

newspaper. Smaller community newspapers are still exploring this business model.

• Newspapers can provide everywhere, anytime delivery via cell phone text messaging, competing with radio for 

breaking news.

Advertising

• Newspapers can expand their reach to include Web and text message readers.

• Newspaper off erings can include video and audio advertising messages.

• Advertisers can promote a sale immediately via the paper’s Web site or text messaging service, allowing greater 

ability to address unexpected inventory rather than waiting for next week’s print edition. If a new product 

arrives or overstock needs handling, advertisers don’t have to wait until next week’s print edition but can tout a 

sale immediately via the paper’s Web site or text messaging service.

• Newspaper Web sites can be programmed to display a diff erent message from the same advertiser each time the 

same viewer clicks back on the paper’s Web site.

• Readers can click on a link in an online ad that provides more detailed product information, product reviews, 

related services.

• Many coupons from newspaper Web sites can now be printed out on a home computer. Depending on the 

data collected from readers, such coupons can be individually targeted to address key demographics.

• Text message coupons can be captured on a cell phone and shown to retailers and advertisers. Th ese, too, can 

be individually targeted.

• Unlike with radio, television, or the print edition, users can click through and purchase items through 

newspaper Web sites.

Production and Delivery

• Newspapers can publish as often as they like via the Web or electronic editions, with limited added costs. Th ere 

are no added press lines and no increase in ink or paper supplies.

• Expanded distribution does not require more paper or ink.

• Electronic editions can be delivered outside the core market, even around the world, same day, without delay. 

No papers are lost or damaged; there are no added postage costs; and no extra delivery trucks or staff are 

needed.

 —Brian L. Steff ens

How Community Newspapers Adapt to New Technology
eJOURNAL USA 

Zooming technological advancement has forced 

broadcasters to adjust to wave after wave of change. Th e 

industry has transformed nearly every aspect of their 

operations—how broadcasters deliver programming and 

how they produce it, and what the audience wants and 

when they want it.

Michael Murrie is a professor of telecommunications 

at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He 

also writes about electronic media for professional and 

academic publications.

A

merican broadcasting glories in its tales of survival 

and success.

Radio survived the challenge of television a half 

century ago by becoming a portable medium and shifting 

from an emphasis on drama to music for the commuter. 

AM radio survived the rise of FM radio by developing 

news and provocative discussion programming.

Television became the national pastime each evening 

for a half century. Americans gathered to watch favorite 

characters, sports, and news coverage of historic events. 

Television remains Americans’ primary source of news 

and the advertising medium that best catches their 

attention.

Nowadays, however, changes in technology, 

audience behavior, and business models shake traditional 

broadcasting again and again.

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Broadcasters Getting Online, Staying 

On Air

Michael Murrie

Photo montage: Reinvention is the name of the game in broadcasting, as the industry 

adjusts to keep pace with technology and hold on to its audience. Cable channels 

abound from New York to New Delhi, while satellite radio and television operations 

bounce programming around the globe. Audiences enjoy the freedom to customize 

their news and entertainment choices with such products as TiVo, iPods, and DVDs. 

(All photographs from AP/Wide World Photos)
 eJOURNAL USA

The Old Competitors

Despite high-quality music CDs, radio became 

more profi table than ever in the 1990s after changes in 

U.S. government regulations allowed consolidation and 

simultaneous broadcasting of the same programming 

by multiple stations in a metropolitan area, as well as 

across many areas. Th e result, however, was often bland 

programming that lacked local content.

Th e Federal Communications Commission licensed 

13,450 radio stations in 2003, twice the number that 

was licensed in 1970. Th e United States is one of the 

few countries in the world where commercial radio, with 

10,000 stations, dominates over government radio.

Television met its fi rst match when community 

antenna or cable systems began to import signals from 

other stations and later added specialized channels such 

as CNN and MTV. Th e small, individual franchises 

began to consolidate into groups as cable moved into 

metropolitan areas in the 1980s. Television stations 

tried to hold their audiences by insisting that federal 

regulations require the cable systems to carry local 

stations.

More competition came in the 1990s from direct 

broadcast satellite, the fi rst service with digital signals. 

Cable, too, launched digital services, multiplying the 

number of channels from a few dozen to hundreds.

Over time, especially as ownership rules relaxed, 

broadcasters coped with the competition by acquiring 

interests in the competition and programming outlets. 

Now, of the top fi ve U.S. media conglomerates, all own 

cable television channels and produce at least some 

kinds of television programs, four own cable distribution 

systems, four own broadcast television networks and 

stations, three produce motion pictures, and two own 

hundreds of radio stations. Th e interrelationships among 

these and other top media conglomerates are complex 

and diffi cult to follow.

Meanwhile, both radio and television faced audiences 

that could bypass the broadcast schedule to record 

programs on audio or videocassettes and replay them 

at other times. For decades the process was too clumsy 

and complicated to be an important factor, until the 

introduction of TiVo (a digital video recording set-top 

device for personal television) and similar devices that 

incorporated program schedules, simplifi ed recording, 

and eliminated commercials. It was the beginning of a 

decline in the importance of programming schedules and 

the beginning of a trend toward viewer control.

Th en, in the 1990s, households using television 

declined, perhaps because people had become too busy to 

watch television. Movies on DVDs, the Internet, video 

games, and other new media also competed. Th e ratio of 

time spent watching television compared to Internet use 

was 8-to-1 in 2000 but only 4-to-1 in 2005, according to 

media investment bank Veronis Shuler.

Th e Internet presented competitive challenges but 

also off ered opportunities to broadcasters. Research 

suggested some people used the Internet and watched 

television at the same time. Television could promote 

its programs with online news and programming 

information. A local radio station could present its 

programs almost anywhere in the world with an Internet 

connection. Broadcasters could direct audiences to 

companion Web sites for more detailed news coverage, 

but they found it more diffi cult to drive Web audiences 

to news programs.

Although overall news viewing increased, news 

producers faced fi ckle, more fractured audiences. CNN 

and others provided news, weather, and sports whenever 

viewers wanted them. A number of regional all-news 

channels followed. Local and network news expanded 

program off erings, especially in the mornings.

Deadlines disappeared. News was constantly available 

and updated. Reporters complained that they had no 

time to seek out stories because they constantly had to 

deliver new live reports. Th e rapid diff usion of 24-hour 

news and instant Internet messages left newsmakers such 

as politicians and public relations professionals with little 

time to react or refl ect, especially as the all-news channels 

fueled the crisis of the moment with new live satellite 

interviews. Many viewers constantly switched among 

news, weather, sports, and entertainment programs. Some 

news programs even promoted the times of upcoming 

stories to lure channel surfers back if they switched to 

other channels.

Th e centerpiece of U.S. network news, evening 

newscasts, steadily lost viewers for years, despite eff orts 

to make them unique by providing more context and 

explanation. In 2005, three networks lost to retirement 

or death the anchormen of their fl agship newscasts 

—personalities who had been powerful presences for 

decades.

Nevertheless, broadcasters found innovative 

technology to improve news reporting. News programs 

featured new realistic graphics, especially weather 

animations that projected the paths of approaching 

storms. Live reports via satellite came from anywhere 

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006
eJOURNAL USA 

—even an aircraft carrier or military convoy rolling 

through a desert. For the fi rst time, ordinary citizens 

saw war overseas as it unfolded. Reporters embedded 

with troops in the latest Iraq war also off ered personal 

accounts via Internet blogs in addition to their regular 

broadcast reports. News remained attractive to viewers 

and profi table.

Overall, revenues for radio ($19.3 billion) and 

television ($44.8 billion) peaked in 2000 and dipped the 

following year. Television recovered but radio stayed fl at. 

Cable continued to increase steadily.

Radio’s problems were deeper, with a 13-percent 

audience decline between 1995 and 2005. Declining 

ad revenue—and thus station values—led some group 

owners to huge losses of, for example, $17 

billion in 2002 and $4.9 billion in 2005 by 

Clear Channel, the largest radio group. In 2004, 

Clear Channel reduced time 

allotted for promotions and 

commercials by 20 percent 

to help keep listeners who 

seemed dissatisfi ed by 

too many commercials. 

Th e strategy raised prices 

and encouraged shorter 

commercials. Th is year, 

there is some evidence the 

strategy may be working, 

but radio still faces other 

problems, including a new 

payola (paying cash or gifts 

in exchange for airplay) 

investigation. Satellite radio 

continues to grow as an 

alternative to commercial 

radio, and further 

competition comes from 

the iPod and similar digital 

devices that make music 

portable and convenient.

Th e iPod and its cousins can store radio content and 

replay it. Th e process, called podcasting, is like TiVo for 

radio. Content ranges from national network broadcasts 

to blog-style, home-grown productions.

Listeners have long been able to record radio and 

play it back with portable devices, but never have 

audiences had so much content, variety, quality, and 

control, and the ability to easily manage and manipulate 

content.

Th e television industry for years has anticipated its 

next step in improved quality—high-defi nition television 

(HDTV). Now it is fi nally arriving, years late.

Digital broadcast radio was also under development 

for years, with the promise of off ering CD-quality and 

dramatically improved reception, but the industry lacked 

enthusiasm for making the huge investment necessary 

for such a broad upgrade. Th e technology enables a radio 

station to continue to send its regular analog signal and 

multiple digital signals.

The New Competitors

Perhaps television and cable broadcasters would have 

strolled into the 21st century with 

HDTV, new channels, and not 

much else had it not been for two 

technological breakthroughs in 

the 1990s —aff ordable broadband 

Internet service and video 

compression.

Th e broadband services 

were DSL (digital subscriber 

loop), developed by telephone 

companies, and cable modems, 

developed by the cable TV 

industry. Th ese services provided 

high-speed, aff ordable Internet 

service to homes and small 

businesses.

Digital video compression 

numerically describes every bit of 

information in a frame of video, 

fi nds redundant information 

or information humans don’t 

perceive, summarizes it, and 

discards what’s not necessary. 

Th e resulting streamlined signal 

fi ts on computer hard drives 

and even travels on the Internet. 

Dozens of these compressed signals fi t in electronic pipes 

and pathways that once handled only one video signal. 

With greater storage, processing power, and throughput, 

desktop computers can easily play and even edit video, 

dramatically lowering the entry barriers for small, 

independent video producers.

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Photo montage: Satellite radio, interactive television, and digital video are just a few of 

the recent innovations in broadcasting technology. (All photographs from AP/Wide 

World Photos)


Digital video compression made possible new digital 

television standards, approved by the federal government, 

that require television stations to convert from analog 

to digital broadcast channels and signals by 2009. After 

years of reluctance to make the investments to convert, 

most stations are fi nally broadcasting in one or more 

of the new digital standards, often including HDTV. 

Digital television sets have become more aff ordable, and 

consumers are fi nally buying them. HDTV’s big screens 

might even attract the family back together in the living 

room to watch again, except that the television screen is 

also growing smaller and more mobile for the individual 

viewer, as well as larger.

With commercial radio’s challenges from the iPod in 

mind, networks jumped at the chance to make primetime programs available at $1.99 each when Apple 

created a new iPod that could show video. Early evidence 

indicates the move may help ratings.

Nevertheless, the new media threaten the future of 

the lucrative traditional television advertising model. 

Two alternate funding methods are fees per item and 

subscription. Anyone can put videos on Google for 

free distribution or for purchase. Pay-per-view network 

programs are also available on cable and direct broadcast 

satellite television, much like pay-per-view movies. 

Now production companies, writers, actors, networks, 

and others are disputing how these revenues should be 

distributed.

Broadcasters can expect more challengers, both 

small and large, as the Internet delivers more video. 

Telecommunications and information technology 

companies are already rolling out IPTV (Internet 

protocol television). Who knows what new Internet video 

will come from new companies and young independent 

producers? Be assured, however, that most traditional 

broadcasters will be in the fray with their considerable 

resources, experience, and a heritage of survival and 

success. ■

Th e opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily refl ect the views 

or policies of the U.S. government.

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006 eJOURNAL USA


Public libraries and the professionals who staff them still 

play key roles in assisting the public in navigating the 

oceans of information now available to them through the 

Internet. 

Maurice J. (Mitch) Freedman is a past president of 

the American Library Association and the retired director 

of the Westchester County, New York, library system. 

Futurists, editorial writers, and countless others 

have been ready to play a funeral march for the 

public library for years, arguing that the Internet 

will eliminate the need for libraries, even books. But visit 

a public library in the United States and you’ll fi nd they 

are being used more heavily each year. Th e Internet has 

led to dramatic increases in the circulation of all library 

information services and materials in ways that extend 

the use of those services well beyond the walls of the brick 

and mortar building.

Public libraries have absorbed, employed, or promoted 

the use of new technologies and media as they appeared 

over the past 150 years. Th e Internet and the access it 

provides to the world of information bring a technology 

and medium to the public library that is qualitatively 

diff erent from the technologies and media that preceded 

it. Th e quantity of information accessible via the Internet 

is so vast that it brings about a qualitative change in the 

information off erings made by public libraries.

eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Public Libraries in the Internet Age

Maurice J. (Mitch) Freedman

Photo montage: With the Internet providing 24-hour-a-day access, public libraries 

are busier than ever before. Patrons can reserve books and videotapes they wish 

to borrow or even download audio books from public collections, using their home 

computers. As libraries install more computers for public use, many people prefer 

going there to do research, surf the Web, and send e-mail. (All photographs from 

AP/Wide World Photos) 
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

First, the Internet enables the public library to 

provide information services and access to materials 

online 24 hours per day, 7 days per week (24/7). People 

with Internet browsing capability—at home or anywhere 

else—can examine the online catalog of library holdings, 

place reserves on items that they would like to borrow, 

and renew items that are due or overdue—all as functions 

of the integrated library systems that are available to the 

public via the Internet 24/7.

Th e ability to reserve 

books online is especially 

appealing to online patrons. 

Most libraries have seen the 

numbers of reserves made 

online double and triple, in 

contrast to earlier manual 

systems involving a paper 

form. Th e Westchester 

County, New York, 

cooperative public library 

system, serving a suburban 

area around New York City,1

saw an increase from 4,000 

paper-fi lled reserves per 

month in 1999 to more than 

93,000 reserves fi lled monthly 

in 2005. Th is was possible 

because the online catalog 

system is accessible anytime 

to residents of the county’s 

computer-equipped homes.

Today’s online catalog has 

vastly enhanced search and 

retrieval functionality, further 

enabling public access to the 

collections. Despite predictions of the demise of books and 

other printed materials, Westchester found that 30 percent 

of the book reserves fi lled were requests for books that had 

been published prior to 1990.2 Librarians reported that 

books that hadn’t circulated in years, sometimes in decades, 

were now moving from the shelves as browsers scoured 

the online catalog and found literary gems of the past that 

they might otherwise have overlooked. Th is is how the new 

technology off ers a dramatic assist to traditional public 

library services, increasing their relevance in an era of new 

technology.

Numerous applications of the new technologies 

and media have helped improve traditional services and 

introduced others unique to the electronic medium.

Th e fi rst service is access to the Internet. More than 

90 percent of U.S. libraries provide Internet access to the 

public. Despite widespread Internet access in homes and 

businesses, people choose for a variety of reasons to come 

into the public library to access the Web, send or answer 

e-mail, and, where allowed, chat with others.

Th is immediately led to a service vital to the public 

library’s continued support by taxpayers. Because of 

concerns, especially about 

Internet safety for children, 

public libraries off er courses in 

“safe” use of the Internet for 

parents, children, and others. 

Also, many public libraries 

use their Web sites to direct 

parents and children to other 

sites especially appropriate to 

children. Proactively educating 

parents and children has been 

the public libraries’ preferred 

approach to dealing with 

safety concerns, rather than 

promoting fi lters, other forms 

of restriction, or censorship.

Exploiting the technology 

and the Internet’s 24/7 

accessibility, many public 

libraries off er reference 

services via e-mail and chat. 

Many users prefer to make an 

inquiry via e-mail, rather than 

a telephone call that may result 

in a lengthy wait.

Public libraries off er 

“Webliographies,” an 

especially wonderful and high-impact service. Libraries also 

provide valuable annotated lists of linked sites organized 

by topic for people of all interests and all ages. Professional 

librarians validate and compile these lists, ensuring their 

appropriateness, accuracy, and timeliness, none of which 

can be assured about the results delivered by commercial 

search engines.

Photo montage: Libraries have been at the forefront of integrating computer 

technology into academic research. They took the lead in digitizing historic documents 

for online dissemination, and libraries equipped with state-of-the-art computer 

facilities bring together experts to consult on mutual interests. (All photographs from 

AP/Wide World Photos)
eJOURNAL USA  GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Th e New York Public Library (NYPL), which serves 

the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, has been a 

pioneer for well over a century in children’s work. NYPL 

provides access on its children’s home page, On-Lion 

for Kids [http://kids.nypl.org/], to Picture Books Everyone 

Should Know (newly revised) and 100 Favorite Children’s 

Books. Th ese online lists reach many more people than the 

library’s printed lists do.

Information-resource professionals off er further 

guidance for parents and children seeking appropriate 

materials on the Web site. Drop-down menus at the top of 

the kids’ page include resources on science and technology, 

arts and games, events in the branch libraries, reading and 

books, people and places, sports, holidays and celebrations, 

and more.

Public library users also have access to commercial 

full-text databases. With these tools, NYPL, for example, 

brings the home user thousands of periodicals and millions 

of articles [http://www.nypl.org/databases/]. In large libraries 

and small, databases allow access to periodicals and 

other publications that libraries would otherwise need to 

purchase for their users.

Many states have bought licenses to databases that 

make them available to all citizens of their respective sites. 

Th is means that a leased 3,000-title database of periodicals 

can be made freely accessible to a tiny community whose 

library can aff ord only 50 hard-copy subscriptions. Now 

all public libraries in New York and many other states 

promote access to electronic versions of thousands of 

periodicals, exponentially increasing the amount of 

information all public libraries make freely accessible to 

their users 24/7.

All of the aforementioned services highlight how the 

Internet has dramatically increased the relevance of public 

libraries to their users and the use of public library services.

Public libraries fl ourish and meet their users’ 

information needs precisely because of the existence of the 

Internet.

Access: People fl ock to the public library and 

overwhelm the libraries’ available Internet computers, 

contrary to the belief that virtually everyone has a 

computer at home and access to the Internet. Th ere never 

seem to be enough machines available at peak and other 

periods.

Seniors: Seniors are one category of high-volume 

library Internet users. Perceptions that the elderly cannot 

adapt to change and are afraid of computers is not borne 

out by the hosts of seniors who use the Internet to 

exchange e-mail with children, grandchildren, relatives, 

and friends; research information about health and welfare 

programs; and explore whatever else interests them, all at 

their local public library.

Homework: Numerous public libraries, public library 

consortia, and even states have contracted with Tutor.com

[http://www.tutor.com] to provide students with online 

homework help and assistance with school projects. Part of 

what makes the service so valuable is that the online tutors 

are actual school teachers.

Laptops: Th e Bronx Library Center is one of many 

libraries that loans laptops to users for in-library use. All 

the laptops have in-library wireless network connections 

that enable people to use the Web for any of a variety of 

applications; they also have microcomputer programs.

Browsing: Libraries’ online catalogs give users a 

chance to review dust jackets, tables of contents, fi rst or 

sample chapters, and reviews for thousands of book titles. 

Now users can fi nd out a great deal of information about 

items they might borrow without having to be at the 

library or physically handle such books.

Online Reviews: Some libraries have launched 

specialized reviews of books online. For example, the 

Ossining, New York, Public Library recently added to 

its Web site the Ossining Review of Books [http://www.

ossininglibrary.org/bob/default.aspx], a new online guide to 

contemporary writing with involvement of prominent local 

writers and reviewers. Th e site features recommendations 

of books by writers with ties to Ossining. It also will give 

Ossining residents the opportunity to post their own 

comments and book reviews.

Today, public libraries are more relevant than ever to 

people fortunate enough to have new technologies and 

media in their homes. And for those who don’t, computers 

and a wealth of other services await them at the library. 

Using media of a new century, the public library retains its 

traditional status as a community center, a gathering place, 

and simply a nice place to enjoy and share knowledge and 

information.

1 Th e population of Westchester County is 923,000 with 38 independent 

public libraries in its system. Westchester is similar to a number of affl uent 

suburban counties that border major U.S. cities.

2 Westchester’s fi lled reserves included all media, e.g. books on tape, DVDs, 

CDs, and other materials available at libraries. ■

Th e opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily refl ect the views 

or policies of the U.S. government. 
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

Th e U.S. Library of Congress recently 

launched an initiative to create a World Digital 

Library of historic, artistic, and literary works from 

around the globe. Th e project’s goal is to bring 

together online rare and unique items held in U.S. 

and Western repositories with those of other great 

cultures, such as East and South Asia, and the 

Islamic nations stretching from Indonesia through 

Central and West Asia to Africa. “A World Digital 

Library would make these collections available 

free of charge to anyone accessing the Internet,” 

said James H. Billington, head of the Library of 

Congress, “and it could well have the salutary 

eff ect of bringing people together by celebrating 

the depth and uniqueness of diff erent cultures in a 

single global undertaking.”

Billington proposed the concept of a World 

Digital Library in a June 2005 speech to a meeting 

of the United Nations Educational, Scientifi c 

and Cultural Organization. He announced the 

project’s launch in November with a $3-million 

grant from the Web search company Google. Th e 

Library of Congress will use the money to develop 

technical and organizational details and to reach 

out to nations and institutions around the globe 

to participate in this international endeavor. More 

private-sector partners will be sought to provide 

funding and expertise.

Th e World Digital Library builds on major 

digital documentary projects at the Library of 

Congress. Over the past decade, the library has 

digitized more than 10 million items for the 

American Memory Project, a collection of U.S. 

manuscripts, maps, audiovisual recordings, 

photographs, music, and other materials. A second 

project begun in 2000, the Global Gateway, is 

a cooperative eff ort with the national libraries 

of Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Russia, and 

Spain. Th e bilingual multimedia presentations 

concentrate on historical connections between the 

United States and the contributing nations. By 

contrast, the World Digital Library will focus on 

participating nations’ own cultures and histories. 

Th e virtual library will include only materials that 

are in the public domain or made available with 

special permission.

“I believe that we have both an opportunity 

and an obligation as a nation to form a publicprivate partnership to use the new technology 

of the Internet to help celebrate the creative 

cultural variety of the world,” said Billington. 

“Th e dream is that this could make a contribution, 

particularly among young people brought up in 

the multimedia age.”

For more information on the World Digital Library, go to http://

www.loc.gov.

Connecting Cultures on the Internet

Art, literature go online in global library

The United States and Brazil Web site from the Library of 

Congress’s Global Gateway Project is a forerunner of the 

World Digital Library. (Courtesy Library of Congress)


U.S. newspapers are redefi ning themselves in a changing 

media environment. Papers at the forefront of this trend 

are breaking down traditional barriers that have existed 

between their newsrooms and their readers, and bringing 

the audience into the process of shaping the journalistic 

product issued daily in print or online.

Lex Alexander is the citizen journalism coordinator 

for the News & Record of Greensboro, North Carolina.

The growth of burgeoning new media has come 

at the expense of the old. Just a half-century ago, 

newspapers were giants in the media universe. 

Fifty years of expansion in broadcast news and aroundthe-clock cable television news have tumbled newspapers 

from their once dominant position. To hang on to a 

place in the news business, to maintain product viability 

in a more competitive game, and to profi tably remain in 

business, newspapers are moving their products online.

Th e News & Record, with more than a century of 

publishing history in Greensboro, North Carolina, 

adopted a new model for its online product in 2005—

the Town Square, off ering readers more interactivity, 

community journalism, and involvement. Lex Alexander, 

now citizen journalism coordinator at the paper, proposed 

the new concept and spoke with Global Issues managing 

editor Charlene Porter about the new product and the 

public response.

eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Readers Make a Newspaper Th eir Own

An Interview with Lex Alexander

Photo montage: The News & Record of Greensboro, North Carolina, reaches out to 

engage readers with interactive features on its Web site. The Town Square section 

includes staff-written blogs, which contain additional information to stories that appear 

in the paper, and Hometown Hubs, where readers can contribute content. (Courtesy 

News & Record)
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

Alexander: Most of the feedback we’ve gotten has 

been very positive. Some of it has been in the form of 

constructive criticism and some of it has been in the form 

of comments: “We like what you’re doing, keep it up, and 

here is something else you might think about doing.”

Q: Describe the diff erent fora that the News & Record

has created to generate more public involvement in this 

product.

Alexander: Almost the fi rst thing we did was greatly 

expand the number of blogs we were producing. We 

began blogging, as a staff , in the middle of 2004. After 

we announced what we were going to be doing in early 

2005, we began creating a bunch of new blogs because 

staff members had expressed an interest and because it 

really did seem a natural extension of covering a particular 

reporting beat.

We also began looking at ways to increase our overall 

transparency. Th at is, to begin talking more with readers 

about stories we were working on and angles that we 

ought to pursue, talking more with readers about why we 

covered certain stories and not others. Historically, news 

organizations have not talked a lot about the way they 

do their jobs. It was considered bad form, and even bad 

ethics, to make your news organization part of the story. 

Th ere has been a realization in the last few years that in 

some cases the news organization is going to be part of 

the story and that we need to accept that and be willing to 

talk honestly about how and why we do the things we do.

Q: Blogs by your staff are written products by 

the same journalists who have been your primary 

contributors for decades. Do their blogs somehow give 

readers more of the story?

Alexander: Th at’s correct, and we also have the 

capability of including various kinds of fi les with 

blog posts. We can include scans of documents. We 

can include small snippets of audio or video. We can 

include pictures or graphics. We can put a link from 

the blog saying, “If you want to read the entire 48-page 

indictment of John Doe, here’s the link.” In cases where 

documents are an important basis for news stories, our 

editor and I have been encouraging reporters to put those 

documents online so readers can judge whether we are 

reporting on them factually and contextually.

Q: What do citizens, with their involvement, bring 

to your newspaper, your Web product, that reporters and 

editors weren’t providing in the old journalism?

Alexander: A lot of people know more than we do 

about a lot of things. Th e blogs keep readers informed 

about what we’re working on and give readers a basis for 

thinking, “Here is another angle that you guys haven’t 

thought of, or, what you’re looking at isn’t really the 

main issue; the main issue is over here.” I think it enables 

readers to have more confi dence in the quality of our 

reporting.

Beyond that, readers are contributing news of their 

own through our Your News section, where people can 

submit stories to be posted on our Web site. We have two 

special sections of the Web site called Hometown Hubs 

that serve specifi c geographic areas outside Greensboro 

where readers can contribute content. We have a photo 

blog to which readers can contribute photos they’ve 

shot, and we’re looking at other ways to involve readers. 

We want to make newsgathering less of a one-way 

conveyance of information and more of a discussion, a 

dialogue, a conversation.

Q: What do your audience surveys show about how 

people are responding to the blogs?

Alexander: As of October 2005, the most recent 

fi gure I have handy, we’re looking at roughly 450,000 

page views for that month just on our blogs. Th at’s out of 

a total of between 5 million and 6 million page views on 

all of our sites, which include News & Record.com [http://

www.news-record.com], GoTriad.com [http://www.gotriad.

com], our arts and entertainment site, and a couple of 

other sites that we maintain that are primarily revenue 

producing.

Q: What do you conclude from the popularity of the 

new products?

Alexander: I think as more people have gotten 

online and discovered the joys of interacting with other 

people via computer, there has been more interest, 

particularly among younger people, in using the Web as 

a means of getting information and sharing information. 

I think the fact that we’ve developed an audience for the 

blogs is just one example. Th ere obviously is an appetite 

out there for online discussion, so I think we’re meeting 

a need.

Q: How do the blogs and the discussion sites give 

readers an opportunity to feel part of this media product, 

and part of their community?

Alexander: It’s important that we try to fi nd ways of 

building and reinforcing community wherever we can. 

America is becoming an increasingly atomized society, 

and I don’t think the long-term results of that are going 

to be good for our politics, our culture, or our economy. 

Anything we as a newspaper can do to build a sense of 
eJOURNAL USA  GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

community, expand community, and make people feel like 

they’re part of something greater than themselves is going 

to be helpful in the long term.

Q: What contribution has this News & Record online 

community discussion made to the community at large?

Alexander: A lot of the discussion on our 

kindergarten through 12th grade education blog, Th e 

Chalkboard, focused on the school board’s recent decision 

to abandon a lottery-based school attendance system and 

go back to neighborhood 

attendance zones. I can’t prove 

the connection, but the blog 

became an online gathering 

point for people who wanted 

the board to make that 

change. Th ere was a huge 

amount of discussion on that 

issue over an extended period 

of time.

Q: You and some readers 

held quite a debate on your 

blog early this year about 

what’s important in news 

coverage. On the one hand, 

traditional media have long 

been criticized for failing 

to cover stories that are 

important to a community. 

But technology allows you to 

see that stories of the weird, 

the wacky, or the salacious 

attract the most readers, 

rather than those important 

community stories. How do 

you come to terms with that?

Alexander: We know 

what our mission is here at the News & Record, and that is 

to try to give people the news and information they need 

to run their lives and to govern themselves as eff ectively 

and effi ciently as they would like to. We believe there is 

both intrinsic value in that and economic value. We think 

it is a winning business strategy as well as good journalism.

Newspapers have always been interested in getting 

the occasional story in about weird stuff that people talk 

about around the water cooler. I don’t think we’re going to 

be going out and looking for that kind of thing any more 

than we normally do. I think the larger question is, are we 

providing content that people need and want and will use? 

We wrestle with that in print just as we do online.

I think the solution long-term is that we devote our 

scarce—and growing increasingly scarcer—resources to 

carrying out the mission we’ve chosen for ourselves, simply 

because, if we don’t, nobody else is going to. Some stories 

can only be tackled with the fi repower of a full-time 

newspaper staff .

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to be able to cover 

everything we want and need to cover. What I hope 

will happen is that networks of people will evolve in the 

community to fi ll in the gaps 

in our coverage and provide 

more of the local news that 

people say they want.

Q: Are you suggesting 

that you envision clutches 

of citizen journalists who 

provide coverage of the need 

for a new sewer system in their 

neighborhood, for example?

Alexander: Among other 

things, yes. In fact, to a certain 

extent, we’ve already done that 

with our Hometown Hubs. We 

have people in Summerfi eld, 

a town just northwest of 

Greensboro, contributing 

news and photos of interest to 

their neighbors, and it appears 

online. We also take some of 

the best submissions and print 

them in the Sunday edition of 

the paper.

We envision having 

Hometown Hubs not only for 

geographic areas—geographic 

communities—but also for 

communities of interest. For example, youth soccer is a huge 

deal in Greensboro. Th ousands of families are involved. I 

could envision us starting a youth soccer Hometown Hub 

or a youth soccer blog, or both. I imagine that it would 

get a very intense following among the families whose kids 

participate, and that intense following in turn would be of 

interest to certain kinds of advertisers.

One thing that has come up in recent discussions 

about citizen journalism is that very few people actually 

want to be citizen journalists in the sense of going out and 

Photo montage: The News & Record invites readers to submit pictures to a photo 

blog; images include a wedding, a youth soccer game, and a local college football game. 

(Courtesy News & Record)
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

reporting and writing stories or producing video, but they 

do want a role of some kind in the news as discussion, 

as dialogue. We need to fi gure out a variety of ways that 

people can contribute to the community’s total news 

product.

Q: Are you going to pay citizen journalists if they are 

providing content for your newspaper?

Alexander: Th e criticism we frequently get is, 

you’re getting citizens to cover events or issues for free so 

you can cover other things. My response is, no, they’re 

covering things that otherwise wouldn’t be covered at all.

If there is a way for this partnership to generate 

signifi cant revenue—and I think there is, we just haven’t 

found it yet—I hope that we would fi nd a way to share 

that revenue appropriately and proportionately with the 

people who help contribute to the content that brings in 

the revenue.

Q: With the success the News & Record has 

experienced over the last year in creating the Town 

Square, have you regained readership that statistics 

showed was being lost to other electronic media?

Alexander: I don’t know that I could make a blanket 

statement either way. Our last circulation audit showed 

that we did lose a little circulation, but our loss was 

only about half of the industry average. So I don’t know 

whether to score that as a win or a loss.

We do know that our online audience and our online 

advertising revenue both grew dramatically in 2005.

I am confi dent that the online audience is going 

to continue to grow rapidly for the next several years. 

Advertising revenue is going to follow that audience, and 

we need to be in a position to give the audience content 

it wants and needs and capture some of that available ad 

revenue.

But there is a real tension between the kinds of 

stories that would be useful to people, depending on what 

segments of the population they’re in, and the kinds of 

stories that would be of interest only to certain segments 

the advertisers are interested in reaching. You run the risk 

of a kind of journalistic redlining and I worry about that 

from a community-building standpoint, I worry about it 

from a moral standpoint.

At the same time, we’re not a charity. We’re a forprofi t business and we are struggling to fi nd a way to 

ensure our long-term survival. At this point, it is hard 

to know how that tug of war is going to work itself out. 

We’re still wrestling with that issue. It is not resolved and 

I don’t foresee it being resolved any time soon. ■

Th e opinions expressed in this interview do not necessarily refl ect the 

views or policies of the U.S. government.
eJOURNAL USA  GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

In January 2005, at the 

World Economic Forum in 

Switzerland, a man named 

Nicholas Negroponte 

announced a 

plan to design, 

manufacture, and 

distribute laptop 

computers inexpensive enough to give 

every child in the world better access to knowledge and 

modern forms of education.

Access to computers and the Internet is a major 

barrier to closing the global digital divide, and the 

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) nonprofi t organization 

[http://www.laptop.org/], which Negroponte and others 

founded to develop the aff ordable laptop, seeks to bridge 

that gap. Th e goal is to price the laptop at about $100 

initially, and to steadily lower the cost as the technology 

continues to evolve.

Founding chairman of the Media Laboratory at the 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United 

States, Negroponte and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi 

Annan unveiled a prototype of the laptop at the World 

Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia in 

November 2005.

Th e sturdy laptop —called the Green Machine—will 

be made of bright green plastic or rubberized material. 

It’s an inexpensive, robust computer with open-source 

software, very low power consumption, and the capacity 

to be powered by hand cranking.

Th e laptops will have wireless broadband that, 

among other things, allows them to work as a mesh 

network—each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest 

neighbors, creating a temporary local area network. Th e 

laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) 

and will be able to do most everything except store huge 

amounts of data.

OLPC is funding research at the MIT Media Lab 

to develop the $100 laptop. An international company 

called Design Continuum is collaborating on the 

design. Founding corporate members of the OLPC 

board of directors include Google, Rupert Murdoch’s 

media conglomerate News Corporation in the United 

Kingdom, communications giant Nortel, and Advanced 

Micro Devices, a global supplier of integrated circuits. 

Quanta Computer of Taiwan, chosen after the board 

reviewed bids from several possible manufacturing 

companies, will be the original manufacturer for the 

$100 laptop.

Th e laptops will be sold to governments, and 

schools will issue them to children. OLPC has held 

initial discussions about distribution of the machines 

with China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, 

and Th ailand. OLPC will also consider creating a 

commercial version of the machine.

Th e preliminary plan is to have laptops ready 

for shipment by the end of 2006 or early 2007. 

Manufacturing will begin when 5 million to 10 million 

machines have been ordered and paid for in advance.

“Th e biggest hurdle will be manufacturing 100 

million of anything,” Negroponte said in a statement 

on the OLPC Web site. “Th is is not just a supplychain problem but also a design problem. Th e scale 

is daunting, but I fi nd myself amazed at what some 

companies are proposing to us. It feels as though at least 

half the problems are being solved by mere resolve.”

To make sure the laptops reach their intended 

users, the OLPC is a partner in the Connect the World 

initiative of the International Telecommunications 

Union (ITU). During a January ITU roundtable, 

political, business, and development leaders pledged 

their commitment to expand the benefi t of information 

and communications technologies to people worldwide 

by 2015.

Also in January, at the 2006 World Economic 

Forum in Switzerland, United Nations Development 

Programme (UNDP) Administrator Kemal Dervis 

and Negroponte signed an agreement to work together 

with local and international partners to deliver the new 

technology to targeted schools in the least-developed 

countries.

Children in developing nations need laptops, 

Negroponte says, because laptops are a window into the 

world, a tool for thinking, and a vehicle for independent 

interaction and exploration.

The  Laptop

A broad-based consortium works to deliver computers to every child

Photo: The prototype of the $100 laptop computer. (Photograph from 

AP/Wide World Photos)


Software technology that allows writers to easily post 

their own essays on the World Wide Web has challenged 

the traditional role of media organizations as gatekeepers 

to a mass audience. At a steadily increasing pace over the 

last several years, ordinary citizens have made themselves 

into reporters and commentators on the social scene. Th ey 

have made a remarkably rapid ascent onto their own 

platform in the realm of social and political debate. 

Dan Gillmor is director of the Center for Citizen 

Media [http://www.citmedia.org/blog] and author of 

We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, 

for the People. 

I

n late 2002, one of the most powerful members 

of the United States Congress got a lesson in the 

power of new media. At a birthday party for a 

colleague, Senator Trent Lott, a Republican from the 

state of Mississippi, sounded nostalgic for an ugly part of 

America’s past, when racial segregation was offi cial policy 

in much of the land. Th e statement drew little notice 

from the mass media.

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006 eJOURNAL USA

Bloggers Breaking Ground in Communication

Dan Gillmor

Photo montage: Bloggers and their blogs are as diverse as the people who write them. 

They may be college students interested in politics, soldiers on active duty, self-styled 

journalists who write their own Internet journals covering events relevant to their 

interests, or students swapping experiences about their lives and education. 

(All photos from AP/Wide World Photos)
eJOURNAL USA 

But some writers of the then-nascent Internet 

journals called weblogs, or blogs for short, were not so 

willing to let it go. From the political left and right, 

the bloggers, as these writers have come to be known, 

expressed outrage. Some of their ire was directed at the 

media for its inattention, and after a few days of the 

bloggers’ attacks, major media organizations decided 

to cover the story. A few days after that, Lott’s support 

among his colleagues dwindled and he ultimately stepped 

down from his Senate Republican leadership post.

Th e incident was an early warning of sorts, for 

politicians, public fi gures of all kinds, and people in 

the media. It signaled the accelerating evolution of 

communications. Blogs were coming into their own, and 

they have become more and more of a force.

What are blogs, exactly? Th ere’s no single defi nition, 

but most have at least three things in common. Th ey are 

typically composed of short essays, also called postings. 

Th e postings are shown in reverse chronological order 

—that is, most recent items at the top. And they have 

hyperlinks pointing to other Web pages.

Blogs are a conversational medium. Many of the best 

blogs let readers post comments, and bloggers are fond of 

pointing at each others’ work to highlight and discuss it.

Th ey are also conversational because the best blogs 

are written with a distinctly human voice. We can 

contrast this with the typical newspaper article, which 

feels as though it was written according to a formula and 

by a committee, not a person. Th e blog’s very humanity is 

a vital boost to the form.

Blogs should also be understood in their wider 

context, as a proxy for the many diff erent ways that 

average Internet users are now able to publish (in a variety 

of formats, including audio and video) their own works 

online. Th is is part of the democratization of media, both 

in creation and distribution. Th e tools we use to create 

digital content are increasingly powerful but decreasingly 

expensive. And we can show our work to a potentially 

global audience. Th ere is no analog in human history for 

this development.

According to the Pew Internet Project, a nonprofi t 

organization researching the Internet’s impact on various 

aspects of American life, blog reading has risen along with 

blog creation. More than a quarter of the U.S. population 

has read a blog and, while the numbers fl attened 

somewhat during 2005, mass-media coverage has given 

blogs higher visibility than ever.

Bloggers have won the most attention for their 

writing about highly topical issues in politics, technology, 

and other such fi elds. But we must recognize that most 

blogs—the vast majority of the millions now online—are 

not aimed at large audiences yet have high value. For 

some bloggers, their online journals have essentially 

replaced the traditional letter home to family and close 

friends. Th e value the reader gains from those highly 

personal blogs must surely be higher per reader than the 

equivalent value of the most popular sites.

Blogging took off fi rst in the United States. Th is 

was predictable, given that the early online tools came 

from U.S. software developers. But it is becoming a 

global phenomenon. China, for example, has some 5 

million bloggers, a rough estimate and a relatively low 

percentage of the population. More and more Chinese 

people are launching their own blogs despite censorship 

by government (with the assistance of technology 

companies). Africa has the lowest blogger numbers of any 

continent; Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of the Global 

Voices Online project at Harvard University’s Berkman 

Center for Internet & Society, says the best estimates 

suggest there are about 10,000 bloggers in sub-Saharan 

Africa. Numbers are growing in the Middle East and 

North Africa, he says, with some 50,000 mostly young 

people posting to their blogs.

Among the most ardent blogging nations outside 

the United States is France, with more than 2 million 

bloggers, according to software executive Loic Le Meur. 

Th ey’re having an impact. He says three government 

ministers have invited bloggers to interview them; Le 

Meur was himself part of one of those sessions. He notes 

that blogs are becoming one of the most important means 

of expression in that nation and are causing some worry 

in the ranks of mainstream journalism.

Th e relationship between bloggers and journalists 

has been noteworthy. Some professionals jumped into 

blogging enthusiastically. Others have dismissed the 

entire genre.

I started what is believed to have been the fi rst blog 

by an American mass-media journalist in 1999, when 

blogging software was only just beginning to appear. 

I was writing about technology, and the blog, which 

appeared in addition to my newspaper column at the San 

Jose Mercury News in California’s Silicon Valley, became 

an essential part of my job. Why? Because it enabled 

me to have more of a conversation with my readers. I’d 

learned quickly, writing about technology in Silicon 

Valley, the heart of the high-tech industry, that my 

readers collectively knew much more than I did, and the 

blog was another way of learning.

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006


Since then, blogging has slowly intersected with 

the news business. Th e Pew Internet Project found that 

American journalists are much more likely to read blogs 

than the general public. Th is is unsurprising, because 

blogs are serving a role somewhat like the trade journals, 

which are valuable source material for reporters in any 

number of disciplines.

Even now, however, most professional journalists do 

not publish blogs. Th e format, 

which tends to encourage 

a personal voice, has felt 

somewhat unnatural to 

professionals who are trained 

to keep their own feelings 

and beliefs out of what they 

write and broadcast. Opinion 

columnists are the obvious 

exception to this general 

rule, and several business 

columnists have been among 

the best in the genre, off ering 

deeper insights into the 

issues they cover in the print 

editions. Th is approach is also 

working well for journalists 

who cover other kinds of 

topics, notably entertainment.

Blogs can also bring 

a quality to news coverage 

that is still somewhat rare: 

transparency. News people 

demand transparency from 

others but have typically been 

less willing to shine lights 

on their own business. Th is is changing for the better, 

and blogs are a useful tool in that process. CBS News’s 

PublicEye blog, for example, off ers insights into the 

broadcaster’s own operations.

Blogs have turned out to be particularly well suited 

to breaking news, such as natural disasters, about which 

readers are hungry for every scrap of new information. 

In one especially notable case, the blog replaced the front 

page for a time. Th e New Orleans Times-Picayune, forced 

out of its own building along with other residents of 

the city that was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, 

helped keep its readers informed via a blog when the print 

edition couldn’t be published.

Blogs by journalists make up a tiny percentage of 

all blogs, of course. Some bloggers do superb journalism 

on their own, competing for attention from readers and 

respect from sources. Bill Gates, the co-founder and 

chairman of Microsoft Corporation, has given interviews 

to bloggers who write only online. Other corporate 

executives are learning that key bloggers can be an 

excellent conduit to the general public.

Inevitably, media companies have considered 

capturing the best blogging talent for themselves. One 

company, Weblogs Inc., a 

producer of niche blogs on 

topics like technology and 

automobiles, was purchased by 

Time Warner’s AOL division 

for a reported $15 million. 

More such deals are likely.

But even if major media 

organizations try to co-opt the 

blogging movement, they can’t 

succeed. Th e fi nancial barrier 

to entry in this marketplace is 

close to zero already. Anyone 

with talent and time can create 

a blog—or podcast or other 

media site—without spending 

a fortune.

It is also inevitable that 

the rise of blogging has led to 

questions and criticisms about 

bloggers’ frequent willingness 

to shoot verbally before 

aiming. Nor are fairness and 

thoroughness thought to be 

among bloggers’ best qualities. 

But in a marketplace of ideas, 

inaccuracies tend to be found and pointed out, and 

reputations rise and fall on quality to a serious degree. 

Meanwhile, the readers of blogs are learning to apply 

appropriate skepticism to what they read online.

Blogs and related citizen media are not going away. 

Th ey have become a liberating venue for people’s voices. 

A longstanding maxim of American media has held that 

freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press. In 

the new era of digital media, we all own a press—and the 

more voices, the better. ■

Th e opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily refl ect the views 

or policies of the U.S. government.

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006 eJOURNAL USA

Photo montage: The number of bloggers around the world increases daily. Blogs in 

Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, and Japanese are among the millions of blogs on the 

Internet. (All photographs from AP/Wide World Photos)
eJOURNAL USA  GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Photographers have translated the language of their 

art into new Web-based media opportunities. Many 

photoblogs are visual online journals that chronicle 

family, friends, or the life and activities of a community. 

Others are like galleries, giving photographers a place to 

present their work to an audience without the intervention 

of a publisher or patron.

Using technology that makes it easy to upload, 

disseminate, and display images, some photoblogs began 

simply as a way to share moments of celebration and 

family life with relatives and friends spread across the 

country. Soon, other visitors found their way to personal 

photoblogs through Internet searches, and broader 

audiences began to share family albums.

Th e photoblog is a unique new Web-born medium, 

attracting ever-greater audiences through the universal 

appeal of images.

Online Albums

Twenty-three-year-old photographer Justin Ouellette shares his 

work and insights into his life in Portland, Oregon, at chromogenic.

net. He also describes his photographic techniques and experiments, such as developing fi lm in coffee and Vitamin C. “I’m not a 

chemist so I have no idea how it works, but it’s true.” ( Justin Ouellette, http://chromogenic.net)

Th e U.S. Department of State assumes no responsibility for the content 

and availability of the photoblogs.
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

Bottom right: Everyday life, like this photo taken in her kitchen, is 

the focus of Raine Paré-Coull. Raine describes herself as a Halloween enthusiast, and her photoblog documents the spooky fun of 

her family celebration. (Copyright © Raine Paré-Coull, 

http://yard-sale.phototage.com)

Top: Rannie Turingan’s photoblog features pictures of his friends 

and his community in Toronto, Canada. “Despite being in an age 

where digital cameras are ruling the marketplace, my heart still 

yearns for fi lm,” and he’s created his site to share the images taken 

with cameras based on an older technology. (Copyright © Rannie 

Turingan, http://photojunkie.my-expressions.com)

Bottom left: Derek Powazek takes photos in San Francisco and 

posts them online at ephemera.org everyday. He’s a professional 

photographer who recognizes the fl eeting nature of his art. 

Derek writes, “Ephemera means temporary. Short-lived. Ephemeral things don’t last very long. Like a May Fly or the split second a 

shutter is open. Or web pages. Or us.” (Courtesy Derek Powazek, 

http://www.ephemera.org)
eJOURNAL USA  GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Top: Marc Balanky’s photoblog displays the range of his experience as a professional photographer, from coverage of a sailing 

trip to rock concerts and food spreads. Marc also uses his camera 

to showcase his hometown of San Diego, California, what he calls 

“America’s Finest City from its striking deserts to its beautiful 

beaches.” (Marc Balanky, PhotoSanDiego.com 

[http://www.photosandiego.com])

Bottom: A hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is 

one of many images of the western United States on Tonya Poole’s 

photoblog at http://vivo.my-expressions.com. “I experience life, and I 

come back and tell stories about it in words and images. You’re welcome to come along on any of my journeys, be they inside, outside 

or upside down.” (Tonya Poole, adventurejournalist.com)
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

Top: George Illes is an environmental engineer living in Orange 

County, California, who currently pursues photography as a hobby. 

He’s posted a photo a day to his blog, trying to learn how to see 

the extraordinary in the ordinary. “Doing so is a reminder that I 

don’t need to scale Mount Everest or write the Great American 

Novel or ‘become somebody’ to see that every moment is unique. 

That, in fact, there are no ordinary moments. Only extraordinary 

ones.” His work can be seen at www.jargonhunter.com. (Courtesy 

George Illes)

Bottom: The winners of the Ultimate Frisbee National Championships celebrate in this photo from Paul Bausch’s weblog, http://www.

onfocus.com. Paul is a Web application developer and technical 

writer in Corvallis, Oregon. He has published several books on 

emerging technology, which he discusses at his Web site, where he 

also features his own photos. “I like to take pictures.” (Copyright © 

Paul Bausch) 
eJOURNAL USA  GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Top right: This photograph of a young boy diving into a swimming 

pool is typical of the everyday life experiences shared at 

http://photo.bfpmedia.com. This is one shot from the photographer’s 

chronicle of her life in the island state of Hawaii. (Christine Fron)

Top left: A self-portrait of Becky Ramotowski with equipment 

she uses to capture the heavens—stars, moons, and planets—in 

pictures. She’s an astronomer and started the blog because of the 

Moon, she writes. “We are pretty lucky to have a Moon. Mercury 

and Venus are moonless. Jupiter has the most with sixty-three. 

Without a Moon, we would not have eclipses, nor would we have 

anything to blame our weird behavior on.”

(Becky Ramotowski, http://www.infi nity.my-expressions.com) 

Bottom: On her photoblog, Brenda Fike captures moments from 

her life and captions this image, “In a hurry ... It’s only a 30 day 

free trial!” Haircuts, bowling, and moments at the mall are other 

ordinary moments that take unusual shape in her galleries. 

(Copyright © Brenda Fike, http://bkf.my-expressions.com)
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

Top: A boy running through farm fi elds was photographed by Kathleen Connally for her photoblog, A Walk Through Durham Township, 

Pennsylvania. Connally began her blog in 2003, primarily to practice 

her photography and to document the people and places near 

her home. Kathleen writes to visitors, “Some images work, some 

don’t—you’re witnessing a daily work in progress!” (Copyright © 

Kathleen Connally, www.durhamtownship.com)

Bottom: A young man riding the subway is one of the scenes of 

New York City that fi lls the photoblog, joe’s nyc. In 2006, Joe becomes adjunct faculty at New York University’s school of continuing 

and professional studies, teaching digital photography. 

(Copyright © Joseph O. Holmes, http://joesnyc.streetnine.com)
eJOURNAL USA  GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Making Connections a World Away

Advances in information technologies have become so 

accessible and economical that average people are able to 

reach far beyond their own communities to connect with 

new people, sharing interests or pursuits with people who 

may have vastly diff erent backgrounds and experiences. 

Th e outcomes of these connections unfold in unpredictable 

ways with each passing day of the Information Age now 

defi ning our times.

In the articles that follow, we highlight several online 

communities in which participants have found each other 

and created critical mass to bring vigor to interests that 

may never have found a chance to thrive otherwise.

Speaking in Many Tongues

The English language has long dominated the 

Internet, accounting for about 83 percent of 

total content, according to Th e Internet Society. 

But when you visit the pages of Wikipedia [http://www.

wikipedia.org.]—the free, collaboratively-edited, Internetbased encyclopedia—you’ll fi nd a dazzling diversity of 

languages. Articles in the encyclopedia and the other 

communications projects that constitute Wikimedia 

[http://www.wikipedia.org.] are available in languages from 

Esperanto to Hawaiian to Navajo, gaining considerable 

ground on English, German, French, Polish, and 

Japanese, which remain the most prevalent languages on 

Wikipedia.

“It started in an organic, ad hoc way,” says Samuel 

Photo montage: People with similar interests, separated by geographical distance, are 

able to share information, ideas, and goals through such Web sites as Native Youth

Magazine.com, Youth Radio, and Wikipedia. (Courtesy Native Youth Magazine.com, Youth 

Radio, and Wikipedia)
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

Klein, one of hundreds of administrators who monitors 

multilingual content for Wiki sites. “New people who 

are multilingual see the community exists, they fi nd the 

existing pages, and they join in,” Klein adds.

Since its start in 2001, Wikipedia has grown to 

a worldwide cadre of volunteer contributors. Th ese 

contributors, now some 30,000, can create, edit, 

translate, expand, and proofread articles—their own or 

those of other users. Remarkably, despite its growing size 

and complexity, Wikipedia projects are still developed 

in a loosely organized, nonhierarchical method that has 

attracted widespread involvement from contributors in 

non-English-speaking countries.

Boston-based Klein was attracted, too, by the 

international nature of Wikipedia. “I began a mailing list 

early last year to encourage users to sign up to a translators 

list and identify themselves if they were interested and had 

some skill in translations,” he explains. “It’s now possible to 

quickly list people who speak Spanish at a certain level, for 

example. People have also started adding information boxes 

to their pages identifying their skills in various languages.”

Translations occur through personal interests, 

referrals, and sometimes by accident. “For example, 

if I write an article on pineapples and another person 

writes an article on pineapples in Spanish, we may not 

know that the other article exists,” Klein explains. “Some 

third party can come along, see that there’s an article 

on pineapples in English and another related article in 

Spanish, probably talking about the same thing, and 

make a link between them.” Articles can link to the other 

languages for which there is related content. About 4,000 

new articles are produced each day in languages other 

than English; about 2,000 are produced each day in 

English. 

Other Wiki products have proliferated, all using 

collaborative methods and most in many language 

versions. Th ese include Wiktionary, a multilingual 

dictionary; Wikiquotes, featuring quotes from individuals 

as well as from books, poetry, and fi lms; Wikibooks, with 

educational and practical texts and manuals; Wikisource, 

a multilingual library of source texts; and the daily 

WikiNews.

Users can announce new or interesting information 

available for translation to other users. Wikimedia users 

can locate others with foreign language skills and suggest 

translation projects.

Th e Wikimedia translators also have a Translation of 

the Week Initiative, in which an unusual project or article 

is chosen by a vote every week. A style guide describes 

how to do translations and instructs on how to link the 

translations with other languages.

One of the latest projects does not rely primarily 

on language at all. Wikimedia Commons, another 

subpage on the vast Wikimedia site, is a repository that 

emphasizes the audio-visual—photos and other graphic 

images, spoken text, video clips, and music. Th ese media 

can be shared by the other Wikimedia projects, enriching 

and expanding the access and reach of the Internet to 

global users each day.

Native American Youth Share 

Dreams Online

Native American young people have a place on the 

Internet where they can communicate with their peers, 

share information about their communities and culture, 

and inspire each other to pursue their dreams. Th e Web 

site Native Youth Magazine.com (NYM) [http://www.

nativeyouthmagazine.com] was launched July 1, 2005, 

and six months later was logging about 2 million hits per 

month.

Th e brainchild of television news reporter Mary Kim 

Titla, NYM clearly is fulfi lling the need she saw for an 

online magazine that showcases the talents, ideas, and 

lifestyles of Native American youth. Th e Web site invites 

young people between age 12 and 25 to submit articles, 

poetry, photographs, and artwork. Th e magazine is a 

vehicle for sharing information, but also for developing 

the talents of its readers.

Native youth from across the United States and 

Canada have responded, and their stories appear in the 

magazine’s Profi les section. A 23-year-old Choctaw Indian 

from Mississippi writes, “I am proud that we still have our 

Choctaw language and heritage. My tribe is doing its very 

Why “Wiki”? Wiki is a piece of server software 

that allows users to freely create and edit Web page 

content using any Web browser. Wiki supports 

hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating 

new pages and crosslinks between internal pages.

—From the WikiWay Website
eJOURNAL USA  GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

best to keep it alive!” A 14-year-old Navajo from Arizona 

describes his land: “Th e Navajo Nation extends into the 

states of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, covering over 

27,000 square miles [about 70,000 square kilometers] of 

unparalleled beauty.” An 18-year-old from Wisconsin says, 

“I’m a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior 

Chippewa Tribe. ... My goal for the future is to play 

college basketball.”

Under Native Youth News, readers fi nd a variety of 

topics, including a Native American youth art exhibit, a 

college course in Native American culture, a university 

program that off ers free tuition to students from lowincome families, and a story about the naming of a new 

director for the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges 

and Universities. NYM also devotes pages to sports, 

photographs, a calendar, and a message board.

Mary Kim Titla, a member of the San Carlos Apache 

Tribe, spent 18 years as a television news reporter in 

Arizona. Interest in her people and in the concerns of 

Native American youth in particular led Titla to develop 

Native Youth Magazine.com. To fi nd out what young 

readers wanted to see on a Web site, she conducted online 

surveys and consulted with her three sons (ages 10, 15, 

and 19), as well as with nieces, nephews, and other young 

Native people, who continue to advise her. “Native 

American youth from all over serve as consultants,” she 

said, “because this Web site is for them.”

In December 2005, Titla resigned from television 

news to devote her eff orts to NYM full time. “I’ve 

enjoyed being a TV news journalist,” she said, “but I 

believe my calling is now about molding young Native 

storytellers, and through the magazine I can help 

showcase their talents and lifestyles.”

Young Voices on the Radio

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 

audiences can tune in to the sounds and stories of young 

people on Web Radio at http://www.youthradio.org/

webradio. Dedicated to keeping young people up to date 

on what’s going on in the world, the online radio station 

features news, commentary, and the latest in popular 

music.

Web Radio is a natural extension of the activities 

of Youth Radio, a youth development and media 

organization that has been producing radio programming 

since 1992. Founded by broadcast journalist Ellin 

O’Leary, Youth Radio’s mission is “to promote young 

people’s intellectual, creative, and professional growth 

through training and access to media, and to produce 

the highest-quality original media for local and national 

outlets.” Young people write, record, and produce their 

own programs, with the guidance of adult professionals.

Topics covered on Youth Radio are as varied as the 

interests of today’s youth—from everyday concerns like 

getting along with schoolmates to the war on terrorism. 

Recent international reports have included a story 

about a 26-year-old female candidate for Parliament in 

Afghanistan; a black student’s adjustment to university 

life in Cape Town, South Africa; and the perspective of 

a young American living in London during the 2005 

subway bombings.

Youth Radio can be heard across the United States 

on the National Public Radio network and on local 

commercial and noncommercial stations, including 

several Spanish-language outlets. Besides tuning in 

to Web Radio, international listeners can fi nd Youth 

Radio programming on the BBC (British Broadcasting 

Corporation) and the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting 

Corporation). Based in Berkeley, California, Youth Radio 

has bureaus in Washington, D.C.; Atlanta, Georgia; and 

Los Angeles, California. Correspondents report from all 

over the world.

With support from foundations, corporate sponsors, 

and government agencies, Youth Radio conducts free 

training courses in all aspects of radio production, as 

well as Web, video, and music production. Berkeley-area 

youngsters age 14 to 17 may apply to attend the 12-week 

courses, which are taught by professional journalists, 

audio engineers, and music producers and programmers.

Course participants are 80 percent low income and 

80 percent youth of color.

“But technical training is only part of the picture,” 

according to Youth Radio’s mission statement. “Th rough 

journalism education, Youth Radio students also 

strengthen their foundation in basic life-skills: verbal 

expression, writing, computer technology, critical 

thinking, confl ict resolution, and more. ... Graduates 

emerge with a new confi dence and hope for creating a 

positive professional future for themselves, and with the 

concrete skills and contacts to get them there.” ■

Th e opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily refl ect the views 

or policies of the U.S. government.
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

Internet2—Creating Tomorrow’s Internet

Heather Boyles

A broad consortium of organizations works internationally 

to develop the Internet of tomorrow, allowing research 

and collaborative relationships that can foster greater 

innovation, stronger collaboration, and better education. 

Heather Boyles is director of international relations for 

Internet2.

I

nternet2 is a not-for-profi t U.S.-based consortium 

led by 208 U.S. research universities working 

in partnership with 70 corporations; nearly 50 

government agencies, laboratories, and associations; and 

more than 45 international partners to develop, deploy, 

and use advanced network technologies to accelerate the 

creation of tomorrow’s Internet. To enable researchers, 

scientists, and students to participate in this cuttingedge technology research, Internet2 has deployed a 

high-performance network across the United States 

called Abilene. Th e network connects 240 of Internet2’s 

member institutions and 34 state education networks, and 

interconnects with similar leading-edge research networks 

in other countries. Abilene is engineered with the most 

cutting-edge network capabilities to give users speeds 

thousands of times faster than typical home broadband 

connections.

Photo montage: An international consortium is working to develop the next 

generation of the Internet. Their efforts already have made it possible to conduct 

educational demonstrations in real time by streaming high-quality digital video; to 

produce and share three-dimensional, digital images of precious artifacts; and to 

connect expensive scientifi c equipment, such as electron microscopes, for multiple 

users at different locations. (Clockwise from top left: Courtesy http://www.internet2.edu 

(2); Bradley University; Stanford University)
 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Internet2 and its partners are working to 

fundamentally change the way we live, learn, work, and 

play. Our community believes the network of the future 

will support a whole new set of applications—immersive 

collaboration environments, real-time computationintensive simulations, high-defi nition television-quality 

video on demand, and others that probably can’t even be 

imagined today. Already, students around the world can 

experience live real-time demonstrations of underwater 

exploration with famed oceanographer Dr. Bob Ballard, 

using DVD-quality 

videoconferencing technology, 

or dissect an anatomy 

specimen thousands of miles 

away with remote surgical 

instruments. Meteorologists 

at the National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration 

use Abilene to make faster 

and more accurate severe 

weather predictions; 

astronomers control 

telescopes located in the 

remote regions of Hawaii and 

Chile without leaving their 

home institutions.

As these examples 

illustrate, research and 

education have become 

increasingly collaborative and 

dependent on simultaneous 

access to facilities, data, 

and people located around 

the world. It is no longer 

suffi cient for U.S. researchers 

to have access to a highperformance, dedicated 

U.S.-centric network infrastructure. Th e same kind of 

dedicated, high-performance network infrastructure is 

needed internationally. To support and promote this 

worldwide cooperation, Internet2 created an international 

relations program to partner with similar organizations 

around the world to interconnect Internet2’s U.S. 

network with its global counterparts. Together with the 

international research community, Internet2 believes that 

global collaboration will foster innovation in areas ranging 

from science and medicine to the arts, and will enhance 

economic growth in developing nations.

Today, many countries have established dedicated, 

high-performance National Research and Education 

Networks (NRENs) to support the needs of their own 

research and education communities. NRENs can be 

found in almost all the countries of western, central, and 

eastern Europe; most of Asia-Pacifi c; an increasing number 

of countries in southeastern and southern Asia; and in 

several countries in northern Africa and Latin America.

Th e value of each NREN is multiplied as individual 

networks connect to form a global research and education 

network infrastructure. 

Today, a typical NREN has 

to connect into only one or 

two other NRENs to reach 

the entire international 

research community. Th is 

high-performance network 

infrastructure is used to 

support, for example, 

thousands of researchers from 

dozens of countries involved 

in the Large Hadron Collider 

experiments at CERN 

(European Organization for 

Nuclear Research) in Geneva, 

Switzerland. Th e commercial 

Internet is simply not capable 

of transferring the massive 

data sets required for this 

type of experimentation 

between participating research 

institutes.

NRENs also support 

domestic and international 

collaboration in the arts 

and humanities and health 

sciences. For example, 

Stanford University’s HAVNet project (Haptic Audio 

Visual Network for Education and Training) illustrates 

how medical students are gaining hands-on surgical 

training from remote experts thanks to advanced 

connectivity. Whether dissecting virtual hands, performing 

surgical procedures on simulators, or witnessing a surgery 

remotely, students are able to participate in the learning 

process from multiple locations simultaneously. Likewise, 

Photo montage: The Internet2 consortium includes 208 U.S. research universities; 70 

corporations; nearly 50 government agencies, laboratories, and associations; and more 

than 45 international partners. (Courtesy http://www.internet2.edu)
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

specialists from around the world are able to connect 

virtually to work with students on unique procedures—

even physically guiding a student’s hands from a remote 

location as they attempt a surgical simulation. Th is type 

of intensive instruction produces more informed, more 

prepared medical students who are better equipped to 

head into the operating room.

A recent U.S. National Science Foundationsponsored workshop on the subject of a digital library of 

the Middle East illustrated that the humanities can also 

benefi t from international NREN connectivity. Precious 

artifacts of the Middle East are now being digitized, many 

using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, to 

produce three-dimensional virtual objects. Th rough highperformance research and education networks, researchers 

around the world can examine and manipulate these 

rare objects from afar, with access granted to many more 

scholars than previously would have been allowed to 

physically handle the artifacts.

Pooling resources to interconnect universities 

in a country and then to other university networks 

is as critical for the higher education and research 

communities of a developing country as for a developed 

one. Developing countries are increasingly looking 

to NRENs as an important way to expand their own 

research and higher-education enterprises. For example, 

scanning electron microscopes—instruments that use 

atomic particles called electrons rather than light to 

form an image—are typically too expensive for every 

university to aff ord. By connecting these microscopes to 

an advanced network, it is possible for users to remotely 

control the microscope to examine their specimen via a 

high-quality digital image.

In developed and developing countries, obtaining 

better access to the underlying telecommunications 

infrastructure has proven crucial to the success of NREN 

eff orts. In many countries, the NREN has played a key 

role in fostering the development of new communications 

infrastructures. For example, in Poland, the NREN was 

successful in partnering with the railroad company to lay 

new fi ber-optic cable across the country. Now, PIONIER, 

the university and research network of Poland, has access 

to dark fi ber (fi ber-optic cable that is in place but not yet 

in use)—the raw element of building a high-performance 

network—and is no longer beholden to a traditional 

telecommunications provider’s services. Poland, the Czech 

Republic, Slovakia, and other countries of Eastern Europe 

have all followed this model, at times leapfrogging the 

NRENs of Western European countries in their ability to 

access high-speed fi ber infrastructure.

Internet2 and its international partners will continue 

building the dedicated, high-performance network 

infrastructure in support of the research, teaching, 

and learning needs of the global community. Based 

on Internet2’s experience so far, the innovation and 

experiences of this community and its interest in building 

advanced network infrastructure will lead to a smarter, 

faster, more reliable, and more secure Internet. In doing 

so, we will enable new ways to conduct science, to 

engage in business, to educate anytime and anywhere, 

and to bring communities and families together in rich 

new ways. Th e research and education community is 

optimistic that such an Internet will be realized through 

the combined eff orts of organizations like Internet2 all 

over the world. ■

Th e opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily refl ect the views 

or policies of the U.S. government.
 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Commerce online has brought crime online. Law 

enforcement agencies have developed new methods and 

new relationships to catch the bad guys in cyberspace.

Daniel Larkin is unit chief of the Internet Crime 

Complaint Center (IC3) at the U.S. Federal Bureau of 

Investigation (FBI).

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a 

reporting and referral system for Internet crime 

complaints from people in the United States and 

around the world. Th rough an online complaint form 

and a team of agents and analysts, IC3 serves the public 

and U.S. and international law enforcement agencies 

investigating Internet crime.

Internet crime, also called cyber crime, is any illegal 

activity arising from one or more Internet components, 

such as Web sites, chat rooms, or e-mail. Cyber crime 

can include everything from nondelivery of goods or 

services and computer intrusions (hacking) to intellectual 

property rights abuses, economic espionage (theft of 

trade secrets), online extortion, international money 

laundering, identity theft, and a growing list of other 

Internet-facilitated off enses.

Fighting Online Crime

Daniel Larkin

Photo montage: The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a clearinghouse 

for individuals’ reports of illegal online activities. IC3 connects information from, 

perhaps, hundreds of victims of the same scam and builds a substantial case for law 

enforcement agencies to pursue. (Photograph from AP/Wide World Photos; Logos 

courtesy Internet Crime Complaint Center)
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

Crime Moves Online

Th e IC3 began as a concept in 1998 with an 

appropriate recognition that crime was moving to the 

Internet because business was moving to the Internet, 

and the FBI wanted to be able to track that activity and 

develop investigative techniques specifi c to Internet 

crimes.

At that time there was no single place where people 

could report Internet-related crimes, and the Federal 

Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wanted to distinguish online 

crime from other criminal acts that are normally reported 

to local police, the FBI and other federal law enforcement 

agencies, the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Postal 

Inspection Service (USPIS—the law enforcement arm of 

the U.S. Postal Service), and others.

Th e fi rst offi ce, set up in 1999 in Morgantown, West 

Virginia, was called the Internet Fraud Complaint Center. 

It was a partnership between the FBI and the National 

White Collar Crime Center, a nonprofi t contractor to 

the U.S. Department of Justice whose primary mission is 

to improve the ability of state and local law enforcement 

offi cers to identify and respond to economic and cyber 

crime.

In 2002, to clarify the scope of cyber crime being 

analyzed, from simple fraud to the range of criminal 

activities that were appearing online, the center was 

renamed the Internet Crime Complaint Center and the 

FBI invited other federal agencies—USPIS, the Federal 

Trade Commission, the Secret Service, and others—to 

help staff the center and contribute to the work on cyber 

crime.

Today at the IC3 in Fairmont, West Virginia, six 

federal agents and approximately 40 analysts from 

industry and academia receive Internet-related criminal 

complaints from the public, then research, develop, 

and refer the complaints to federal, state, local, and 

international law enforcement or regulatory agencies and 

multiagency task forces for investigation.

Th rough an IC3 Web site [http://www.ic3.gov], people 

from all over the world can fi le complaints about Internet 

crime. Th e Web site asks for a person’s name, mailing 

address, and telephone number; the name, address, 

telephone number, and Web address, if available, of the 

individual or organization suspected of criminal activity; 

details about how, why, and when a person believes a 

crime was committed; and any other information that 

supports the complaint.

Building a Case

Th e main operational goal of the IC3 is to take an 

individual citizen’s complaint that might represent a crime 

involving damages of, for example, $100, and combine it 

with information from 100 or 1,000 other victims around 

the world who have lost money in the same scenario, and 

build that into a substantial case as quickly as possible.

Th e reality is that most law enforcement agencies 

are not allowed to work cases that represent relatively 

small amounts of money—$100 is probably below the 

investigative threshold. But most bad guys are online to 

expand the scope of their victimization and moneymaking 

opportunities; a cyber crime almost never involves just one 

victim. So if IC3 investigators can link related complaints 

and turn them into a $10,000 or $100,000 case with 

100 or 1,000 victims, then the crime becomes a more 

signifi cant matter and law enforcement agencies will be 

able to investigate it.

IC3 sometimes helps law enforcement agencies by 

researching and building the initial case. In the fi rst two 

and a half years of the project, despite an eff ort to build 

cases and refer them quickly to law enforcement agencies, 

IC3 investigators found that not all cyber crime task forces 

are equipped to quickly follow or investigate Internetrelated crimes. Some task forces may not have the ability 

to do an undercover operation or the equipment to follow 

the digital trail of evidence the IC3 passes on to them, so 

it’s increasingly important for IC3 to develop and follow 

the trail and build the initial case.

For example, the IC3 might identify 100 victims and 

determine that the criminal activity seems to be coming 

from a server in Canada, but actually that server is just 

a compromised machine. Th e bad guys are using it as a 

“bounce point” to mask their real location. So it is useful 

for IC3 analysts to learn more about the bounce point. It 

might be that a group in Texas, West Africa, or Romania is 

using the server in Canada to collect victim information.

Industry Alliances

Because IC3 analysts have found that it is better in 

some complex technical cases to follow the early investigative 

trail, the center created a spin-off for that purpose in 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, called the Cyber Initiative and 

Resource Fusion Unit (CIRFU). CIRFU analysts eliminate 

false leads and refi ne a case before it is referred to a local or 

international law enforcement agency or task force.
 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

CIRFU is supported by some of the biggest targets 

of cyber criminals—online organizations and merchants 

like Microsoft, eBay/PayPal, and America Online, and 

industry trade associations like the Business Software 

Alliance, the Direct Marketing Association, the Merchant 

Risk Council, the Financial Services Industry, and others. 

Investigators and analysts from these organizations, many 

of whom are already working on cyber crime issues, have 

joined CIRFU to identify 

Internet crime trends and 

technologies, develop 

signifi cant cases, and help 

law enforcement agencies 

worldwide identify and 

combat Internet crimes.

At the CIRFU, federal 

agents and analysts from 

industry and academia work 

together to fi nd out where 

the crime originates, who 

is behind it, and how to 

fi ght it. When the CIRFU 

hears from an industry 

group about a specifi c 

trend or problem, the unit 

forms an initiative to target 

some of the top off enders 

and make arrests, and not 

only prosecute them but 

learn more about how they 

operate. Th en IC3 informs 

the public about the trends 

and scams through a public 

service advisory or alert that 

is posted on the IC3 Web site 

or disseminated in other ways.

Based on consumer complaints and industry data, 

the investigators monitor trends and problems and form 

six- to 12-month initiatives with industry partners to 

target specifi c criminal activities, including the following:

 • Reshipping: An operation in which conspirators 

or unwitting accomplices in the United States are hired 

to receive packages of electronic or other merchandise 

bought with fraudulent or stolen credit cards, then 

repackage the merchandise for shipment, usually abroad. 

By the time the merchant fi nds out that the credit card 

was fraudulent, the merchandise is already in another 

country.

 • Criminal spam: Unsolicited bulk e-mail that is used 

to commit fi nancial institution fraud, credit card fraud, 

identity theft, and other crimes. Spam can also act as 

a vehicle for accessing computers and servers without 

authorization and transmitting viruses and invasive 

software to other computers.

 • Phishing: Attempts to steal passwords and fi nancial 

information by posing as a trustworthy person or 

business in a seemingly 

offi cial (spoofed) electronic 

communication, such as an 

e-mail or a Web site.

 • Identity theft: Th e result 

of an off ender using someone’s 

stolen personal information 

to commit fraud or other 

crimes. One bit of personal 

information is all someone 

needs to steal an identity.

International Outreach

Th e IC3 also works with 

international organizations, 

such as the Economic and 

Financial Crimes Commission 

(EFCC) in Nigeria, where a 

high level of economic and 

fi nancial crimes like money 

laundering and the advancefee fraud, or 419, have had 

severe negative consequences 

for the country.

Named for the violation 

of Section 419 of the Nigerian 

Criminal Code, the 419 scam combines the threat of 

impersonation fraud with a variation of an advance-fee 

scheme. A potential victim receives a letter, e-mail, or fax 

from people posing as Nigerian or foreign government 

offi cials, asking for help in placing large sums of money in 

overseas bank accounts, and off ering a share of the money 

in return. Th e scheme relies on convincing a willing victim 

to send money to the letter’s author in several installments 

for a variety of reasons.

Photo montage: The Internet Crime Complaint Center and other U.S. agencies work 

with international organizations like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission 

(EFCC) of Nigeria and with law enforcement offi cials in other countries to combat 

Internet fraud. (Photographs from AP/Wide World Photos; Web banner courtesy 

EFCC)
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

In Nigeria, the menace of such crimes led to the 

establishment of the EFCC. Over the past year and a half, 

IC3 has made many new merchandise seizures and arrests 

in West Africa as a result of this and other alliances.

IC3 also works closely with the Canadian 

organization, Reporting Economic Crime On Line 

(RECOL). RECOL is administered by the National 

White Collar Crime Center of Canada and supported by 

the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and other agencies. 

RECOL involves an integrated partnership between 

international, federal, and provincial law enforcement 

agencies, and regulators and private commercial 

organizations that have a legitimate investigative interest 

in receiving economic crime complaints.

A growing group of international agencies are 

involved in fi ghting cyber crime. Th e IC3 works with 

law enforcement offi cials in many countries, including 

Australia and the United Kingdom. IC3 representatives 

also attend periodic meetings of the G8 (Canada, France, 

Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and 

the United States) Subgroup on High-Tech Crime, part 

of which works to combat cyber crime and enhance cyber 

investigations.

Th e IC3 and the CIRFU projects are a constantly 

evolving work in progress. Along the way, IC3 agents 

and analysts revisit what is working and what is not 

working, and constantly seek out experts and sources of 

intelligence to get smarter about cyber crime and learn 

how to more eff ectively fi ght it. Th at is the constant 

charge at IC3. ■
 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

We believe Web sites will promote Web credibility if they 

adopt these basic policies:

Identity:

• Web sites should clearly disclose the physical location 

where they are produced, including an address, a 

telephone number, or an e-mail address.

• Sites should clearly disclose their ownership, private or 

public, naming their parent company.

• Sites should clearly disclose their purpose and mission.

Advertising and Sponsorships:

• Sites should clearly distinguish advertising from news 

and information, using labels or other visual means. 

Th is includes “in-house” advertising or cross-corporate 

ad sponsorships. Search engines, shopping tools, and 

portals should clearly disclose paid result-placement 

advertising, so consumers may distinguish between 

objective search results and paid ads.

• Sites should clearly disclose relevant business 

relationships, including sponsored links to other sites. 

For example, a site that directs a reader to another site 

to buy a book should clearly disclose any fi nancial 

relationship between the two sites.

• Sites should identify sponsors. Th e site’s sponsorship 

policies should be clearly noted in accompanying text 

or on an “About Us” or “Site Center” page.

Customer Service:

• Sites engaged in consumer transactions should clearly 

disclose relevant fi nancial relationships with other 

sites, particularly when these relationships aff ect the 

cost to a consumer.

• Sites should clearly disclose all fees charged, including 

service, transaction and handling fees, and shipping 

costs. Th is information should be disclosed before the 

ordering process begins.

• Sites should clearly state and enforce policies for 

returning unwanted items or canceling transactions or 

reservations.

Corrections:

• Sites should diligently seek to correct false, misleading, 

or incorrect information.

• Sites should prominently display a page or section of 

the site where incorrect information is corrected or 

clarifi ed.

• Sites should strive to mark content with its published 

date when failing to do so could mislead consumers.

• Sites should clearly state their policy on a consumer’s 

rights if a purchase is made based on incorrect 

information on the site.

Privacy:

• Site privacy policies should be easy to fi nd and clearly, 

simply stated.

• Sites should clearly disclose how personal data from 

site visitors and customers will be used. Personal data 

includes name, address, phone number, and credit 

card number.

• Sites should disclose whether they use browsertracking mechanisms such as “cookies” and other 

technologies such as Web beacons, bugs, and robots.

• Sites should explain how data collected from them will 

be used.

• Sites should notify customers of changes to privacy 

policies and provide an easy opt-out alternative.

Copyright © 2006 Consumers Union of U.S., Inc.

What Every e-Consumer Should Know

A prominent U.S. consumer advocacy group off ers guidelines for Internet activity

Th e Consumer Reports Webwatch


Th e last decade’s accelerated development of new media 

and technologies is not over. Th e next wave of change 

is centered in the palm of your hand. Delivery of 

video via cell phones is the newest leap in information 

technologies, and it has the potential to shake up society in 

unpredictable ways. 

Jeff Gralnick is a broadcast and online news veteran, 

currently serving as a special consultant on the Internet 

and new media technologies to NBC News. He is also 

an adjunct professor of new media at the Columbia 

University Graduate School of Journalism. 

As an industry, the Internet has been driven by the 

search for and discovery of “the next new thing,” 

and once again a technological leap has produced 

it. Th e explosion of mobile bandwidth combined with 

new telephone technologies has given us cell phones that 

take and transmit pictures and that are going to be both 

“game” and world-changers.

Do you want to know what cell phone video is going 

to mean? Try these statistics on for size:

• By 2010, global shipment of new cell phones will reach 

just over 1 billion; 87 percent of those will be video 

capable.1

• By 2010, 228 billion images (still and moving pictures) 

will be transmitted by cell phone. Th at’s more than will 

be taken by all other devices combined.2

• By 2009, China alone will have 116 million videocapable cell phones.3

• By 2008, 125 million people will be watching live 

television on cell phone handsets.4

Th e Next New Th ing Is Here

Jeff Gralnick

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006 eJOURNAL USA

Photo montage: The ubiquitous cell phone already has had a signifi cant impact on 

daily life, and third-generation phones (3Gs) are taking off in new directions. (All 

photographs from AP/Wide World Photos)
eJOURNAL USA  GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

• Consumption of video on laptops and PCs has grown 

from 900,000 streams and downloads in 2000 to 14.2 

billion in 2004. Expectations are those numbers will 

double and redouble in the next two years.5

Th is is just the beginning. Th ird-generation cell 

phones, the so-called 3Gs, are just beginning to explode 

across the global communications landscape, fl owing 

from east to west out of Japan and Korea. In these 

countries, 3G networks were built out fi rst and fastest 

because mobile access to bandwidth was recognized as the 

business model key to the communications future. It is 

no accident that the watchword 

of SK Telecom, Korea’s leading 

mobile communications 

company, is “broadband in 

your hand.”

In Korea, the answer to the 

question—Will people throw 

away their relatively new and 

pricey second generation (2G) 

phones to upgrade to 3G?—

clearly appears to be “yes,” with 

migration from 2G to 3G there 

running at 74 percent in the 

fi rst quarter of 2005.

While in Asia and Europe 

3G is a “new thing” that has 

arrived, it’s just arriving in 

North America. Th ere, the 

build out of high-speed wireless 

networks has lagged and is at 

the barest of beginning points.

Anecdotal evidence, 

which is all that is available 

because actual numbers are 

being suppressed for what are 

called “competitive reasons,” suggests that cell phone 

video consumption is “high,” although the number of 

video-capable handsets in use in the United States has 

just passed the 1 million mark. Compare that with the 

number above for China or the 76 million said to be in 

use in India, and it is clear how far the United States still 

has to go in this area.

Th is adds up to an ongoing global explosion of access 

to news, information, and entertainment content in an 

unwired world unseen in my view since a little company 

in Japan called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Ltd. introduced the 

transistor radio in 1954. Who, you ask? Today it’s called 

Sony.

Th e transistorized radio essentially put the world into 

everybody’s shirt pocket or purse. Where you were, so 

was the news and all forms of entertainment. You could 

now be in touch with your world all the time. So-called 

portable radio was the spur for what we know today 

as “all news radio,” and it made “top 40” music part of 

everyday culture.

What the transistor radio did for audio, the cell 

phone is doing for video as both a “third screen” for 

viewing and also the mechanism for sending video 

material out to other third screens. And that will change 

forever—yes, forever—the way 

global societies can and will 

communicate.

Look at just some of 

what has happened or is being 

planned:

• News video is already being 

provided by cell phones. 

Two years ago, ITN in 

London trumpeted the fact 

that it beat its competition 

with coverage of a London 

fi re provided by a cell phone 

user. Similarly, in Chicago in 

2005, WBBM scored a news 

beat with cell phone video 

of another fi re. And those 

are just “messenger” events 

in new news coverage by 

cell-ographers.

• Cable news networks such 

as CNBC and MSNBC 

and Fox are already being 

distributed live on cell 

phones in the United States. 

Live reporting by cell phone 

will follow.

• And what about non-news? At a Media Center new 

media/wireless conference in Los Angeles in May 

2005, Lucy Hood, Newscorps’ senior vice president for 

mobile, sketched out near-term plans for fi ve channels 

of television for cell phone consumption that would 

include news, sports, and entertainment.

Photo montage: Not so long ago, the camera phone was an exciting innovation. Today, 

cell phones are able to receive streaming video and run computers from afar, while 

devices for viewing movies and video games fi t in the palm of your hand. (All photographs from AP/Wide World Photos)


• Similarly, in February 2006, Richard Branson’s Virgin 

Mobile announced at the 3G conference in Barcelona 

plans to start selling handsets equipped to receive BT 

Group digital television content with a single click.

Put all of this together and it adds up to the kind of 

omen a very smart man I once worked with would warn 

about when he perceived a coming trend or event that 

demanded attention: “Th ere’s a cloud,” he would say, 

“out there on the horizon that’s no bigger than a man’s 

hand right now.” Small now, he was suggesting, but watch 

out when it gets here. Th at is exactly what cell phone 

video represents—a coming cloud ready to burst over the 

communications landscape. What will the world be like 

when it does? Listen to several experts:

At the Barcelona conference where Virgin made 

its announcement, T-Mobile Chief Executive Rene 

Obermann predicted that “mobile will progressively 

become the primary personal access to the Internet.”

Sree Sreenivasan, who directs the New Media 

Department at Columbia University’s Graduate School of 

Journalism and is a regular and respected commentator 

on the Internet, sees a world that will be made both 

“exciting and scary,” where there is access to “video of 

things we haven’t seen properly [or ever] before.” He cites 

the horrifi c Paris Concorde crash in 2000 as an example. 

“Instead of just a couple of grainy photos, we’ll get highresolution video from ... hundreds or millions ... ready 

to whip out their [cell phone] cameras and point them 

at every perceived event.” It’s a world of instant reporting 

by a universe of citizen journalists who are empowered by 

and armed with nothing more than cell phones.

Th at’s the exciting part, but Sreenivasan also sees 

a signifi cant downside. He points to a Web site like 

http://www.hollabacknycblogspot.com, “where alleged street 

harassers are photographed and put online. “Imagine,” he 

says, “what every aggrieved man or woman can do with 

every perceived insult, harassment, and threat with these 

[cell phone] cameras.”

It’s Worth Thinking About

Adam Clayton Powell III, director of the University 

of Southern California’s Integrated Media Systems Center, 

projects a world in which cell phones begin providing the 

opportunity for truly merged communicating.

“It is clear,” he told me, “that people want video 

wherever they are. And in a few years, video IM [instant 

messaging] no doubt will coexist on cell phones with 

[programs like] the NBC Nightly News and people will 

be toggling back and forth between the broadcast and 

video IM to chat with friends about the news and the 

newscast.” In this merged world, he wonders “whether 

those users will still be called ‘viewers’ and the programs 

they watch will still be called ‘television.’”

How fast is this happening and how do we know it is 

happening?

Reuben Abraham, a sixth-year Ph.D. candidate at 

Columbia University in New York City who has done 

work for the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, is 

convinced that while doing research in India he found 

the answer. “I watched fi shermen come in from a day 

on the sea,” he told me, “and they were watching videos 

and news on their cell phones. So when it is already 

happening in parts of the economic spectrum where you 

would least expect it, you know it is exploding.”

What I think Abraham also saw may be the most 

important byproduct of this new technology—the 

creation of the true and instant global village. When 

contracts are being let for high-speed 3G networks all 

over Africa, including a closed society like Libya’s, and 

when impoverished and undereducated fi shermen on 

the Indian Ocean are dialing into and seeing the world, 

something remarkable is happening.

Fostering global communication and understanding 

may not have been the intention of the techies who 

created 3G cell technology, but, as an unintended 

consequence, it is what makes this “next new thing” not a 

bad thing at all. ■

1 InfoTrends, January 2006

2 InfoTrends, January 2006

3 W2Fpri, Research, April 6, 2005

4 MediaCenter Conference, May, 2005

5 AccuStream imedia Research, 2005

Th e opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily refl ect the views 

or policies of the U.S. government. 

GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006 eJOURNAL USA

Videoblogs Online

In “Family,” Michael McIntee remembers his father’s 

life and stories in a discovery of the importance 

of family history. It is from the videoblog site 

Minnesota Stories [http://mnstories.com], where 

viewers are invited to share their lives with an online 

audience, creating “an evolving showcase for local 

citizen media.” Used by permission.

[http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/0306/ijge/

ijge0306.htm]
 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Aabo, Svanhild. “Th e Role and Value of Public 

Libraries in the Age of Digital Technologies.” Journal 

of Librarianship and Information Science, vol. 37, no. 4 

(2005): pp. 205-211.

“Attorney General Tags Internet Crime as New Frontier 

for Law Enforcement.” Crime Control Digest, vol. 39, 

no. 39 (September 2005): pp. 1-2.

Balas, Janet L. “Th e Social Ties that Bind.” Computers in 

Libraries, vol. 26, no. 2 (February 2006): pp. 39-41.

Banister, Jim. Word of Mouse: the New Age of Networked 

Media. Evanston, IL: Agate Publishing, 2004.

Berinstein, Paula. “Black and White and Dead All Over: 

Are Newspapers Headed 6 Feet Under?” Searcher, vol. 13, 

no. 10 (November/December 2005): pp. 46-53.

Bricker, David. “Cyberinsecurity.” Research & Creative 

Activity, vol. 28, no. 1 (Fall 2005): pp. 152-156.

http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v28n1/insecure.shtml

Browne, Donald. Ethnic Minorities, Electronic Media, and 

the Public Sphere. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2005.

“Citizen Journalism.” Nieman Reports, vol. 59, no. 4 

(Winter 2005): pp. 4-34.

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/05-

4NRwinter/05-4NFwinter.pdf

Cohen, Steven M. “ Th e Importance of Local News.” 

Public Libraries, vol. 44, no. 6 (November/December 

2005): pp. 332+.

Crumlish, Christian. Th e Power of Many: How the Living 

Web Is Transforming Politics, Business and Everyday Life. 

Alameda, CA: Sybex, 2004.

Denning, Peter, et al. “Wikipedia Risks.” 

Communications of the ACM (Association for Computing 

Machinery), vol. 48, no. 12 (December 2005): p. 152.

Edmonds, Rick. “As Blogs and Citizen Journalism Grow, 

Where’s the News?” Poynter Online (November 14, 2005).

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.

asp?id=91391

Finneran, Kevin. “To Blog, or Not to Blog.” Issues in 

Science and Technology, vol. 22, no. 2 (Winter 2006): 

pp. 23-24.

Foust, James C. Online Journalism: Principles and Practices 

of News for the Web. Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway, 

2005.

Fox, Susannah, Janna Quitney Anderson and Lee 

Rainie. Th e Future of the Internet. Washington, DC: Pew 

Internet & American Life Project, 2005.

http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Future_of_

Internet.pdf

Giles, Jim. “Internet Encyclopedias Go Head to Head.” 

Nature, vol. 438, no. 7070 (December 15, 2005): 

pp. 900-901.

Gillmor, Dan. We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the 

People, for the People. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly, 2004.

Hane, Paula J. “Th e Latest on Libraries, Search Engines 

and More.” Information Today, vol. 23, no. 1 (January 

2006): pp. 7-12.

Hewitt, Hugh. Blog: Understanding the Information 

Reformation Th at’s Changing Your World. Nokomis, FL: 

Nelson Business, 2005.

Jost, Kenneth. “Future of Newspapers: Will Print Papers 

Survive in an Online World?” CQ Researcher, vol. 16, 

no. 3 (January 20, 2006): pp. 49-72.

Keenan, Th omas W. and Wendy Hui Kyong Chun 

(eds.) New Media, Old Media: A History and Th eory 

Reader. New York, NY: Routledge, 2005.

Krebs, Brian and Ben Chertoff. “It’s 10 P.M. Do You 

Know Where Your Identity Is?” Popular Mechanics, 

vol. 183, no. 2 (February 2006): pp. 54-60.

Bibliography

Additional readings on new and emerging media
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

Langfi tt, Frank. “Papers Turn to Podcasting, the Newest 

of Media.” All Th ings Considered (June 2, 2005).

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.

php?storyId=4673646

Lenhart, Amanda and Mary Madden. Teen Content 

Creators and Consumers. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & 

American Life Project, 2005.

http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Teens_Content_

Creation.pdf

Lum, Lydia. “Th e Rise of Blog Nation.” Black Issues in 

Higher Education, vol. 22, no. 12 (July 28, 2005): 

pp. 20-22.

Merina, Victor. “Th e Internet: Continuing the Legacy of 

Storytelling.” Nieman Reports, vol. 59, no. 3 (Fall 2005): 

pp. 32-34.

Mermigas, Diane. “Eyeing the Economics of OnDemand Media,” Hollywood Reporter, vol. 392 (December 

20-26, 2005): pp. 8+.

Notess, Greg R. “Casting the Net: Podcasting and 

Screencasting.” Online, vol. 29, no. 6 (November/

December 2005): pp. 43-45.

Palser, Barb. “Journalism’s Backseat Drivers.” American 

Journalism Review, vol. 27, no. 4 (August/September 

2005): pp. 42-51.

Project for Excellence in Journalism. Th e State of the 

News Media 2005. New York, NY: Columbia University 

Graduate School of Journalism, 2006.

http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2005/index.asp

Quint, Barbara. “Semiprivate Virtual Libraries: A 

Coming Th ing?” Information Today, vol. 23, no. 1 

(January 2006): pp. 7-8.

Robertson, Lori. “Adding a Price Tag.” American 

Journalism Review, vol. 27, no. 6 (December 2005/January 

2006): pp. 52-57.

Stahmer, Tim. “Th ink Outside the Blog.” Technology & 

Learning, vol. 26, no. 6 (January 2006): pp. 28-30.

Sutherland, Benjamin. “Th e People’s Encyclopedia: As 

Wikipedia Grows into a Mainstream Internet Brand, Will 

It Be Able to Keep Its Volunteers in Line?” Newsweek 

International (January 9, 2006).

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10682396/site/newsweek/

Young, Cathy. “Smears in Cyberspace.” Reason, vol. 37, 

no. 9 (February 2006): pp. 19-20.

Th e U.S. Department of State assumes no responsibility for the content 

and availability of the resources from other agencies and organizations 

listed above. All Internet links were active as of March 2006.

Th is bibliography refl ects a range of current readings.
 eJOURNAL USA GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006

Internet Resources

Online resources for new and emerging media information

American Library Association

http://www.ala.org

American Press Institute

http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/

American Society of Newspaper Editors

http://www.asne.org/

Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law 

School

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/

Electronic Frontier Foundation

http://www.eff .org/

FedNet

http://www.fednet.net

Google Books Library Project

http://books.google.com/googlebooks/library.html

International Federation of Library Associations and 

Institutions (IFLA)

http://www.ifl a.org/

Internet Crime Complaint Center

http://www.ic3.gov/

Internet2

http://www.internet2.edu/

Library of Congress Launches Eff ort to Create World 

Digital Library

http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2005/05-250.html

Library of Congress Veterans History Project

http://www.loc.gov/vets//

MSNBC TV Citizen Journalists Report

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6639760/

National Association of Broadcasters

http://www.nab.org/

National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting

http://www.nicar.org/

National Native News

http://www.nativenews.net/

National Newspaper Association

http://www.nna.org/

New American Media

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/

NewsLab

http://www.newslab.org/index.htm

NPR Podcast Directory

http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php

One Laptop Per Child

http://laptop.org/

Online News Association

http://www.journalists.org

Open Content Alliance

http://www.opencontentalliance.org/

Open Directory Project: Weblogs

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Weblogs/

PLA (Public Library Association) Blog

http://www.plablog.org/

Poynter Online

11 Layers of Citizen Journalism

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.

asp?id=83126

Radio-Television News Directors Association

http://www.rtnda.org

Technorati

http://www.technorati.com/
GLOBAL ISSUES / MARCH 2006  eJOURNAL USA

Unity: Journalists of Color, Inc.

http://www.unityjournalists.org/index.html

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Youth Radio

http://www.youthradio.org/index.shtml

Youth Radio en Espanol

http://www.youthradio.org/spanish/index.shtml

Th e U.S. Department of State assumes no responsibility for the content 

and availability of the resources from other agencies and organizations 

listed above. All Internet links were active as of March 2006.



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