Blogs & Blogging

#NetFreedom: Deception in the air

(to mark the International Human Rights Day)

How you feel if someone says: “Eat as much as you can (before the food is ready)” and when the food is ready, you are told: “That’s enough: you are eating too much.”

That’s exactly what is happening with our rights to freedom of expression and opinion!

Citizens around the world living in democratic countries were guaranteed rights to freedom of expression for long. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, promulgated long ago in 1948 by UN General Assembly, has explicitly stated it in Article 19.

All democratic nations around the world have copied, rephrased/translated and pasted the text in their constitutions. As citizens we’ll thought well we’ve individually rights to freedom of expression and opinion.

We didn’t have a powerful medium through which we could effectively exercise the rights and we were made to believe media is mediating the rights on behalf of us.

But we are being deceived!

The Internet emerged as a powerful medium that every individual around the world could use to exercise the rights to freedom of expression and opinion. When blogging emerged, it was evident. If blogs were difficult to set up and continued, then social media (on internet) is the easiest tool to use to express ourselves. Continue reading…

December 10, 2012 by Blogs & Blogging Internet Sadly! Social Media

How can journalists use social media?

(In October/November, 2012, I traveled around the country to train journalists on use of social media. The training, held by Equal Access Nepal and funded by UNDP’s project, was held in Biratnagar, Kathmandu, Pokhara, Dhangadhi & now I am in Nepalgunj. Each training lasted two days and included around 30 journalists. Here is one of the reading materials I wrote for the training. I will upload some others soon.)

Journalists can use social media to aid to their work as journalist and to improve their professional skills. Here are six things that journalists and their organizations can do with social media to aid to journalistic processes:

The six things discussed here are 1. Seek idea and information, 2. Cultivate sources, 3. Verify Information, 4. Publish / Distribute News, 5. Promote Write-ups / get feedback / measure popularity. Continue reading…

November 24, 2012 by Blogs & Blogging Journalism & Media Online Journalism Social Media

Writing Responsibly on Internet

Internet has been the most revolutionary convergence of communication tools. The greatest beneficial aspect of the internet as a communication tool has been the possibility for each and every person with internet access to communicate globally. Communicating to the world has never been as easy as it is now. Loads of services, also collectively known as social media, such as blogs, microblogs, photo/video sharing and social networking allow users to publish information and/or comments on available information so easily that time and again users tend to forget the bigger impact that those information or comments may have. Continue reading…

November 13, 2011 by Blogs & Blogging Journalism & Media Social Media

Good journalism is good for journalism

Distribution channel will change in future and we have no control over what people will use. They may use something we don’t know today. At the publishing house, we have to specialize on producing good stories.

When I was in Hamburg, Germany to attend the first of three phases of the Journalism in Digital World at the International Academy of Journalism – Intajour, one of the big question amongst the fellows there was ‘how the upcoming technology going to change journalism.’

The advent of the Internet followed by the development of mobile devices- such as smartphones, e-readers and tablets – which people increasingly use to read the news has to change journalism someway, many of us believed. For a media house, and journalists the possible further development of new platforms poses a big opportunity (to become early adopter of profitable venture among upcoming developments) and a threat (how to remodel journalism to perfectly harness the capability of the platform). Continue reading…

November 7, 2011 by Blogs & Blogging Journalism & Media Mainstream Media Online Journalism Social Media

Social Communicators on CA Term Extension

Social communicators, or the social media users especially Tweeple, followed the CA term extension night, May 28, with great enthusiasm contributing to frequently updated information and opinions. Following tweets on the night provided both information on what’s going on and opinions on what people were thinking about the events – sometimes the frustrations and many times humorous side.

This is an attempt to use storify.com to create a story about May 28 ripples on Twitter: Continue reading…

May 28, 2011 by Blogs & Blogging Featured

Code of ethics for bloggers

UPDATED ON MAY 27 WITH PROPOSED CODE OF ETHICS

With growing popularity of blogs in Nepal, many issues concerning blogs are emerging. One of the issues that needed to be immediately addressed is on ethical aspects of the blogs.

Blogs, by nature, is free. But as Rebecca Blood put it: The blog’s greatest strength – its uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled voice – is also its greatest weakness.

While believing that blogs should remain free – uncensored and uncontrolled, it’s also worthwhile for bloggers to be responsible. As CyberJournalists.net states: Responsible bloggers should recognize that they are publishing words publicly, and therefore have certain ethical obligations to their readers, the people they write about, and society in general.

Code of Ethics is not strict principles that every bloggers should adhere to; rather it’s a standard guideline that bloggers can voluntarily follow. Code of conducts are formulated and followed by bloggers themselves. Following ethical publishing practices not only make the blogs standard but also convey a message to the readers that they can be trusted. Continue reading…

May 26, 2011 by Blogs & Blogging

Constructive youth engagement through social media

At the time when the term Facebook generation is increasingly being used to refer to youths uninterested in political and social responsibilities, youths have came together to use the social media for constructive political and social engagements.

youth-142x300-1431557Many consider that Nepali youth in today’s urban societies normally detach themselves from politics, social responsibilities and look for opportunities to go abroad. While not completely false the ongoing political instability, decade long Maoist conflict, lack of opportunities and development have contributed to the rise of pessimistic thoughts among the youths. Equally true is the fact that the youths, at least some of them, have refocused themselves towards constructive engagements with an aim of contributing to the social and political causes.

Through social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, they have found a tool to give life to their initiatives; which can be accredited to the events around the world, the rising popularity of social media and most importantly, the trendiness of the social media that matches the youth’s curiosity.

Use of Facebook and Twitter is still considered by many as a detachment from what is happening around. Looking at someone, who is constantly checking on Facebook and Twitter updates on their laptop and/or mobile phones, the detachment, seems obvious. But when the social media feed them the information on what is going on around them along with opinions to their peer groups, it is safe to say that social media is just a new way of communication of the society. Continue reading…

May 17, 2011 by Blogs & Blogging Social Media Wow! Web

Is blog under Press Council jurisdiction?

Recently, Press Council of Nepal (PCN) issued a letter seeking clarification from MySansar, Nepal’s most popular blog. This is first time that PCN has recognized the presence of a blog. This incident should also encourage the government – and its agencies – to have a policy about online media.

THE STORY

MySansar.com published a series of blog entries – including one by Om Thapa that was reproduced with permission from a weekly, Janaastha, on Binod Chaudhary. Chaudhary is a noted industrialist leading the Chaudhary Group (CG). The blogs were about alleged tax invading by CG in the light of the action initiated by the Ministry of Finance on tax invasion and fraud by 27 companies. The ministry has not yet named the companies, but the blog claimed CG is one of them.

The blog entries also claimed that CG also ‘forced’ Finance Minister Bharat Mohan Adhikari of actions leading to resignation of finance secretary Rameshwor Khanal. One of the post also criticized mainstream media for publication Chaudhary’s article claiming that the big percentage of the tax that the industrialist claimed to have paid is in fact the taxes collected by people during sales of their products. Continue reading…

May 8, 2011 by Blogs & Blogging

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