diasporas.net

33,000 swarming citizen reporters

One of the most innovative use of the web is in Korean: OhMyNews, an Online Media whose moto is "Every citizen is a reporter." In a recent speach given at the World Association of Newspapers Conference in Istambul Yeon Ho, the founder, explains: "Journalists aren't some exotic species, they're everyone who has news stories and shares them with others." He is convinced that his 35 staff members and 33,000 citizen reporters are creating a new form of journalism for the 21st century.

Besides some interesting examples, this speach raises some fascinating questions concerning power and networks:

Each political scholar has his own definition of power. I would say power comes from established standards. Those who have power set the standards, and it is through those standards that they are able to maintain their power.

Yes, in the media market there has been a media power which says "this is standard, follow me". The standards of 20th century journalism have been created and controlled by professional newspaper journalists.

But these standards are challenged by the Internet: challenged by new journalists of the new space, they are called netizens or citizen reporters.

They challenged the traditional media logic of who is a reporter, what is news, what is the best news style, and what is newsworthy.

In a sense, one might see OhMyNews as a networked media that includes "citizen reporters" and staff. Not surprisingly, their working mode is "selection and concentration", a way of saying "swarming" that Yeon Ho defines in the following manner:

If we decide to focus on an issue that day, our staff reporters are all in.

And with "selection and concentration," there is another strategy. We use all the merits of Internet media at their best, reporting speedily and vividly with simultaneous input from readers.

OhMyNew - The End of 20th Century Journalism

francispisani.net - Internet, democracia y 'ciudadanos-reporteros' en Corea

Huge uncertainty

China's economic future is uncertain, but it will affect us all.

These figures taken from report from the Asian Development Bank say a lot:

"[China] is the world's biggest consumer of copper, tin, zinc, platinum, steel, and iron ore; second biggest of aluminum and lead; third largest of nickel. . . . It is now the world's second-largest oil consumer [after the United States], and accounted for 35 percent of the global rise in oil demand in 2003."

In this case, the problem with uncertainty is that whatever happens will have a huge impact world wide. Nobody knows what it will be.

The Washington Post - Great Wall of Unknowns

Structural holes and hybridity

Creativity comes less from the genes than from the ability to bridge the gaps - or "structural holes" between networks. In a coming article (to be published in The American Journal of Sociology, Ronald Burt, who coined the concept "structural hole," shows how managers at Raytheon, the military contractor get more ideas from the outside than from their natural networks.

"People who live in the intersection of social worlds," Mr. Burt writes, "are at higher risk of having good ideas."

People with cohesive social networks, whether offices, cliques or industries, tend to think and act the same, he explains. In the long run, this homogeneity deadens creativity. As Mr. Burt's research has repeatedly shown, people who reach outside their social network not only are often the first to learn about new and useful information, but they are also able to see how different kinds of groups solve similar problems.

This reminds me of the "strength of weak links" in which Mark Granovetter showed that we are more likely to get a job from distant relations than from good friends. Both are powerful indicators of the virtues of being "in-between," of having access to several worlds, of being "a foreigner everywhere."

The New York Times - Where to Get a Good Idea: Steal It Outside Your Group

Cooperation through chaos

A new approach to traffic problems? Now this is interesting! Eliminate street control – all of them –, and you will reduce accidents and improve traffic for the simple reason that people have to look for themselves AND for the others.

It's not so new by the way. It was first experimented in Holland in the 70s', and slowly grew in acceptance in some parts of some European countries (not a dominant feature).

In a fascinating article published in Salon, Linda Baker explains:

It's called "second generation" traffic calming, a combination of traffic engineering and urban design that also draws heavily on the fields of behavioral psychology and -- of all subjects -- evolutionary biology. Rejecting the idea of separating people from vehicular traffic, it's a concept that privileges multiplicity over homogeneity, disorder over order, and intrigue over certainty. In practice, it's about dismantling barriers: between the road and the sidewalk, between cars, pedestrians and cyclists and, most controversially, between moving vehicles and children at play.

[…]

Hamilton-Baillie argues that the key to improving both safety and vehicular capacity is to remove traffic lights and other controls, such as stop signs and the white and yellow lines dividing streets into lanes. Without any clear right-of-way, he says, motorists are forced to slow down to safer speeds, make eye contact with pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers, and decide among themselves when it is safe to proceed.

"The more you post the evidence of legislative control, such as traffic signs, the less the driver is trying to use his or her own senses," says Hamilton-Baillie, noting he has a habit of walking randomly across roads -- much to his wife's consternation. "So the less you can advertise the presence of the state in terms of authority, the more effective this approach can be."

People think more when there are less rules?.... mmmmmm

Salon - Why don't we do it in the road?

Structural holes and hybridity

Creativity comes less from the genes than from the ability to bridge the gaps - or "structural holes" between networks. In a coming article (to be published in The American Journal of Sociology, Ronald Burt, who coined the concept "structural hole," shows how managers at Raytheon, the military contractor get more ideas from the outside than from their natural networks.

"People who live in the intersection of social worlds," Mr. Burt writes, "are at higher risk of having good ideas."

People with cohesive social networks, whether offices, cliques or industries, tend to think and act the same, he explains. In the long run, this homogeneity deadens creativity. As Mr. Burt's research has repeatedly shown, people who reach outside their social network not only are often the first to learn about new and useful information, but they are also able to see how different kinds of groups solve similar problems.

This reminds me of the "strength of weak links" in which Mark Granovetter showed that we are more likely to get a job from distant relations than from good friends. Both are powerful indicators of the virtues of being "in-between," of having access to several worlds, of being "a foreigner everywhere."

The New York Times - Where to Get a Good Idea: Steal It Outside Your Group