Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia



Wikipedia “is a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project based on an openly editable model”. That what is written in Wikipedia to introduce itself. The project was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001. According to the New York Times, as in 2008 English Wikipedia had more than one billion words, making it 25 times bigger than the largest English print encyclopedia. Link                                                                         

So, Wikipedia promote itself by saying basically that anyone can edit its content. But is that really a good thing? How can we trust a source that anyone from anywhere can edit it content? That is why many people now are against the Wikipedia phenomenon which led to creating websites to expose Wikipedia`s errors. For example, a website called Wikipedia-watch.org  (Link) is set to claim that Wikipedia is evil and it has many claimed cases of vandalism and plagiarism by Wikipedia editors. Also this Youtube below shows some of Wikipwdia`s flaws:

In 2007 a BBC article by Jonathan Fildes “Science and technology reporter” investigated an online tool which revealed that the CIA was involved in editing entries. “The Wikipedia Scanner allegedly shows that workers on the agency's computers made edits to the page of Iran's president” Link. This raise the concern that it is not normal people editing Wikipedia but also government agencies can be involved in that too, that means this massive free information service can be systematically edited for organisational own goals. 

 

On the other hand many religion and celebrity biography are protected or semi protected which limit the ability to edit. The reason is that these kind of subjects are tempting for vandalism and mostly would be edited for the wrong reasons.

In the end Wikipedia is a great project with some errors and mistakes. It can be very useful to make an information background about anything. And the debate about its good and evil, vandalism and accuracy, will stand for a long time.



Wikileaks is shaking the world media!

In 2006, Wikileaks was launched as an international nonprofit media organization. According to wikileaks website, it provides a new model of journalism. It is basically leaks top secrets document such as Iraq war that they get it from inside sources. So the question is: is it a reliable information?

An investigation story published on The Independent 8 of April 2010 answered this question; “when a US Army counter-intelligence officer recommended that whistleblowers who leaked to the site be fired, that report ended up on Wikileaks too!” Link. The website use the power of Internet to its advantage. Since the most secrets published in the website are scandals about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that led it to be face to face with the US powers, but their effort to hunt the co founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange legally still failing. But that restricted Assange movement which made him refuse to go to Qatar for TV interview with Aljazeera network and instead, he made the interview in Ajazeera`s office in London because of the US influence on the Middle East, which can get him easily arrested.

Interview with Assange on Aljazeera, October 2010:

Wikileaks might not be a kind of citizen journalism but it`s defini
tely a new way of publishing that use the power and freedom of Internet to make information flow freely between massive number of people around the world. Researchers use to wait about decades to put  their hands on governments documents that usually released after about 30 years of its date. but now they find it relatively in the same time!

Whatever the criticism against Wikileaks, it is good to have a reliable source that can fight corruption. In an interview with Salon.com in March 2010, Assange said:” Of course, there's a personal psychology to it, that I enjoy crushing bastards. I like a good challenge”

From MIRC to Facebook

The first chat platform I used was called Freetel, It was very simple; choose a nick name then enter. After that you`ll find a very long list of people and you can choose who to ring. Everybody used a nickname and Back then, there was no issues about identities, because it was obvious the difference between our physical identities and Freetel identity. After that, a friend introduced me to MIRC, which not only one to one chat but also offer a room chat. And the room can gather lots of users. Every room can have it own rules, themes and topics. What’s distinguished MIRC from freetel is the feel of community inside its rooms. What started as a fake silly MIRC nickname became more attached to us and eventually became our new Identity which vary a lot from our physical identity. With our new identitiy we can be who ever we want, we present ourselves in  a compinations of interest, action figures and imagination. that why we feel much more comfotable with this "real fake" indentitiy. Although MIRC chat programme still exist but its ancient history now after the all new kind of social website like Facebook and MySpace that made the Cyber identity much more personal and interactive. What was just a simple nickname in a room became a homepage, a full profile with pictures, interest and friends. Our cyber identities are now the more dominate and although we might think our profile is only shown to our online friends we have to think first about the identity of these so call friends. So after all, even with the privacy button, do we really have privacy?!

Barlow, Cyberspace and the Augmented Reality

In 1996 John Perry Barlow published online “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” Link, in respond to US passing of the Telecommunication Reform Act. In his declaration He said: “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather”. After nearly 15 years, it seems that Barlow lost the fight since the cyberspace or the Internet is now regulated by governments and large corporations such as Google and Microsoft in its all aspects and it is not free like he, among others believed it should be. Also nothing in the Internet is for free, it’s all for profit. Banks, companies and government are very active online. T.V interview with Neil Postman in 1995, he said: “when I hear people talk about the information superhighway, it will become possible to shop at home and bank at home and get your texts at home and get entertainment at home and so on, I often wonder if this doesn't signify the end of any meaningful community life”.

Neil Postman on Cyberspace, 1995:

It is clear now that the Internet takes a huge part of our daily life time and it`s always use it individually and that`s exactly what Postman was concerned about, people do everything online will lose their sense of communication with others. Virtual is the second life; it was best illustrated in the Matrix trilogy. People who were in the Matrix didn’t know that they are living a virtual life; the Matrix is a second life. But now days it seems that second life term is not practical anymore. Because we are using the Internet all the time and everywhere thru our smart phones! Which mean there are no boundaries between the real world and the second life. And now, with the “Augmented reality”, it’s hard to tell which is real and which is virtual. Augmented reality fills the gaps between real and virtual. It is basically mixes the two worlds. AR was out there for years, but Smart phones like iPhone and computers with built in video cams gave AR the boost it needed. Link. Famous AR application was built by Layer, which can give you radar map of details such as Wikipedia information, Flickr photos, Google searches and YouTube videos superimposed onto a picture you`ve taken from the scene. Although the use of AR in retail is still relatively small, yet it seems that AR next boost would be in retail business. in the end it doesn't seem that Barlow still feel the same way about what he called the Cyberspace!

An example of AR in retail business in Youtube:

Citizen Journalism: the true Fourth Power

It has been known that the mass media is the Fourth Power after the Parliament, Government and the Legal system. But the Media wasn’t always honest, and in many cases it was bias. That does not mean it didn`t play its role. But the media role didn`t always fill the public expectations. Sometimes the media can be a victim of a political regime like in North Korea, or an economic regime like many news organizations in the west. And sometimes the Media is simply not there!

The simple definition of Citizen journalism according to Mediasmart.org is : "When members of the public engage in journalism. Examples include providing pictures or film of events to news organizations or reporting events in blogs" Link. Nowadays, through technology the public can make their own Fourth Power. Any person can take photos and short videos of any event then post it online. The mass Media organization can either ride the new wave or stay behind. That`s what made major Media network to set up platforms for the public news materials.

In Iran, The public was mad about the election fraud last year and went out in a mass protest. Then, the government made a media blackout on the event, but the people used Citizen Journalism widely to report the government brutal massive violent against them. Take a look at the report below about Iran`s Citizen Journalism:

When Tsunami hit south Asia in 2004. The media simply wasn`t there and most videos were filmed by amateurs, normal people who were there at the time. Then news networks picked up the material and used it because it`s the only footages available.

On the other hand, Citizen Journalism is still amateur’s journalism in many ways. Or as Ron Steinman executive editor of The Digital Journalist describe it : “untutored amateurs, the almost journalists of our modern age” Link. The argument against Citizen Journalism is that normal people reporting of events cannot replace professional journalism. Nevertheless, it can be argued that Citizen Journalism is not suppose to replace professional journalism, on the contrary, it can fill the gaps and strengthen the weaknesses of Professional Journalism. The evidences of this argument are first: Major News Networks always use Citizen journalism`s materials “Videos & photos” to support their news when they don`t have a reporter on site. Second: Citizen Journalism makes it hard for a bias News source or a dictator regime to hide the truth from the public.

In the end, Citizen journalism is a type of new media news. It`s practical, active and its impact on traditional media can`t be denied.

Digitisation: the revolution of New Media

Before the digital age, Media terms such as Convergence and Remediation (definitions) did exist but comparing with the present it was very limited. For example a book would be a convergence of reading material and Images. Also a reader would be in a state of Immediacy  while reading a novel and the Hypermediacy could occurs when turning to the next page.

Now, digitalised Media took terms like Convergence and Remediation to a whole new level. For example, Maps which was a piece of paper remediated to something like Google maps. Fast and interactive, we can find any locations anywhere in the world by a single click.

While Google maps is a convergence of many mediums. E.g. pictures and information about the location, it still has a lot to offer. New application on Facebook “Facebook Places” is collaboration between Facebook and Google which allow users to find out about the place of their friends by knowing their last time and place when they checked in on Facebook!

Both Facebook and Google maps converge many mediums, and yet both converge to deliver this massive new way of medium between people which very hard to say that it`s a remediation of anything happened before.