From the U.S.
In case you missed it, I am working on an interesting series of articles on the World Economic Forum's WebLog (http://www.forumblog.org/blog/). The positive, disruptive capability of blogging is on full display. In the way the Napster challenged the music establishment, and Linux challenges Microsoft, blogging is becoming a threat to mainstream media. However, just because one is a blogger does not mean that what one says is true or accurate. I believe that bloggers need to maintain a very high level of ethics, morality, and credibility if the medium is to be taken seriously. It could be that blogging may be taken more seriously than the traditional media because there is no need to answer to a corporate financial master. The potential is there, but a level of peer review comments and content quality needs to be there as well.
How can this fix the world? Visibility, accountability, real transparency. True free speech. Open source debate. Open source politics. Open source government. Is it time for the average citizen to take back what has been handed over to politicians with many interests beyond the care and well being of the people? Current power structures are such that they are designed to largely maintain control of what is said, who says it, how it is said, and when. Blogging may help change that all over the world. Can you imagine the power of free speech just in China alone, if the people there were empowered to communicate freely? The power of blogging will increase incredibly over the next few years, primarily through the use of mobile phones with web capability. The technology most people will first utilize and first encounter is likely going to be a mobile phone, even in primitive cultures. If those phones have the capability to read and post blogs, real global cultural changes are possible. I personally hope that the age of established sectors, be they government, media, corporate, or religious, has ended in terms of controlling the minds and thoughts of the world's people. Information should flow freely, and with that free flow of information can come a greater, and more universal understanding.
-R
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