Greetings from Kosovo.
I will probably dispense with the usual article this week just to give you some comments from here and try to relate it the Internet and Web journalism.
Kosovo has eight different newspapers all struggling to make a living and only three of them have a website. And all they do is shovel content from the paper onto the site. There is no real effort to do much with the websites. I don't think the reason is because of interest but all based on economics. How easy it is to forget how people in other parts of the world live.
I would guess the majority of homes don't have computers and the ones that do struggle with the quality of the connection and consistent power outages. When I ask the students if they would like to be on the Internet more the answer is always yes but the opportunity doesn't always present itself.
Sometimes it is difficult to hold their attention in class because they are enjoying being on the computers and searching for sites.
The same holds true then for sites like Facebook and My Space. Most of them think it sounds pretty cool but time, equipment and cost all seem to get in the way.
The independence celebration was pretty impressive to say the least. If you can imagine a party that lasted for four days. People were in the streets, carrying flags, honking horns and drinking everything in sight. I was with some people who took me along starting Saturday night and continuing through Monday.
You can't imagine the passion of the people. They are getting what we take for granted. But what will happen from here is anybody's guess. The economy in Kosovo is a disaster with unemployment sometimes listed at 60 percent. There are demonstrations in Serbian communities in Kosovo and in Serbia itself. So far everything is quiet here. But you can be sure that something is probably going to happen.
That's probably enough for now. I hope everyone is making progress on project number 2 and the paper. I am available by email if anyone has questions.
Jerry
Jerry in Sri Lanka
Helping bathe an elephant
About Me
- Jerry Renaud
- I am a broadcast journalism professor in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
6 comments:
I think it is an excellent opportunity for you to be in Kosovo during this time. In fact, I think it would be a great time to be in any country celebrating their independence in that manner.
As far as the economics of the internet pertain to struggling countries, I can simply relate this to parts of the U.S.A.
For my blog assignment, I'm working with agriculture blogs and the way they are used for both farmers and policy makers. One of the research reports I found stated that only 51% of farming and ranching families have access to cable or DSL internet. (dial-up was much larger).
I found this statistic very interesting because I know the combination of the economics and the technology are hindering more farmers have easily accessible internet. The question is how do they harness the internet even when accessibility is relatively low?
I hope you are having a great time there, and I very much look forward to heading over there in a matter of weeks!
Taking part in living history-- you are fortunate! Hope things don't go south there, but it does sound like Serbia and Russia are all bark (or growl, as the case may be) and no bite.
Is there technology fairly similar to ours? You had mentioned that not everyone had computers and there was a lacking in Internet connection speeds, but were their computers pretty comparable to what we have here? I remember using a computer lab in Dijon, France. It was like stepping back in time five years...
There's a lot of professional blogs out there i.e. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ect. I've also found that blogging is also a hobby to a lot of people. Some use it as a way to publish information, others use it as a way to vent. I find it very interesting that the "public" can become journalists, while some media enterprises use their blog as a way to reach the public.
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