Blogs and Blogging

Yay, I've run into a fellow blogger, Lilia Efimova (and we've commiserated about not being able to do live blogging of this conference, in the absence of direct Internet access). Interesting to discuss approaches to coping with this.

Alex Halavais is next; he also presented at AoIR last year. He points out that a few years back hyperlinks rarely crossed national borders (other than into the US, I suppose), but this has been reducing over time. Language borders persist, of course, and continue to mean there is little linking across language borders.

Finally met Jill Walker during the break! Now on to the next panel - but it's very dark in here so I'll apologise in advance for any typing errors. Mary Flanagan and Ken Perlin are presenting on their RAPUNSEL project. The motivation is that very few of the programmers and other IT professionals in the US are women (7%), so the project is to develop a game to attract girls to the area. The main drop-off point for interest amongst girls is around middle school, but they are and remain very interested in online gaming (over 60% of the gamers in Sims Online are women). The project builds on this by using 'computer clubhouses' in poor and ethnically diverse neighbourhoods in New York (which are sponsored by Intel). The combination of everyday desires and technology enables the expression of a possible world (building on Deleuze). So how can hacker and middle-schooler cultures be connected in this way?

Looks like the word is out - Jean Burgess mentioned my blogging of this conference on Jill Walker's blog, which also covers the conference...

We're back for the second day of ISEA2004 at Lume. Unfortunately I got here a little late (some good discussions on the tram and after with people from Sarai), so I think I might have missed a speaker or two of this session called "Uncovering Histories of Electronic Writing".

I participated in a show on blogging on ABC Radio National this evening - Australia Talks Back with Sandy McCutcheon.

I posted the announcement for the Global PR Blog Week a little while ago. Now the site is live...

Almost hidden away in an issue which is first and foremost on "Journalism and Black America", this issue of the Nieman Reports also contains a section on "Blogging and Journalism". <sigh> More reading... Got to start writing, got to start writing.

This from Trevor Cook:

I've been busy organising this inaugural event to be held from 12 - 16 July

The purpose of the week is to focus on some key issues and attract attention to the emerging role of PR bloggers in developing and spreading knowledge about public relations. Often decried as a secretive profession we want to share our knowledge with everyone and encourage a better understanding of the contribution we make to our societies

Finally worked my way through the very useful report We Media by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis at the Media Center at the American Press Institute. A good overview of what they term participatory journalism, with many connections to my own research. From this report, several further references also need investigation: