I'm an activist, blogger and geek, living in Western Massachusetts and working as director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, and a principal research scientist at the MIT Media Lab. I previously worked as a research fellow at the Berkman Center. As co-founder of Global Voices, I'm interested in ways that citizen's media can address longstanding biases in the news media. Before working at the Berkman, I helped found Geekcorps, a non-profit organization that shipped geeks to the developing world to run Internet technology trainings. Prior to that, I was part of the team that founded Tripod, one of the early online community companies. When not blogging, researching or making trouble, I help out with Worldchanging, Open Society Institute's Information Program and other fun technology and development projects. My personal blog is “My Heart's in Accra…”
Latest posts by Ethan Zuckerman from March, 2005
Sokwanele Blog in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is preparing for parliamentary elections tomorrow. The outcome is hardly in doubt. Most observers expect Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party to win in a landslide, garnering at least 75% of votes. This is not because Zanu-PF is especially popular, but because the election process is believed to be so...
Elina Karakulova in Bishkek
The recent events in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, have been somewhat difficult for outside observers to understand. Unlike the Orange revolution in Ukraine, where sustained, widespread opposition protests led to the overturning of fraudulent election results and a new government, a very rapid series of events following parliamentary elections caused Askar Akaev's...
Blogger Profile: “Owukori”, aka Sokari Ekine
It's easy to get the impression, reading most popular weblogs, that all bloggers are white American males obsessed with technology. If that's your impression of the blogosphere, you're reading the wrong blogs. A good place to start your re-education is “Black Looks – Musings and Rants by an African Fem”,...
New “About” page
I've written a new About Global Voices page. If anything is not clear or if you have further questions, please post a comment there.
Blog libel suit in India
Mediaah! is no more. The controversial media criticism weblog, run by Pradyuman Maheshwari, editor of the Maharashtra Herald in Pune, promoted itself as a “brutally unbiased” critic of Indian media, especially the massive Times of India. With the tagline, “The Media's Media. No-holds-barred news and commentary on the Indian media”,...
NewsILike and Aggregator Artistry
I'm experimenting with NewsILike.com, a new aggregator site put together by a team that includes Jim Moore, Berkman colleague, Darfur activist, and Global Voies ally. Jim introduces the concept of “aggregator artistry”, the idea that aggregators can be a creative expression in the same way that blogging is. NewsILike has...
Newsweek piece on blogosphere diversity and the Halley/Levy challenge
Steven Levy's column in the upcoming issue of Newsweek starts with a quote from Keith Jenkins, commenting on Rebecca's blog, which expressed his concern that people of color are less well represented in the blogopshere than in mainstream media: “It has taken ‘mainstream media’ a very long time to get...
Media access to the Madrid Summit
Martín Varsavsky, our host at the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security, has been handling some awkward questions about media access to the summit. Over thirteen hundred journalists were invited to the summit, but none are admitted to the main conference hall. Instead, they're set up in the hotel...
Dina Mehta on the Indian blogscene
Dina Mehta, a brilliant Indian anthropologist and blogger, just published an article on the emergence of the Indian blogosphere for online magazine Nirantar. Referencing Malcolm Gladwell's new book, “The Tipping Point”, she points to the emergence of “Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen” as evidence that Indian bloggers are emerging as a...
Plagarism is the sincerest form of flattery – Controversy in the Kenyan blogosphere
Ory Okolloh, the Kenyan Pundit and Global Voices ally, is keeping her eyes on an interesting situation in the Kenyan blogosphere – the plagarism of a prominent Kenyan blogger by a columnist for one of Kenya's most respected newspapers. Here's the original post, a mock-job ad for positions in President...
Civiblog – Blog Hosting for Civil Society
Global Voices collaborator Joi Ito has just joined the advisory board of Civiblog, a project designed to give blogs to civil society organizations around the world. Run by Citizen's Lab (a fantastic source of information on censorship and media freedom around the world), sponsored by Tucows and the Walter and...
