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 April, 2005
Children's Voices from Darfur
In February 2005, Human Rights Watch sent researchers Dr. Annie Sparrow and Olivier Bercault to Chad to talk with refugees who'd fled from the bombings and Janjawid militia attacks in Darfur. A pediatrician, Dr. Sparrow usually gives crayons and paper to children to entertain them while she interviews their parents....
Blogging from Togo – Views of the Post-Election Protests
The post-election situation in Togo is getting increasingly complicated. Faure Gnassingbé, the son of deceased Togolese leader Gnassingbé Eyadema, has claimed victory with 60% of the votes counted in Sunday's election. But there are widespread accusations of election fraud, and opposition supporters have responded to Gnassingbé's election with violent protests....
“Theory of Everything” focuses on Global Voices
Ben Walker's “Theory of Everthing” radio show is getting love from all over the blogosphere – Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing has favorably compared it to Ira Glass's excellent This American Life, one of the best programs available on American radio. Ben's latest show, available for download as an mp3,...
Introducing bridge blogger Ndesanjo Macha
Sometimes the Internet helps you find interesting people halfway across the globe. And sometimes it helps you find out that interesting people from halfway across the globe are living in your neighborhood. I had the second sort of experience Sunday, when I travelled to Brattleboro, Vermont (100km away, but in...
New faces in the bridgeblog index
I was recently introduced to the concept of “wiki gardeners”, people who tend wikis, cutting away spam, fixing formatting and grammar, and generally tidying up the place. I just spent a few hours on the BridgeBlog Index, and I'm struck by what a good metaphor gardening is. We “planted” the...
A technical guide to anonymous blogging – a very early draft
The Electronic Frontier Foundation posted an excellent guide to safe blogging a few days back. While the guide is quite rich in tips to ensure you don't reveal too much personal information while blogging, it doesn't look very closely at the technical issues associated with keeping a blog private. I...
Isaacmao.com blocked
Isaac at the Harvard Global Voices gathering, photo by Jeff Ooi. As some of our readers have pointed out, Isaac Mao's site – isaacmao.com – is being blocked. Isaac gives part of the story on his backup site, helpfully titled “Not isaacmao.com”: The site of isaacmao.com has been blocked due...
Reporters Sans Frontieres
Our friends at Reporters Sans Frontieres are running a contest to honor blogs defending freedom of expression. Contest finalists were posted yesterday, and the Global Voices community is well represented. Jeff Ooi's Screenshots, and Rebecca Mackinnon's NKZone are both nominated in the “Asia” category. Hoder's Editor:Myself is one of the...
The view from Riyadh – Saudi Jeans
Ahmed, a pharmacy student in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, maintains the excellent “Saudi Jeans”, a link blog that looks and feels a little like Scripting News, if only Dave Winer lived in the Middle East and read dozens of Arabic newspapers every morning. In between posts on everything from the role...
Global Voices on the Radio
Clark Boyd of The World – a joint project radio show produced by the BBC and WGBH, Boston – spent a good chunk of time with some of the Global Voices team last Tuesday. The result of his efforts was a feature story on today's edition of the program. Clark...
Global Voices Brainstorm
We held a brainstorming session on Global Voices at the Berkman Center Tuesday lunch earlier this week. It was a good chance for Rebecca and me to present some of the thinking we've done about how Harvard can support Global Voices efforts and what our work at Berkman is likely...
