Global Voices Online

If you have been given author access to GV please be sure to read this entire page before writing your first post.

OUR MISSION:

The Global Voices mission stems from our frustration that there is a lot going on in the world that the International Mainstream Media isn't reporting. The fact that the perspectives and views of most of the world's people are not well communicated across borders is, we believe, a dangerous situation which makes misunderstanding and conflict between nations much more likely.

Furthermore, as members of our global bloggers' community declared in the Global Voices Manifesto, everybody on this planet has the right to speak and be heard. Thanks to the internet and easy weblog technology, this is more possible than ever, despite obstacles that some powerful people try to put in our way, for fear that our voices will erode their control.

But as more and more people around the world start to speak online, the cacophony grows. How does the weblog enthusiast in Ohio or Bangalore sort through all those voices and find what they need and want to know - without spending 24 hours a day surfing the web? Global Voices hopes to become their guide to the global blogosphere. We want to help people discover the best that the world's blogs have to offer - and to open their eyes and minds to new information and points of view coming from bloggers around the world.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We ask that you not post weblog items about the United States. Why? Because the USA is already over-represented in the world's English language blogosphere. We are also posting very few items on Western Europe and Oceania (Australia/New Zealand) for similar reasons - GV is an effort to bring greater attention to parts of the world that tend to get under-reported by mainstream media, and those parts of the world tend to be over-reported by MSM.

… with that quick cautionary post, there are lots of things we would LOVE YOU TO POST:

KINDS OF WEBLOG POSTS:
By contributing to Global Voices, we hope you will help us share your part of the blogosphere. We hope you will help serve as a “guide” to what's happening on the blogs in your part of the world. You can do this by writing the following kinds of posts:

1) “Bridge-blog” posts discussing what a certain blogosphere has been talking about lately. Examples are: Frank Dai's Chinese blogosphere summaries, Ahmed's occasional posts about what the Arabic blogosphere has been saying, posts from Ory and Ndesanjo about what their blogospheres are buzzing about, etc.

(We have started an assignment wiki to schedule these regularly so that somebody from somewhere is posting something at least once per day. If you would like to volunteer to do this regularly please go to the wiki and sign up.)

2) Profiles of various country and/or regional blogospheres.
(If you want to help with this please also sign up on the Assignment Wiki.)

3) Profiles of particularly interesting bloggers in different countries.

4) News about what's happening in various blogospheres around the world: for instance, a report on a particularly interesting blogger meeting, who attended and what came out of it. Or how bloggers somewhere organized a demonstration (as they recently did in Egypt). And also very important: information about trouble any bloggers might be having with their governments, with updates as the situation develops. (Example: the Khalid Jarrar detention.)

5) Discussion and demonstration of particularly interesting tools that bloggers are using to do innovative things in different places. (See Andy Carvin's demonstration of videoblogging in Ghana, or Mack Zulfikli's post on “flashblogging”)

6) Posts about: “here is an issue in xxx country that the mainstream media isn't talking about, but here's what the bloggers are saying.”

7) Posts about how a certain blogosphere is responsing to a certain issue. (like a recent post by David Sasaki about what the Central American blogosphere was saying about CAFTA)

8) Posts showing how a certain part of the world's blogosphere is reacting to a particular traumatic news event. (like a few we did after the London bombings showing how the Muslim blogosphere was reacting to the bombings)

9) Posts capturing a news story coming from blogs somewhere which appears to be quite important but which has not yet hit the Mainstream Media's radar screen, but which needs to get more attention.

10) Posts translating something interesting coming off a non-English blogosphere which the mainstream media isn't covering and which the English-speaking blogosphere doesn't seem to be aware of, but should be.

These are not hard-and-fast “rules” which rule out other kinds of posts. Please take this list as a description of the kinds of posts which tend to fall within the Global Voices core mission. As an author, you may believe that other kinds of posts also fit into the mission of calling attention to voices and views in the international blogosphere that need to be heard. Please feel free to write and post them - and email us at globalvoices DOT online AT gmail DOT com if you have any questions.

OTHER THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND:
Do not assume that the reader of your post knows anything about your country or region. There needs to be sufficient explanation of the context so that your post will make sense to somebody half a world away. An easy way to do this is to link words referring to people, places, and events to the relevant Wikipedia entries and news stories. Also be sure that your title and opening sentences make it clear what country, region, and/or issue you're talking. As you're writing, keep in mind that somebody far away will be asking themselves “why should I care?” when they start reading your post, before they decide whether they're going to continue reading the whole thing. Make sure you start out your post fairly quickly by giving them a reason to want to keep reading. We will address these techniques in more detail in the style guide, which is still under contstruction.

Thanks!!
Rebecca