03 December 2007

About This Issue

Technology: how it impacts the media

Bystanders use their mobile phones to take photos of a media swarm during a stop on the U.S. presidential campaign trail.

One-sixth of the entire world’s population uses the Internet regularly, according to the World Telecommunications Union, and 2.7 billion people are subscribers to mobile telephone services. Both of those numbers have rocketed in the few years since we entered a new millennium.

These technologies allow individuals to tap deep wells into the world’s knowledge, and then to share it and disseminate it for social or political agendas of their own making. Knowledge is power, and on the pages that follow, our contributors describe many events in the world where citizens have used technologies and the power they convey to challenge the status quo, to unmask abuses, and to clamor for greater freedom.

“The technology — ubiquitous even in poor countries — not only enables a freer flow of information, but it also encourages citizens who previously felt powerless to take a role in bringing about changes in their societies,” writes Patrick Butler of the International Center for Journalists in the first essay of this publication.

Challenged by these movements for change, governments can no longer safely resort to the old patterns. Repressive governments can no longer meet peaceful protestors with bludgeons and go unnoticed. Camera phones record the scene when the blows fall. Effusive bloggers will tell the world.

This is a story that eJournal USA began reporting in March 2006 with publication of Media Emerging, which examined how traditional media were remaking their products in a new information environment and how citizens were finding their skills with new technologies. Now the story is unfolding beyond the media itself into society at large.

Media organizations are among the best monitors of what’s happening, and we have turned to them to tell these stories. The International Center for Journalists explains how new technologies bring new voices to the political arena. A veteran American journalist describes how U.S. politics take a different course with the involvement of online activists. Writers from the World Editors Forum and the World Association of Newspapers explain how citizens are changing news products and how professional newsrooms must respond.

Our contributors tell complex and varied stories, but one theme repeats itself on these pages: The end of the story is not yet written. How our world will change as a result of the social, political, and media forces now let loose remains a secret for the future to know.

The Editors

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)