Why Global Voices is great.

They've compiled a sampling of international blogger voices on Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize and posted in one big post. Included here are voices from Africa, India, China, complete with the original text and English translation.

I ran across all kinds of posts about Gore's win. This is a handy way of getting quality opinions all in one spot.

WashPost on Lebanese, Israeli bloggers

"Blogging Under the Radar: As War Raged, Lebanese and Israelis Found Common Ground." A Washington Post article from August 2006 that looked at several bloggers who published during last year's fighint. Several of the bloggers listed here are still blogging about life in the Middle East. Their posts range from politics and the fighting to daily life, family and travelling. Very good snapshots of life in a time of crisis.

From Time.com: Why journalists love blogging

Mark Gimein, a guest blogger for Time.com this week wrote: "A friend of mine who asked not to be named calls blogging 'Journalist's Crack."

Sounds about right to me. The new form gives journalists freedom from the restrictions of print, offers a quick way to get instant answers and feedback from readers and editors alike. Write as much as you want without worrying people will read you. Build an audience because they drool over every word you publish. I can see why it's compared to a drug.

"Journalists love doing this in part because over the years they have been pushed to squeeze more and more of the viewpoint and analysis out of their writing in the name of objectivity. So the blog lets them cut loose. It gives them a satisfaction that's hard to get from doing original reporting, and it's much easier than doing original reporting as well. And it lets them feel like they're part of a community, 'the blogosphere.' "

Plus, it's a little bit fun to see who's really paying attention to what you have to say.

Best/Worst Sites 5: Friday

Best: WhirledView
Found this blog by three women through a link on a thread at MyDD::Progressive blogosphere diversity. The three bloggers are an international affairs specialist, a chemist specializing in international environmental projects, and a communications specialist with great experience in the U.S. foreign service. All in all, I'd say that's a pretty remarkable group of women. Most of their posts focus on international relations and politics, but also explore issues of international security and diplomacy. Blogrolls are extensive to other national security, international affairs and political blogs as well as to books on subjects they discuss. This blog makes a nice addition to the list of more country specific blogs I'm developing. I like this blog for the broad look at international relations.

Not so great: luck with searching
I've resisted calling websites worst. I keep finding things that aren't related specifically to my topic. It's not that they're bad, it's just the results of many of my searches haven't turned up as many great results as I'd like. I've found lots of feminist blogs (slightly related, but not completely); blogs by women about American politics; blogs by women living in other countries; blogs about international politics and relations, but not necessarily about women. I've refined searches in Technorati, ask.com, del.ic.ious, clusty.com, dogpile.com, google.com. I've found lots of good things to add to the blogroll along with excluding sites simply because my searching hasn't been up to par. I want something to jump out as just horrible. Maybe I'm being too nice. There's plenty that's awful.
Or, maybe it's that I've found so many great blogrolls, but they don't give me a sense of what's on the roll. Give me details about where you're sending me!

So, for example of blogs I've found that are pretty good, just not related to my topic:

• Guerrilla Women in Tennessee
• Development Activism
• Feminist Review
• In Women We Trust

Instant polling of readers

A post last month on the New York Times' The Caucus blog, Katharine Seelye asked readers for their thoughts on women and politics and the web. To date, there are 79 responses from men and women and suggest many different ideas. I love that the dialogue continues even after the deadline. The discussions just keep on going.

And, the results and Seelye's story here.

Elections back in 1924...

I found Susan Crawford's blog at some point in the past two weeks as I've been looking for resources. She's a professor of cyberlaw and communications law who blogs about those areas as well as the impact of technology on different aspects of society.

This post came through the RSS feeder this evening on how technology had a major impact on elections in 1924:

"... The new technology was remarkable. It had found a way to dispense with political middlemen. In a fashion it had restored the demos upon which republican government is founded. No candidate would be able to stand up to it who was unprepared to enlighten the electorate. It potentially gave to every member of the electorate the possibility of a direct reaction to the candidates themselvs. It reproduced to some degree, for the first time in the United States, the conditions of the Athenian democracy where every voter, for himself, could hear and judge the candidates.

The year was 1924: “…America finds herself this year in the act of virtually choosing her chief executive by an instrument that was up to a brief two years ago generally considered a freakish fad.”

“Politics,” the newspapers said, was “radio’s next big job.”

Worth a mention here because of how it relates to my other world of newspapers and dealing with change and the impact of new technology.

Best/Worst Sites 4: Thursday

Best: Antigone Magazine.
Jackpot. I should have come to Technorati and done this search a long time ago: global women politics blogosphere (but noooo... I had to try other search techniques first).
I found this blog for Antigone Magazine, a biannual print publication about women and politics at the University of British Columbia. The blog keeps the dialogue going throughout the year. It's written by several women and primarily focuses on politics in Canada, but also includes a fair amount of commentary on their neighbors to the south.

Not so great: Iranian Bloggers in Jail/Democracy for Iran
There is some good content here written by women. My complaints here tend to skew to the design of the site. While a beautiful language to look at, Arabic characters do not hold up well when reversed out of this black background. Also, image placement and column widths of the site have been skewed in such a way that type runs together and runaround on photos is awkward to the point of having one word per line in the sidebar. The blogroll here looks promising with many links to blogs and sites about democracy movements in Iran. The design is simply something keeping me from learning from this site.

Best/Worst Sites 3: Thursday

Best: Global Voices Online, Politics Blogs
I mentioned this site earlier this week on the classroom Blackboard and I've listed it in the blogroll over on the right. Time to make a note of it here as well. Global Voices is a project of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
This particular section of the site helps narrow the group of bloggers down to those who focus on politics. While there are many male bloggers listed in this group, this is by far one of the best groupings of international political bloggers I've found thus far. The site is edited by members of the Center, and blog posts are of high quality. It's an interesting way of aggregating bloggers from around the world - translate and host their posts all in one searchable place. But, it makes finding many different voices a very quick and easy process.
One of the more frequent posters is Veronica Khokhlova, who covers topics around the Ukraine and Russia. She's a native of Kiev who has degrees in journalism from Rutgers and the University of Iowa.
And Neha Viswanathan is a blogger living in London who focuses on south Asia. Her blogroll looks like it will also be a promising place to find women bloggers.
Good stuff every time I take a click.

Worst: Sites found with the search combination: russian women blog
I should have known better when I did this search in Ask.com. I had decided to use ask.com to let the smart search give me a little help in finding some blogs to list under the not-so-great category. First filtered search gave me a ton of results for Russian mail-order bride type sites. Whoopsie... Hope the work censors get a chuckle out of some of these hits. No naked ladies, just lots of ads for all types of Russian women. Not exactly the types of "blogs" I was looking for.

Elsewhere in J713 3: Global spread of cancer

Classmate Amanda Toler's Global Criss Cross blog has primarily focused on cross-cultural experiences students have while travelling and learning abroad. In a bit of a detour from her main topic, she's posted about Time Magazine's recent issue on the global spread of breast cancer. Timely post and timely article for October's Breast Cancer Awareness month. Amanda's remarked about the impact of the interactive graph that accompanies the story.

Which all got me to thinking... what causes a non-communicable disease to spread around the world? I tried thinking about some possibilities before reading the Time stories: women living longer, better reporting of cancer statistics worldwide, better access to health care and treatments around the world. Here's what the story had to say:

"Thanks to better sanitation, more food and improved public health, the average life expectancy in low- and middle-income nations has risen from 50 in 1965 to 65 in 2005. Women are simply living long enough to reach the age at which they're most susceptible to breast cancer. With Westernized life spans, however, can come Western habits too — fatty foods, lack of exercise and obesity, all of which may raise the incidence of breast cancer."

Gulp. Not only are our reading, cultural and political interests spreading around the world, but so are some of the bad habits and crazy lifestyle changes. Is this the kind of global impact we want to have on the world?

Elsewhere in J713 2: Useful Spins on Consumer Health

I'm enjoying reading classmate Marcie Barnes' Feeding Blackmail blog, where she's examining health issues in the context of every day life. She's providing useful consumer information in a manner that's easy and fun to read. Marcie's doing a good job of providing the facts in her posts so her readers can make informed decisions on their own, but she's also including enough of her opinions to give readers a sense of where she stands.

What I love most is the tone of the blog: Marcie comes across as a real person who's sorting through the food information just like everyone else. She does so in a manner that doesn't leave me feeling guilty for not always being green or organic. However, her writing is persuasive enough to suggest I try.

I've not been swept into the organic health food craze, but it's nice to learn more about it from someone who's already navigated a great deal of the information that's out there.

Elsewhere in J713 1: The impact of tags

Colleague and classmate Andria Krewson's blog is blowing up. She's been getting traffic reports through her sitemeter feed showing dramatic traffic numbers (well, dramatic in comparison to the traffic I'm seeing on my blog, where most of the readers appear to be my classmates). A closer look at some of her sitemeter statistics shows that readers are clicking into her blog from the permalinks attached to individual posts.

So, how did the readers get to her Global Vue blog if she hasn't done much publicizing of the site? Tags seem to hold the key.

For example, look at one of Andria's posts from 10.09. She includes the tag "Google Ads." (If my hits go off the charts for even including that phrase, I'll be amazed.) If you click on the tag at the end of this particular post, you're taken to a Wordpress page, Blogs about: Google Ads. The permalink to that particular post is currently the 3rd blog listed. Viola! Big hits when you're a top search result.

The lesson: use tags to help you not only organize your blog and help readers find what you're talking about, but to help you expand your audience and your reach in the blogosphere.


Fun cool site to look at: wordpress.com/tags to see what people are reading.

Worst Sites 1b: Wednesday

somehow I skipped tuesday. or at least I think I did. no matter. I'll have 5 great and 5 not so great sites to share in a wrap up post by the end of the week. But for today's finds:

Worst: African Womens Blogs.
I really wanted this one to be a gem. Alas, not so much in the way of great blogs relating to women and the political blogosphere. This site purports to be an "aggregator of african women blogs," and asks readers to join the forum. What I found was several blogs written by women, but not necessarily women living in Africa. There were several African women who were blogging, just not about politics. The site also generated several errors when I clicked on links to see "Top Users" and "Listed Blogs." Thumbs down for a site that doesn't help this user easily find content on the site and for generating errors on links that should work.

Evaluating Web Sites 3: Relevance

I'm learning a tremendous amount about women in the blogosphere, U.S. women on politics, and about international organizations that are focused on promoting women's rights around the world. I'm having a little trouble keeping focused on the combination of international women blogging on politics. I confess, it's easy to get off on tangents and go tumbling down the rabbit hole on any one of the subjects. And, in doing so, I've stumbled onto some pretty good resources that are on topic. But, the goal here is to be specific and find sites that support t

How unique is the content and the opinions of the authors/commentators? Do they write about politics around the world? Are the writings focused on politics or is political commentary an occasional component of the blog or website? Does the site broaden the scope of the topic or does it target the specific goal of the topic?

I’m looking for are sites that can succinctly direct me to a wealth of information.

Evaluating Web Sites 2: Timeliness

Information from earlier than 2007 won't be the best information for the current impact of women bloggers. While some information pre-07 may prove useful to see how a blogger or website has developed as a resource, it's not the best way to find out what's happening in current political arenas. As far as looking for information relating to what women are writing now and what they're doing to influence the current election and political climate, I need websites that provide the most current and up to date information.

Studies that examine historical data can prove useful for studying trends over time. But information needs to be updated to include statistics from recent events. I've already found one international women's rights group that stopped publishing in 2005. Some of the information on that site might still be relevant in that it was pertinent at that point in time. However, the two year time gap is significant in that much has happened politically - both domestically and abroad - in that time period.

Out-dated material, posts, studies, discussions can be useful for background research. Current materials provide the most relevant picture of the impact women are having on today's political landscape.

Evaluating Web Sites 1: Accuracy

Accuracy ranks as the most important issue for me when I'm evaluating the quality of a website. I've found volumes of information about women and politics; women and international politics; and political blogs written by women. If the information found on these sites isn't true or is filled with spelling and grammatical mistakes, I'm not likely to believe what I'm reading. Likewise, if the information on a site is erroneous, I'm not as likely to use that site's links to additional resources. If I can't trust the validity of the source, why should I trust the source's recommendations?

Additional questions: Does the site provide the most accurate information available? Does the site incorporate a variety of accurate information? Does the site frequently spell words incorrectly or have serious flaws in grammar or editing? Does the site link to existing sites or have the links expired? Has the author updated the website recently to include more recent statistics and information? Are links to information that is also still relevant to the topic?

Best/Worst Sites 2: Monday

Best: Women's eNews.
This site, funded by several leading U.S. think tanks and endowments including the Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, has a strong list of links to national and international women's issues. There are also a significant number of original articles and research on the site. Thus far, it's been one of the best spring boards to finding both domestic and international sites related to women and politics. I'm adding Women's eNews to the list of the best sites relating to my topic on the strong credibility of its sponsors, funding and endowment as well as its links to other quality websites.

Worst: Jagriti International
Adding this site to the list of worst is a little bittersweet as I'm adding it here mostly because the group has not been active since 2005 when

"On-going civil and political strife in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nepal have made it impossible for us to safely send Bridging Worlds volunteers to these countries. The U.S. Patriot Act and visa restrictions have also forced us to suspend our Bridging Worlds Emerging Leaders program because it is nearly impossible for women from grassroots organizations to meet stringent U.S. visa requirements. Therefore the board has sadly decided to indefinitely suspend our active programs."

The group has some good links to women's groups that are active in many developing nations. But, given Jagriti's lack of it's own recently updated information relating to women's groups and political advocacy, I'm reluctant to assume any of the links and contact information for the linked groups are active and accurate.
It's terribly unfortunate that violence and the Patriot Act are among the chief reasons this group had to discontinue assisting women in developing nations.

Best Sites 1a: 100 Women Political Bloggers

Lisa Bistreich posted about my blog, and a commenter there pointed me to this blog and a post of 100 links to women political bloggers. Talk about a gold mine! Thanks to Lisa and her commenter for the tip. I'll have to spend some serious time scouring this list. I think the bulk of the ones listed here may be domestic. But, I'm hopeful these 100 ladies will direct me to even more useful sites.

Updated 10.10.07: I'm updating this post to include this site as one of my 5 best for the assignment requirements. It makes the cut because of the volume of links related to the topic. While the list contains numerous U.S. bloggers, it's a tremendous link list to use to find others. It's relevant, timely and accurate. Better still, readers have been submitting their own links giving the site points for dynamics and reader interactivity.