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Blogs: to regulate or not to regulate?

12 Sep 2007

With about 70 million blogs out on the internet, a debate is emerging on whether to regulate this free cyber space or not to. Blogs are used for a variety of reasons and agendas. Some are used as a tool to help cause change like in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, while others are used to initiate debate on issues relating to the principles of journalism.

In some instances, blogs are considered to be some kind of mass media. Subsequently the big question is: should blogs be regulated like conventional media or not?

Professor Guy Berger of Rhodes University's School of Journalism and Media Studies said the matter of regulation raises issues of credibility, reliability and identification. He cited events that surrounded a South African blogger who ran a blog as a male prostitute. Berger said that when the anonymous male prostitute got caught, it proved that the blogosphere can regulate itself.

He was speaking during a panel discussion on the topic: ‘Cyber activism and legal lessons' during the Digital Citizen Indaba which ran prior to the Highway Africa new media conference this weekend at Rhodes University, Grahamstown.

Blog ‘activism'

Brenda Burrell, a co-founder and IT director of www.kubatana.net, a civic and human rights information portal for Zimbabwe, reflected on what the blogosphere can do, especially in media-unfriendly environments like Zimbabwe.

“For a country like Zimbabwe where there is no independent media, it is these independent blogs that are making a difference,” she said. Burrell said blogging can be used as a tool to access resources. Kubatana.net she said has been able to access resources to enable them to carry out their work.

While Prof Berger's talk raised the issue of anonymity among bloggers, Burrell said it would be counterproductive for anyone to remain anonymous particularly if the blogging is aimed at creating change.

About the big question, Burrell is of the view that bloggers need to be self regulatory. “You have to balance the negatives and the positives if you are from a dangerous place like Zimbabwe,” she said.

Habtamu Dugo, an Ethiopian journalist and a blogger, said in Ethiopia, cyber activism is dead because of the low levels of penetration of the internet (0.02%) as well as the total control that the government has on the communications sector.

Source: HANA www.highwayafrica.ru.ac.za