Rebecca MacKinnon

Rebecca MacKinnon's weblog: http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/

Archived Biography: Rebecca MacKinnon is a veteran journalist who has enthusiastically embraced the new world of weblogs and participatory media. She is co-founder with Berkman fellow Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices Online, an international online citizens’ media project housed at the BerkmanCenter.

Rebecca worked for CNN in Northeast Asia for over a decade, serving as CNN’s Beijing Bureau Chief and Correspondent from 1998-2001 and as Tokyo Bureau Chief and Correspondent from 2001-03. She has also covered major news events in North and South Korea, Pakistan, and the Philippines. 

Since becoming a Berkman fellow in mid-2004, Rebecca has written and spoken extensively about the future of global participatory media and was primary organizer of the Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility conference at Harvard in January 2005. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Rebecca also speaks and writes frequently on issues related to the internet in China.  Her personal weblog is www.RConversation.com.

Before coming to the Berkman Center, Rebecca studied the relationship between international news and weblogs as a media fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. As part of her research project there she founded a weblog on North Korea, North Korea zone.

Prior to joining CNN in Beijing in 1992, Rebecca was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan, where she also worked as a freelance journalist for a number of publications, including Newsweek. Originally from Tempe, Arizona, Rebecca graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, where she majored in Government with a focus on international relations. As a child she lived with her parents and brother in Beijing, New Delhi, and Hong Kong.

In January 2007, Rebecca relocated to Hong Kong, where she is Assistant Professor for New Media at Hong Kong University's Journalism and Media Studies Centre.