Berkman Buzz: Week of January 19, 2009

BERKMAN BUZZ:  A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations.  If you'd like to receive this by email, sign up here.

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*David Weinberger suggests using the Internet to create a more intimate democracy
*Dan Gillmor, on TPMCafe, looks at the media's role in the financial crisis
*Doc Searls provides a batch of reviews for the new WhiteHouse.gov
*danah boyd explores technology's power to help the sick...in a surprising way
*Digital Natives intern Sarah Zhang discusses watching history online
*The Publius Project returns with a new look and an essay from Ethan Zuckerman: "The Polyglot Internet"
*Weekly Global Voices: "African Blogosphere On Obama's Inauguration"

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"Nicholas Lemann has a terrific piece in the Jan. 26 New Yorker that says that personal characteristics are not enough to make someone a great president. To achieve that status, Obama “has to create institutions that will outlast him.' His examples are the United Nations, NATO, and social “legislation and regulation that affect very large numers of people and are built to last politically and economically…' One could certainly point to health care as possibly being of that status, especially if Daschle steps up the game so that it’s more than reform ‘n’ extend. It’s also possible that building a new world role for America could put Obama in the Hall of Great Presidents even if no official institutions come out of it. Likewise if his action on global warming and all around greenness changes not just our policies but our assumptions…"
From David Weinberger's blog post, "Intimate democracy"

"Our government's current operating principle seems to be bailing out people who were culpable in the financial meltdown. If so, journalists are surely entitled to billions of dollars. Why? Journalists were grossly deficient when it came to covering the reckless behavior, sleaze and willful ignorance of fundamental economics, much of which was reasonably obvious to anyone who was paying attention, that inflated the housing and credit bubbles of the past decade. Their frequent cheerleading for bad practices -- and near-total failure to warn us, repeatedly and relentlessly, of what was building -- made a bad situation worse..."
From Dan Gillmor's blog post for TPMCafe, "The Media's Role In The Financial Crisis"

"The Columbia Journalism Review whines, 'WhiteHouse.gov presents itself as a kind of social networking portal in which citizens can essentially “friend” the government–and it frames the ensuing dialogue as one that takes place directly between the people and the government. The press, it suggests by way of omission, need not be part of the exchange. One hopes–hey, one even dares to assume–that the conspicuous absence of the press from Obama’s transparency agenda is due to his conclusion that the democratic vitality of the Fourth Estate is so obvious as to render explanation or elucidation of that fact unnecessary...'"
From Doc Searls' blog post, "Pressing for respect"

"Yesterday, I received an email about one person's Facebook usage that I felt the urge to share: 'A little over 6 months ago, my stepmom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She is doing alright now, but during her chemotherapy she was isolated from friends and family due to a compromised immune system. She could still see people, but had to keep human interactions to a minimum. During that time, Facebook became this way for her to communicate and interact with the world. Being able to see pictures of friends and family and receiving comments would brighten her day. It was really amazing how she was able to adopt this technology temporarily and how valuable it became to her...'"
From danah boy's blog post, "using Facebook while ill"

"On Tuesday morning at 11:45, I ran out of my last final exam and plopped myself down in front of the nearest screen, determined not to miss a moment of Barack Obama’s inauguration. Televisions are harder to find around campus these days, but all I needed was a laptop with Internet access, and nearly everyone in the dining hall was congregated around one or another. I was only one of millions who found themselves in front of a computer rather than a TV (or in DC in person.) According to Akamai, who handles one-fifth of the world’s Internet traffic, Obama’s inauguration set a new record in the number of simultaneous data streams, which mostly carry live video..."
From the Digital Natives Project blog post, "Inauguration Day Online"

"The first wave of the Internet revolution changed expectations about the availability of information. Information that was stored in libraries, locked in government vaults or available only to subscribers was suddenly accessible to anyone with an internet connection. A second wave has changed expectations about who creates information online. Tens of millions of people are contributing content to the modern Internet, publishing photos, videos and blogposts to a global audience..."
From Ethan Zuckerman's Publius essay, originally prepared for the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council, "The Polyglot Internet"

"'It is done. I knew it would come, but, oh, what a feeling! Yes, Mr. President, it is done, indeed!' These words from Kenyan blogger Whispering Inn sum up the emotional responses of most bloggers in the African blogosphere to the historic inauguration ceremony of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America. While the world was watching Obama, Rob was watching Kenyans as they were celebrating 'the second coming' with beer. Rob is a freelance journalist writing about Africa for The Times, The Irish Times, The Daily Mail, The Scotsman and The Christian Science Monitor from Nairobi..."
From Ndesanjo Macha's blog post for Global Voices, "African Blogosphere On Obama's Inauguration"