Norgdom

I found this truly significant story of citizen journalism in China on Howard Rheingold’s blog Smart Mobs.

The story was originally carried on Fox Cable News about a Christian Church that was pulled down by the Chinese Government, but it also appears online here. This is not an uncommon practice in China and nearly every month a story emerges about priests being jailed and disappearing for simply living out their beliefs… and that is literally only the beginning of the story.

It would have gone unwitnessed by the world if it was not for the fact that it was recorded on a a camera phone and played during the Archbishop of Canterbury’s tour to China to highlight the plight of Christians in the country.
The Sky News story points out that:

This is normal practice for Chinese authorities and normally they get away with it unwitnessed by the outside world. But in this case the demolition was filmed on mobile phones and the footage was handed to Sky News.

How long can the Chinese keep control on the news in the age of mobile technology?

This is a great example of the important role citizen journalism has in the world. It has the power to change the way we see the world around us. And we should not underestimate that.

On that note, see you round the norg.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 20th, 2006 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.