On April 16, at 7PM, the Friday night before the conference, we're organizing a dinner at the famous Durgin Park restaurant in Boston. So we can tell how many people to make a reservation for, please check the box on this page, and click Submit. On Monday next week, April 12, we'll then call the restaurant and make the reservation for the group.

A new form can be used if you've registered for BloggerCon on April 17, but will not be able to attend.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 4/5/04; 2:05:25 PM - --

Blogs are making an impact on American politics. The weblog has emerged as a vehicle for alternative citizen-journalism, from time to time effectively “hacking” the mainstream media’s spin-cycle and bringing important news to public attention.

But what about the rest of the world?

Blogs within different countries:

Blogs and other blog-like forms of communication through the internet have developed in different ways in different countries. How has the advent of blogging begun to change the social dynamics, politics and media of other countries? What are the limitations?

Blogs as a source of information about other countries:

When it comes to understanding people from other cultures, and being better informed about events in foreign countries, what are weblogs able to achieve that conventional media cannot?

Blog audiences vs. old-media audiences:

In the concrete physical world, we have "national media", whose audiences are primarily in one country or another. Is this new web-based media different? Are blog-communities more inclined to transcend national borders? To what extent and how so?

Blogs as a new tool for cross-border communication:

Since 9/11 many people who live outside the U.S. have observed that there is a growing gap between the way people in the U.S. and in orther countries view the world. This is reinforced by mainstream media which for profitability reasons doesn’t want to hit people over the head with information they don’t want to hear. Are blogs doing anything meaningful to bridge this gap? Can they?

Can blogs create a new “global commons”?

Can the creation of a “global commons” of bloggers help to promote better global dialogue about issues of war and peace, so that citizens can help bridge communication divides that their governments and national medias are failing to bridge?

Led by Rebecca MacKinnon 

# Posted by Rebecca MacKinnon on 4/5/04; 1:11:32 PM - --