The blogging community in the UAE is skeptical it is making much of a difference - yet.
See:
Blogging poised to grow
and
Blogs �fill the information gap� left by newspapers
The headlines don't reflect the more cautious content of the stories.
Those quoted include Secret Dubai, Emirates Economist, Webmasterdubai (AKA Adventures in Dubai), and several others who chose to remain anonymous or whose names were not associated with specific blogs.
Emirates Today makes us sound like a pretty level-headed group of individuals. Only The Emirates Economist author comes across as a bit excessively exuberant about our impact on journalism in the UAE. But, getting back to being exuberant, stories like these can only enhance our influence (small as it may be) - provided that we do not disappoint those newspaper readers who come and check us out.
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4 comments:
They had to abridge my boringly rambling quotes, but I think that blogger influence here is a long way from being what it could be - it should certainly grow.
At the moment most of us aren't breaking really edgy stories, I wait until something controversial is already in the papers before blogging it, because there's no protection of free speech here. I waited over a year for example to blog about the cracked, empty Garden View villas.
I know I have a peculiar view of the world, but the property market would receive a signficant boost in confidence and stability if the property owners knew that bad news was readily reported. That is, it is not in the interest of property companies to use influence to punish those who report bad news.
Besides bloggers, and probably more significantly, is the development of civil society organizations in the UAE. They give people voice.
Example: Homeowners' associations
There is some guy, sat at some government office somewhere, whose sole job is to read through UAE Community blogs and note any pertinent comments. That, and raise the red flag on any "controversial" material (re: site blocked).
One blogger (I believe it was FYH before his untimely blockage) commented that if the city has such a huge problem with people driving on the hard shoulder, then...urm...get rid of the hard shoulder. Great suggestion.
Oddly enough, driving into work this morning I noticed that a new yellow marker line was being laid down on the SZR! The hard shoulder was now less than half its original width.
Call me an optimist, but I do believe someone's blog made an impact!
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