18 January, 2007

arab conversations..

last year i was approached by a journalist from ny writing for the columbia journalism review to discuss my experience with the arab blogosphere.. gal beckerman is a very thoughtful guy who has considered the topic at length.. read our blogs and paid attention to our discourse..

this week as i was lazily opening my work mail one morning i found a copy of the article..

I WARN YOU - it's looooooooong..

but i reckon any one of you who blogs regularly should give it a good solid read and consider what role they play in this emerging phenomenon..

you may think you are just killing some filler time between tasks at work or perhaps avoiding the tv cacophony early in the morning and getting some first hand news.. however.. to my mind you are representing to the world aspects of the arab civilisation that many do not otherwise see..

would love to hear your views..

belated happy new year to you all..

lirun
telaviv

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

hmm.. Interesting read

Anonymous said...

BTW, Lirun, New Year is this coming Sunday here, so you're not belated at all :-)

Lirun said...

cool..

well in that case i'll wish it to you all over again ;)

Seabee said...

Thanks for the heads-up Lirun, it's an interesting piece, not only about Arab blogging but blogging in general.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure if the uaecommunity blog would qualify as a forum for Arab blogging though!

Lirun said...

why not..

i actually think it is..

i reckon its a brilliant example of the blogosphere and the unique interfaces it creates..

Anonymous said...

I don't disagree on th epointon its uniqueness and the interfacea it creates; I'm just wondering if it qualifies as an Arab blog (as the article seems to imply). I mean, how many of the bloggers on this forum are actually Arab? I haven't done a count, but my impression is that they're mostly expatriates from Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and the Subcontinent, some of them don't even seem to live in the UAE. May be someone else has better information, but this is my feeling.

Anonymous said...

Dredge,

Don't be so sure. Alot of us Emiratis are only recently coming to terms with blogging. And just because we are not as prolific (Do keep in mind that we are only 15% of our own population) as others online does not mean we don't have a presence.

Lirun,
Thank you for the excellent article. I have always wanted to visit Jerusalem, see the dome of the rock, the old temple wall, the ancient churches. Maybe one day when so much expensive blood is not being shed. Best of luck.

Anonymous said...

anonymnous,
it's not about whether uae bloggers have some presence or not in general; rather it's about how much presence they have on THIS forum; and based on that, does this make uae-comm an appropriate subject for research on Arab blogging. In other words, how representative is the uaecoom in terms of Arab blogging trends, Arab concerns, Arab issues, Arab etc.? For a start, how many Arab bloggers actually blog on uaecomm?

Lirun said...

well anono..

go for it.. lets build some more peaceful bridges of connection..

blogs are a fantastic low risk place for people to get to know eachother..

i have been fortunate enough to make some dear friends over the course of the last 8 blogging months or so..

;)

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