Pakistani Blogosphere
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Pakistani Blogosphere comprises of various bloggers, writing out their blogs individually as well as collectively through group blogs. Blogs themselves are not a popular medium of mass communication as they are only used by the few people who are both tech-savvy as well as regular Internet users. However, they are slowly catching the attention of people who love to have their own space on the Internet to talk and interact. Pakistani political blogs are covered at Political blogs in Pakistan.
[edit] History and development of blogs in Pakistan
Blogging caught the attention of the Pakistani Internet surfers mainly after Google launched it's blog hosting service, Blogger in 2000. The "push button publishing" phenomenon, as it was termed by Blogger, was an easy and convenient means to put up just about anything one wanted on the Internet. Plus, no technical know-how of HTML or Java was needed. One could log on, write a post, hit the submit button and that was just about it.
Tariq Mustafa’s Window to Pakistan was the first Pakistani blog which came on the scene in 2001. The first entry on the blog is dated 6th June 2001. This blog is completely focused on the state of Internet, computers and technology in Pakistan with commentary and analysis of news items.
Khalid Omar and Zack Ajmal were the first among general blogs in Pakistan which focused on just about anything - personal rants, views on different issues and discussion of different articles around the Internet, to name a few.
It is interesting to note that the number of bloggers started increasing only during 2002, when blogging became more known through word-of-mouth. Now, there are many Pakistani bloggers who collectively on the Internet constitute the Pakistani blogosphere. But this number is still very small as compared to the total population which surfs the Internet. Hence, blogging is restricted to only a few young Pakistanis.
Yep, it is the youth among whom blogging has become immensely popular. This is mainly because blogging has its charms - it promises one exclusive space on the Internet where the Pakistani youth can transcend just about any restriction and speak their mind. They can share with others not only their views but also their hobbies and interests.
Blogging has also become popular because it involves very little technical know-how. A whole webpage is created simply by filling an online form and selecting a template. The ease of publishing has aided the spread of blogging as well.
[edit] Purpose and importance of blogs in Pakistan
Blogs serve many important purposes in Pakistan. In particular, they are used for the following:
[edit] Source of information
Although there are many people who still treat the news they read on blogs with a certain degree of skepticism, by and large blogs have gained momentum as a source of information. Pakistani blogs do not disseminate hard news of their own – they usually take news items from newspapers and magazines and post their own commentary on it.
Blogs which disseminate information do so mainly regarding a new book, a new product or a new marketing trend.
[edit] Facilitation of interaction
Blogs bring everyone on the same level. Famous authors and journalists with whom interaction would otherwise have been impossible can be got in touch with through their blogs. Author Bina Shah has her blog at The Random House.
Moreover, widespread interaction through blogs serves to create a wider social network for all the young Pakistanis who are blogging. By visiting and commenting on a selected number of blogs daily, bloggers find their own niche in the Pakistani bloggers’ community. This makes a wide social circle on the web possible.
[edit] General discussion
Blogging is seen as an effective means of communicating with people. It is a form of expression which goes beyond an email written to a single individual or a chat session which requires more spontaneity. Here, one can just pour out thoughts and feelings about any event which has occurred a few days ago or a decade ago. There is no dearth of people who do sympathize if you post any bad news, or congratulate on the good news, or offer their expert opinion if you ask for one. In that context, Pakistani blogs gave brought many topics under discussion with an international audience.
[edit] Promotion of tolerance
Blogs serve as a place where anyone can air their opinions and those who are visiting those blogs have to respect that. Hence, blogs promote conversation with and respect for people of other nationalities and ideologies. Of course there are disagreements and an all-out-war occasionally does break out when someone (called an Internet troll) posts something which is widely deemed ‘outrageous.’ But usually blogs are seen promoting dialogue between different ideologies.
[edit] Responding to disasters
It is said that the most important factors which contributed to the popularity of blogs were the Tasman Spirit disaster and the massive 2005 Kashmir earthquake in the northern areas on 8th October 2005. In the case of the latter, there were many blogs which surfaced in its aftermath. Some of them posted regular news and updates regarding the relief and rehabilitation work being done in the affected areas. Others tried their level best to keep up the spirit of the nation as it struggled to cope with the biggest natural disaster in its history.
[edit] Trends in the Pakistani Blogosphere
Blogging is a field that has not remained static. Many trends have evolved which have made blogging more interesting and appealing to a wider section of the population. In Pakistan, the following trends and types of blogging have been more prominent than others:-
===Group blogging===
A few people can get together and blog collectively on the same issue. The main characteristic of group blogging is that they all post on one blog only. Group blogging makes it possible to read a wider range of opinions on one blog.
In Pakistan, a highly successful group blog is run by the Internet Magazine, Spider at Dot PK. With over ten members, this blog features technology-related news, analysis of the Internet scenario in Pakistan and problems with different websites.
Many blog hosting services allow their members to add more members to their blog, allowing each team member to post to the blog. The central control over settings remains with the owner of the blog.
[edit] Columnist weblogs
Several Pakistani journalists and columnists are now turning to blogging as well. Farrukh Khan Pitafi, an Islamabad based columnist has been blogging for a while now and apart from his columns his blog [1] also features his comments from time to time on various issues. He also runs a media, arts and literature blog [2]. Blogging can be of great help for those who fear censorship at home.
[edit] strong language blogging
Recently a guy from karachi started his blog and become very popular because of using Controversial w/ strong Language in his blog he usually talk about pakistan and about his city Karachi.Some of Pakistani ISP already blocks this site because some of contents are against the Pakistani governments and the political parties of Pakistan.farhanriaz.livejournal.com [3]
[edit] Edu-blogging
This essentially refers to blogging on educational issues. Edu-blogs became popular after the first Edu-Blog Weblog Awards were given out. In Pakistan, there are still only a very few educational blogs. Two edu-blogs are worth noting here. One is maintained by the students of the Usman Institute of Technology at UITians and the other focuses on the Lahore School of Economics or LUMS.
[edit] News-based blogs
These are blogs which specialize in posting up the news stories which fit the theme of the specific blog. The main plus of news-based blogs is that unlike the mainstream media which only prints news stories which have certain news worthiness, these blogs print just about all the news they get their hands on. The average public gets to know all the news which will never get printed in any newspaper or magazine. It is this trend of blogs which has dubbed it as an alternative media.
There are many bloggers who take up this characteristic when they predict a bright future for the Pakistani blogosphere whereby blogs will come to be recognized as THE independent mass media in Pakistan. They will add another, completely different dimension to journalism. In this dimension, the reader becomes the debater and interacts and questions whoever is disseminating the information.
The major problem with this alternative media here in Pakistan is the low Internet literacy which makes blog literacy even lower. Low blog literacy means that very few people know that there is an alternative media available for them. Plus, certain webmasters get discouraged at the lower number of readers than foreign blogs and sometimes discontinue their blogs after some time.
However, there are people who are still trying. DhartiPakistan and PakPositive are couple of popular news-based blogs in the blogosphere. These blogs focus on news items related to Pakistan. Operating since November 2006 and June 2004 respectively, these blogs surfaced when its webmasters realized that all news related to Pakistan on the Internet was stereotypical in nature, focusing only on terrorism, intolerance and hatred. DhartiPakistan and PakPositive are launched with the aim of providing the audience a more realistic look at Pakistan as a country by providing "general interest news items which are overlooked by many."
[edit] Cause/issue-oriented blogs
These blogs revolve around specific causes or issues. What happens is that a blogger picks up an issue he/she feels strongly about. He/she creates a blog and all the posts are dedicated in some way to that cause or issue. The posts can contain links to news stories appearing in the mainstream media regarding the issue. It can contain any opinion and analysis from experts. The aim is to keep the issue alive long after coverage in the mainstream press has died down.
A very good example of this type of blog is Don’t Burn Pakistan which emerged after peaceful demonstrations opposing the publication of cartoons in European newspapers were infiltrated by unknown persons who destroyed the nearby vehicles and burned the buildings. The blog has photos as well as news and analysis of the situation and its aftermath. The cause, of course, is to appeal to people not to burn Pakistan.
[edit] Photo-blogging
Instead of a series of words to form a nice, long entry, photo blogs (or photologs, as they are commonly called) comprise of a photograph posted daily, with visitors commenting on the photos instead of the entry. For those people who don’t like to write much, this option is definitely appealing when they want to blog.
Many photo blogs operate in Pakistan. Since this option is fast and convenient, it is highly popular with most bloggers. Many of them have an account at Fotolog where they display their photography skills. PakPositive blog has an entire section on photos here which is run by Huma Imtiaz.
One of the most interesting photo blogs of Pakistani origin is the "Raw Life" blog maintained by Kay from Karachi. This is her personalized version of "A Softer World".
[edit] Metro blogging
To metro blog, people of a specific city get together and blog about their city itself. This type of blogging is a combination of group as well as news-based blogging.
In the Pakistani blogosphere, there is a metblog for Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. The Karachi Metblog was set up in February 2005 with the aim of providing "a first person perspective of life in the city." Right now, it has fifteen members who are actively involved in posting up news from around the city and expressing their own comment on them.
The Islamabad Metblog took some time to emerge because the parent website, Metroblogging requires at least seven members before a metblog can be assigned to one city. Islamabad bloggers like Asma Mirza, Talha Masood and Phil The Philosopher actively campaigned on their own blogs as well as on the Orkut community of Pakistani bloggers and finally managed to collect enough members to be able to start their own metblog in November 2005.
[edit] Mobile blogging
To blog from a mobile device or mo-blog, bloggers snap photos from their cell phone and immediately post them to their blogs. They can even write a post on their cell phones and post it to their blogs. This is a more sophisticated form of blogging which is becoming more popular with the prices of GPRS-enabled cell phones going down.
The only notable mo-blog in the Pakistani blogosphere is maintained by Umar Siddiqi, who is also an author at Karachi Metroblog.
[edit] Marketing blogs
In its strictest terms, marketing blogs mean those which further any product or service. In Pakistan, the two blogs which have anything remotely to do with marketing focus on the trends in the advertising industry and the marketing strategies employed by different companies. One is run by Henna Arshad, the CEO of Ajaxx Marketing, Media and Human Resource at Marketing Pangs. And the other is Next by Ramla.
[edit] Book blogs
Book blogs are set up by avid readers who use them to discuss their favorite books, review the ones they have read recently and put up a thing or two about their favorite authors. In Pakistan, the only book blog is a group blog, Pak Book Bloggers’ Club initiated by Tooba Mehboob.
[edit] Tech Blogs
One of the oldest group tech blog is Dot PK Now many tech blogs are set up by individual Pakistani tech enthusiasts to help general Pakistanis about IT and Internet. One such blog is HostPK a blog about web hosting and domain service providers in Pakistan.
[edit] Usage of blog tidbits
There is no end to the number of innovative items which have appeared on the scene since blogging became popular. 'Blog tidbits' is the phrase used to refer to these 'items.' These tidbits are certain services or tools to enhance the visual appeal of the blog. These items add more colour to the blog and enable the readers to interact more efficiently and sophisticatedly with the host blogger. More and more websites have mushroomed offering new and different types of blog tidbits. These tidbits are often viewed as an integral part of a blog, without which a blog seems boring and lifeless.
Some of the items more popular in the Pakistani blogosphere include:-
[edit] Comment Box
The time spent in writing a long, enlightening blog entry doesn’t really seem that well-spent if there is no way of finding out what people actually think of it, or whether they even find it interesting enough to read it. Commenting services offer not only an easy way to incorporate a comment link at the end of each entry, but also offer customizable templates.
[edit] Shout Box
Another very interactive feature, a shoutbox or tag board is a very efficient substitute for guest books. This board is very similar to a miniature chat window in which visitors can easily leave a one-word message along with their name and URL.
[edit] Guest Map
This feature requires of all visitors to mark their location on the world map first. When they enter their message, they select the country’s flag as well. Their final comment appears on the world map at their chosen location. A blog owner simply has to point to the icons on the world map to read the entries. To date, only Bravenet offers this feature, but nonetheless it is very popular on blogs.
[edit] Online Mood
This feature, also offered by only a few selected websites, allows the host blogger to select and display his/her mood online, selecting from a vast number of mood phrases and matching smileys. It is notable that this feature is a characteristic of personal blogs only and hardly appears on any serious, formal blog.
[edit] Stickers
These include stickers with popular quotations by famous personalities twisted to give them a blog-related touch such as "I Blog Therefore I Am" and "Ask Not What Blogging Can Do for You; Ask What You Can Do for Blogging." Many Pakistani bloggers pick these stickers from Blogstickers where they are available for free. However ,if put in large numbers, they can make the blog extremely slow to load.
[edit] Link Exchangers
This feature allows the visitor to add his/her own blog to the list of links of the blog which he/she is visiting. All it requires is the entry of a few details. The host blogger’s link will also be added to the list of links of the visitor in return. When these link exchangers first appeared, they were immensely popular. But, with time, spamming of these link exchangers occurred often with obscene, pornographic websites. Now, bloggers are more content to use services like Blog Rolling which has a more efficient filter in place to block out spam links.
[edit] Visitor Trackers
These trackers not only count the number of visitors who read the blog in a given day, month and year, but they also keep a tab on how new visitors are discovering the blog. They log the search words which brought the visitor to a certain blog as well as their IP so that if anyone crosses the limit while commenting or indulges in comment spamming, the IP can easily be blocked.
Although some of these tidbits seem more than a bit pointless, people with personal blogs rely heavily on most of them to beautify their blogs. So what is it that motivates Pakistani bloggers to spend that much time and effort on customizing their blog template with these tidbits?
[edit] Why are blogging tidbits used?
Possible reasons why many Pakistani bloggers use the tidbits mentioned above include:
[edit] Display of aesthetic skills
The choice and display of tidbits so that they neither look too crowded nor does the blog look simple, reflects the aesthetic skills of bloggers. And those who are gifted with this artistic sense do see this effort as well worth putting into, if it can increase the appeal of blogging, and ensure that the content is read.
[edit] Interactivity
Many tidbits allow the visitors to interact with the main blogger in a unique way. Tagboards, guest maps and comment boxes all allow the visitor to have some say in the blog’s content. It is more interesting than just signing a guest book to let the owner know that someone’s been there.
[edit] Log visitors’ activities
It makes an interesting read to find out which unique words lead a certain visitor to a blog. Or what is the IP of that irritating person who has constantly been posting his telephone number on the tag-board. And that a blogger needs to wake up and do some marketing if the number of visitors is declining. All this is possible only if one has a proper visitor tracking software.
[edit] Reflect sentiments
Anti-war activists should be proud of all Pakistani bloggers. As soon as the Iraq war began, black bands appeared on many blogs, along with peace stickers. A blog can definitely reflect sentiments through such stickers, add a voice to the masses and actively campaign for a common cause. Earthquake bands and stickers urging people to donate also appeared in large numbers on almost all Pakistani blogs in the aftermath of the 8/10 earthquake.
[edit] Have a laugh
Amidst the sombre mood of some blogs, it is always refreshing to have a sticker with a blog quotation, or one which has something to say about the personality of the blogger.
[edit] Blog awards
Although no blog awards have been given out by a Pakistani website to date, Pakistani blogs have nonetheless been nominated and have won in different categories in awards given by other websites. The prospect of being nominated in any category for any award has increased the motivation to blog with a cause.
Pakistani blogs which have won an award or have been nominated include:-
Zack Ajmal’s Procrastination won in the category of Best Asian Weblog in Asia Weblog Awards 2004. He was nominated in five categories and ended up as the runner-up in three categories in the Brass Crescent Awards 2004: Best Writing, Best Series (of Posts on a single subject), and Best Non-English Blog
In the Brass Crescent Awards 2004, Pakistani bloggers dominated overall. Haroon Moghul, who was an Islamabad-based blogger won in the category of Best Writing for his blog Avari.Nameh, as well as Best Post and Best Overall Blog. Asif Iqbal, an Urdu blogger, won in the category of Best Non-English Blog. Considering that Zack’s blog was also nominated for this same category and he too blogs in Urdu, this was a hallmark in the brief history of Urdu blogging.
In the second Brass Crescent Awards 2005, Zack Ajmal was nominated for Best Blog. Haroon Moghul emerged as a winner in the category of "Best Thinker" - the blog whose posts really make one think. The Best Post Award went to Chapati Mystery’s "That Terror Thing".
It is disappointing to note that Pakistani bloggers have yet to make a mark in the more high profile awards like the Fairvue Central Annual Weblog Awards which actually give out awards. But one reason for the absence of Pakistani bloggers may be that they don’t visit this website when the time comes to nominate blogs for the awards.
Getting a blog award is an ego booster even if the award is only a sticker to put on one’s blog. It is after all, the competition spurred by the awards, which will go a long way in improving the quality of blogs in general. And the average Internet user and blog reader will ultimately benefit from more thought-provoking content laid out in a creative manner.
[edit] Issues related to Pakistani blogs
[edit] Copyright issues
The main issue which arises in relation to blogs is the lifting of copyrighted images and posts from other websites. Sometimes, bloggers pay little attention to the copyright notices on several websites and proceed to blatantly copy images and articles. Of course there are some who give credit to the original website but others don’t bother. Some bloggers go as far as to copy the blog template of other blogs without crediting the original designer.
[edit] Trolling
Most of the Pakistani bloggers try to remain neutral on many issues while writing their post. But a blogger cannot control the way people perceive that post when they read it. Sometimes there is a rather unexpected reaction to posts, which also erupts into a full fledge all-out war with comment count running well over 50. The comments become more aggressive, with everyone trying to make their point of view heard.
On the other hand, there are bloggers who deliberately post up provocative stuff in order to make people comment. These people are known as “Internet Trolls.” And many readers of the blog fall prey to this trap and end up arguing pointlessly until the next post is put up.
So what’s the downside of all this? One can say that people have the right to argue all they want. But what actually happens in this case is that blogs in general face the fire for being the means of sensationalizing issues. The blogger him/herself gets a reputation for putting up stuff which sparks off long-winded debates. And the people in general are deprived of reading some constructive comment.
[edit] Privacy
Privacy or keeping personal information out of blog entries is something that is totally relative. The level of privacy varies from one Pakistani blog to another. For some bloggers, privacy is of such paramount importance that they refrain strictly from even giving out their real name on their blogs and stick to their pseudonym at all times. Others actually put their real name as their blog URL and go on to put up their photographs on their blogs as well.
Privacy concerns come into play mainly because people generally don’t want to make themselves traceable through their blogs. And even a slight reference to, for instance, the places the blogger visits or the educational institutes he has been to, can give away a lot. But some bloggers don’t have a problem with this at all so they blog freely.
[edit] Anonymous blogging
Those who are extra concerned about their privacy turn to anonymous blogging. This essentially means that even their regular visitors never get to know their real name. They stick to their self-made pseudonym at all times. Some of them though blogging anonymously do make references to quite a lot of things but since no one knows their real name or how they look like, they can afford to blog unrestrained.
[edit] Dormant blogs
It is rather annoying to note that an increasing number of blogs is abandoned after the initial novelty wears off. An excellent news-based blog, Dareecha has not been updated since August 2005. Nothing puts off readers more than a blog which is interesting to read, but never updated. Unfortunately the Pakistani blogosphere has more than its fair share of dormant blogs which are rarely or never updated.
One cause of this dormancy is that one blogger creates a whole set of blogs each focusing on a different issue. Later, because of a lack of time or motivation or resources, all the blogs become dormant except perhaps for the one personal blog which continues to be updated.
Dormancy can also be attributed to the lack of awareness amongst the bloggers themselves of the importance of blogging and especially of a frequently-updated blog. But no matter what the reason, there are many Pakistani blogs with posts that are worth reading that are lying dormant with no immediate update in sight.
[edit] Blogging in Urdu
In the initial days of Pakistani blogging, there was a serious dearth of Urdu bloggers, but there were many tech-savvy individuals who decided to take advantage of this relatively new medium of online communication and add a local touch to it. As mentioned in the history of blogging, Umair Salam’s Urdu blog was the first of its kind to appear in cyberspace.
Urdu blogs have an edge over Urdu mainstream websites. This is mainly because the content of most of the Urdu websites is neither interesting nor updated. Urdu blogs on the other hand cover a vast range of topics from technology and society to politics and religion. These blogs are not only interesting to read, but they also promote Urdu language over the Internet.
Although popular blog hosting websites like Blogger have an inbuilt facility for users to post in Urdu with adequate support for fonts and templates, a few Pakistani bloggers have tried to do something on their own in this regard as well. Qadeer Ahmad Rana, an avid Urdu blogger has been personally responsible not only for inspiring people to blog in Urdu and setting up their blogs but also for helping them with the necessary installation of Urdu fonts and designing templates for them.
It is encouraging to note that the current trend in blogging namely group blogging has been taken up by Urdu bloggers. Urdu Tech News is a group blog featuring technology news in Urdu. It currently has seven members. This is the first blog/newspaper which is providing technology related stuff in Urdu language.
However, the Urdu blogosphere has its own share of problems. Pakistani bloggers very rarely blog totally in Urdu. They usually have an ‘English’ blog with a couple of posts in Urdu. Then there is the problem of dormant blogs whereby people enter the Urdu blogging arena very enthusiastically only to abandon their blog completely once the novelty fades away.
But in spite of all the problems, the number of Urdu bloggers is growing albeit slowly. The support from the blogosphere and the increasing technical support are the two main factors which are motivating current Pakistani bloggers to open another blog and dedicate it solely to Urdu posts.
An Urdu Planet has also been created to promote Urdu and Urdu posts.
[edit] Censoring blogs
Main Article: Internet Censorship in Pakistan
Ever since they have appeared on the Internet as an alternative means to communication, a major appeal of blogs has been the freedom that they have given an average person to express him/herself. Blogs are essentially an exclusive space for a person to say what they feel without any inhibitions whatsoever.
It is the exercise of this freedom which sometimes threatens the status quo in the society especially if blogs come to be regarded as authentic as mainstream media. The fact that they are neither trusted completely nor are they an alternative media in a country like Pakistan where Internet literacy is already low, is another story altogether. But events of the last couple of months have proved that blogs indeed are becoming such a powerful medium of communication among the people that it was deemed necessary to impose censorship on them.
For the Pakistani blogosphere, the situation has been nothing short of a nightmare. It all started on 2nd March 2006 when no Pakistani blogger could access his/her hosted on Blogger. At the time, no one thought that the worst was actually possible. But it was. It turned out that the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) had issued orders to all Internet Service Providers, instructing them to restrict access to certain websites which were promoting the derogatory caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Some of those websites happened to be blogs, which were hosted on Blogger. Whether they were condoning their publication or condemning them, we’ll never know. What we do know is that the Pakistan Internet Exchange blocked the entire domain of Blogspot, effectively banning all of the four million plus blogs hosted there.
By blocking the entire domain, millions of completely innocent blogs were left trying to access their blogs through proxy servers or transferring their blogs to other hosting services which involved an extremely cumbersome process.
But that wasn’t all that the blogosphere did. Pakistani bloggers sprung into action and within no time, the “Don’t Block the Blog Campaign” (DBTB) and “Action Group Against Blogspot Ban in Pakistan” (AGABBIP) was formed. The DBTB Campaign, launched by Dr. Awab Alvi and Omer Alvie, is aiming towards an awareness and better understanding of the censorship issue among bloggers in general.
The AGABBIP was a Google Group (mailing list) with the main aim of "regaining free and fair access to Internet content." Its members fervently discussed how and what to write in a press release, contacts in the mass media to send the press release to, and how to technically bypass the ban through proxy servers.
The members of the action group were also a part of the DBTB campaign. They tried their level best to publicize the issue and bring it to the attention of the international media as well. They did this by forwarding the official press release of the group to as many media contacts as they had both on national and international level; by writing about this issue on their personal blogs as well as in the mainstream print media and by putting up the campaign’s banner and stickers on their blogs.
The campaign and the action group ran effectively. They did their job considering that the issue has been taken up by the international as well as national media. It seemed as if their effort paid off when the ban was lifted in the first week of May. They pledged to ensure a free flow of information through the Internet without any hindrances whatsoever. AGABBIP was renamed "Society Against Internet Censorship in Pakistan."
But on Saturday the 6th of May 2006, it was discovered that many ISPs have blocked the blogspot domain once again. Bloggers are really perturbed at this turn of events and have re-launched the "Don't Block the Blog" campaign, under which they are using the mass media to send out another strong message of criticism against the ban.
Considering the fact that blogs with a blogspot extension are technically accessible and it has only become a little tedious to do so, two Pakistani bloggers have come up with an excellent idea. They have set up their own website by the name of PK Blogs which is now providing access to all the blogspot blogs through its own server. This service has made it enormously convenient to access blogspot blogs.
But even though the Pakistani blogosphere eventually has found a way of getting around the ban, the wider question still remains: how fair is it to impose a censorship on blogs? Blogs are simply opinion pieces from an individual and every one is entitled to his/her opinion. It is notable that blogs simply express; they never impose. Why then should anyone restrict someone’s thoughts and views?
There is also the issue that in this age of information, no one can really block access to any website. Technically, people do find ways to access the website and all that eventually does happen is that the higher authorities who imposed censorship come under fire and are widely condemned.
In the aftermath of this ban, Pakistan’s print media has taken up the issue very actively, with letters and feature articles published to highlight what has happened. This unexpected attention has done nothing to get the ban lifted, however, it has increased blog literacy among people who previously had no idea what a blog was in the first place.
[edit] Criticism against blogs
Blogs have come under fire for more than one reason. Many people argue that bloggers are self-absorbent. They are totally immersed into themselves because they have a personal blog on which they rant and rave about their lives. These critics wonder who in the world could possibly be interested in knowing each and everything about a blogger, like what he/she for breakfast for instance and how late he/she was to work.
Also, the very concept of blog hits out at the notion of privacy that a traditional diary follows. This is exactly why people can’t come to terms with the fact that a diary is being written online and is being read and commented on with the rest of the world. Such skeptics argue that blogs end up undermining the entire concept of privacy and keeping the details of one’s private life to oneself and not put it up for everyone to read.
There are others who cannot believe the extent to which the blogging phenomenon has gone. They are the ones who feel that words like blog, weblog and blogosphere along with the entire terminology which comes with, like blog rolling, should be done away with immediately as it is nothing more than polluting the Internet terminology along with English Language.
[edit] Conclusion
Although it does seem that blogs are becoming popular, the fact remains that they are still an emerging media. Presently, there is no possible way that they can compete with the mainstream mass media in Pakistan namely newspapers, television and radio, because blogs are understood, used and accessed by only a very few selected tech-savvy people. Ask a common Pakistani person and it is highly likely he/she won’t even know what a blog is. Unless all Pakistani websites dedicate one section of their website to blogs, it is unlikely that an average person will ever really understand what a blog is or what its importance is. Whether or not the current coverage in the print media given to blog censorship will actually increase blog literacy remains to be seen.
[edit] References
- Ajmal, Zack; 2005
- Alvi, Awab; 2006
- Arshad, Henna; 2006
- Ashraf, Waqas; 2006
- Asi, Ejaz; 2006
- Dr Pak Blog; 2006
- Imtiaz, Huma; 2006
- Lakhani, Raheel; 2006
- Khurram, Harris; 2006
- Masood, Talha; 2006
- Pak Positive; 2006
- Rana, Qadeer Ahmad; 2005
- Shirazi, SAJ; 2006
- Siddiqi, Umar; 2006
- Don't Block the Blog Campaign (2005-12-15). Blogspot Appears to be Banned Again in Pakistan. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-05-11.
- What is a Blog. What is a Blog?. Retrieved on 2006-03-01.
- Asia Weblog Awards 2004. Asia Weblog Awards 2004. Retrieved on 2006-05-11.
- Brass Crescent Awards. Brass Crescent Awards. Retrieved on 2006-03-01.
- Fairvue Central Annual Weblog Awards. Fairvue Central Annual Weblog Awards. Retrieved on 2006-03-01.
[edit] See also
[edit] Blog hosting services used by Pakistani bloggers
Blog Spirit
Blogger
LiveJournal
MySpace
WordPress
Xanga
Tblog
[edit] Blogspot ban in Pakistan
Jyllands-Posten Cartoon Controversy
Internet Censorship in Pakistan
Censorship in South Asia
[edit] Related articles
[edit] External links
[edit] Articles on Pakistani blogs
- Dooced for Blogging by Mirza Faraz Beg in the May 2005 issue of Spider Magazine
- Share the Wealth by Mohsin Siddiqui in the May 2005 issue of Spider Magazine
- The Blogging Brigade - published in the 13th August 2005 issue of Aci-Tech World.
- Blogger Mania by Sadaf Siddiqui in the December 2005 issue of Spider Magazine
- Spider Poll on blogging trends
- Another Dimension to Blogging by Noorjehan Arif published in the January 2006 issue of Spider Magazine
- Blogging the Quake published in the January 2006 issue of Spider Magazine
- Is free speech on the cards? - article by Frederick Noronha in the February 18, 2006 issue of Sci-Tech World, Dawn
[edit] Response to blogspot ban
- WikiPakistan page on the Blogspot Ban
- Discussion of the Blogpost Ban
- Pakistan's Blog Blockade by Jefferson Morley published in Washington Post
- Pakistan Blog-o-Block by Omer Alvie published on Global Voices on 5th March 2006
- Free Speech is a Global Issue by Ethan Casey published in The News International on 7th March 2006
- Letters to the Editor published in Dawn on 7th March 2006
- Letters to the Editor published in Daily Times on 10th March 2006
- Letters to the Editor published in Dawn on 13th March 2006
- Chock-a-Blog? by Mehreen Zahra-Malik in The Friday Times on 18th March 2006
- Tightening the Noose - cover story by Samina Wahid in Sci-Tech World on 29th April 2006
- Silencing the Blogs - cover story in Spider Magazine featuring four articles on the issue
