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For those who are tired of the Ameri-centric nature of lots of the blogosphere (blah, blah, blah, George Bush is an idiot, blah blah blah, Tom Cruise is a freak, blah blah, "wii" is a stupid name…), Global Voices Online should be at the top of your list of aggregators.
A project of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, Global Voices aggregates the most interesting postings from blogs from around the world, with an emphasis on “bridge bloggers” i.e. people who are talking about their country or region to a global audience.
Just today, I read blog posts about Kevin Sites coming to Haiti, English language news reporting in Korea, China dropping out of the list of top ten most censoring regimes, and blogging in Africa.
I love the idea of bridge blogging. In a way, lots of the most interesting blogs are about translating an esoteric culture, that might speak its own argot, or have other barriers to external scrutiny, to a larger audience. Lots of the most interesting insights come from having to explain your culture to an outsider, causing you to unpack implicit assumptions and baseline values that aren’t immediately apparent to someone immersed in that world. And the real-time interactive nature of blogging can help people to see where an outsider might be misunderstanding something or drawing different conclusions than they would. Over time, you can really learn to craft a message that speaks to lots of different people in the most readily comprehensible way, which is a powerful skill to have.
(BTW I keep posting about cool stuff the Berkman Center is doing. Someone give me an honorary degree or something.)