Promoting New Media and Citizen Journalism in Central Asia and Kazakhstan

by Yelena Jetpyspayeva, M.A.NewEurasia.net Managing Editor,

BarCamp Central Asia 2009/2010 organizer,journalist, blogger

UCL, May, 2010

Agenda

• Media & Political Situation in Central Asia• New Media Statistics• Directions for New Media Development• NewEurasia.net – Blogging Central Asia project• Barcamping• Conclusions

Media & Political Situation in Central Asia

• Declared democracies but authoritarian in practice regimes• Weak traditional media (official news + entertainment)• Country coverage mostly by state-owned media• Censorship and restrictive media laws• ‘Closed countries’ in terms of information (‘happy life’ inside

the country, ‘no freedom of speech’ from outside perspective)

www.freedomhouse.org

2009: 168 Kazakhstan/Tajikistan, 158 Kyrgyzstan, 189 Uzbekistan, 193 Turkmenistan out of 195. All marked as “not free”.

Freedom of the Net: Kazakhstan is coming soon. www.freedomhouse.org

Opinion: Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan“Meanwhile, the most popular Russian-language blog platform Livejournal is still blocked in Kazakhstan since October 2007.

Recently, the opposition websites started suffereing from massive DDoS attacks campaign. One of such victims is the website of independent weekly “Respublika”, which often criticizes the prime-minister.

The government does not care much about OSCE - and the West does not care much about Kazakh democracy in the times of global crisis.

Such coincidence allows Astana to do whatever it wants due to its “country specific”, so the Kazakhstan’s chairmanship will be later perceived as a bad dream by the member states - while Kazakhstan will remain the same Kazakhstan, as its people are used to know it. ”

Adil A. Nurmakov, Ph.D.

Country Editor for Kazakhstanwww.neweurasia.net

Regional Editor for Central Asiawww.GlobalVoicesOnline.Org

“By 2008 - 2009 3 opposition newspapers were closed in Kyrgyzstan. Because of political pressure from the government side Azattyk radio (radio Liberty Free Europe office) stopped broadcasting in Kyrgyzstan. During 5 month of 2009 6 journalists were beaten in Kyrgyzstan, 3 left the country because of political reasons.

2009 Internet regulation incentive comparable to Kazakhstan were each Internet site could be defined as mass media and banned was initiated by deputy of the Parliament but fortunately stopped. Nevertheless there are attempts to pass rights to regulate .kg domain zone to state structure”.

Elena SkochiloFormer Editor for NewEurasia.net

elena@neweurasia.net Award-winning photojournalist and

blogger from Bishkek. http://morrire.livejournal.com

New Media Statistics• Population 15 mln -> 4 mln. Online• Mostly used by urban (Internet relatively accessible (Unlimited package

$40 a month; state support for Internet development)• High growth of Internet penetration from 6% (2005) to 14% (2008) to 27%

(2009, with 72% growth a year)• Female on the net 44% • Russian 94%, Kazakh 5%, English 1%

Weaknesses:

• Lack of knowledge • Fast changes – no time to adopt• Low quality content in Kaznet• Politicizing • Law changes

Kazakhstan: Internet Growth Numbers

2008 – 1.2mln; 2009 – 2.5mln; 2010 – 4.3mln; 2011 – 6.3mln

What Kazakhs Mostly Do on the Net

• Read mails• Chat in social

networks• Search• Download

Directions for New Media Development

• Fast growth of Internet penetration -> Market of Interest -> Skip stages • Project development // Content creation: copying on Russian side, civil

journalism and blogging development on Kazakh side• Market Liberalization -> Widening Freedom of the Net Limits

Difficulties:

• Kazakhstan Phenomenon: People’s Inactivity • Lack of New Media Knowledge • High Costs for Internet• Introduction of Restrictive Internet Regulations

(Self-censorship)

Sharing Experience

• Neweurasia.net – Blogging Central Asia• Barcamping in Central Asia

Neweurasia.net“neweurasia is a network of weblogs coordinated and written by bright young individuals from Central Asia together with their peers around the globe.

We started out as a type of online magazine written mostly by Western based people reflecting on Central Asian politics. Once we teamed up with Transitions Online, we hired people from the region (one bridge blogger per country) - something that gradually transformed us into a real regional website with much more authentic coverage.

By going multilingual we then tried to become both relevant for people outside the region and within, something that wasn't always easy to achieve. These days, we're putting more emphasis on quality and on bringing traditional media with civil journalism together. A new generation has taken over running the project.”.

Ben Paarman, 28 y.o., the founder.a former student of Development Studies at Cambridge University

and Development Economics at SOAS. Currently resides in The Hague / Netherlands, where works

as a political analyst focusing on emerging markets.Contact Ben at ben (at) neweurasia (dot) net

http://www.paarmann.info/

Neweurasia.net• Founded in 2005 by US and EU students to report from and

on Central Asia;• Original principle: one country, one blog; main site as the

«hub»;• Teamed up with Transitions Online (TOL, Media NGO from

Prague) in 2006, employed «bridge bloggers» - paid bloggers who head the country sections;

• Independent regional teams; Editorial board; Different levels of management;

• Funded by Hivos.

• Training sessions

• Traffic

Unique pageviews

• International audience

• Kazakhstan blogs dominant

Achievements• Steady news flow, increasing visitor numbers;

• Launch of Russian and Kazakh/Kyrgyz/Uzbek/Tajik language versions;

• 2009 – Launch of new design;

• Blocked in Uzbekistan since summer 2006;

• Altogether 50 training sessions, seminars and conferences (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan) reaching 600+ people;

• Content diversity: contests, specific country highlights, mainstream media attention;

Development Directions• Change towards more «quality blogging» - original stories + exclusive

photo/video content;• Clear hierarcy: Managing editors (Russian, English); Country editors

(Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan); BridgeBloggers; Bloggers;• Better integration with diff.types of media: developing stories out of blog

posts;• More translations -> more flow of information between the different

audiences;• Day-by-day development and exchange: newsletter, sharing results;• Social media marketing (twitter, flickr, etc.);• Social partnerships development.

Blog with us!

Interested in blogging for NewEurasia.net? Get in contact with Managing Board:

Christopher Schwartz schwartz@neweurasia.net for EnglishYelena Jetpyspayeva yelena@neweurasia.net for Russian

Barcamping

BarCamp is a unique international conference for specialists in new media, blogging, podcasting, social networking, citizen journalism, web projects development, web 2.0 concept, open

source software, mobile phone \ Internet connection, web design, etc.

It is organized by new media enthusiasts and volunteers that get together for the idea of promotion new technologies for the society development.

The name BarCamp is a playful allusion to the event's origins, with reference to the hacker slang term, foobar: BarCamp arose as a spin-off of Foo Camp, an annual invitation-only participant

driven conference hosted by open source publishing luminary Tim O'Reilly.

The first BarCamp was held in Palo Alto, California, from August 19–21, 2005, in the offices of Socialtext. It was organized in less than one week, from concept to event, with 200

attendees. Since then, BarCamps have been held in over 350 cities around the world, in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Australasia and Asia.

Crisis camp // HealthCamp // Knowledge Cafe // Open Hack Day // Open Space Technology // RecentChangesCamp // StixCamp // SuperHappyDevHouse // TeachMeet // Tribe

(internet) // Unconference // PodCamp

Main page http://barcamp.orgBarCamp Central Asia page http://barcampkz.net

• October 2007 – Kiev, Ukraine• February 2008 – Riga, Latvia• June 2008 – Vilnius, Lithuania• June 2008 – Tbilisi, Georgia• August 2008 – Moscow, Russia• August 2008 – Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan• August 2008 – Baku, Azerbaijan• October 2008 – Kiev, Ukraine• December 2008 – Minsk, Belarus• February 2009 – Riga, Latvia• April 2009 – Almaty, Kazakhstan• April 2010 – Almaty, Kazakhstan (becomes annual event)

History

BarCamp Central Asia 2008: Bishkek

Bishkek, August 2008

• 300 bloggers, web-delevopers, programmers and journalists from Central Asia, CIS, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia

• bloggers' reimbursement systems and media centers networks, mobile Internet development и Mobile 2.0 service, Wordpress and Drupal, Web 2.0 localization, video and photo blogging, video blogging in the US

• working languages - Russian and English

• OSI, Soros Youth Action Fund, HIVOS, etc.

BarCamp Central Asia 2009: Almaty

Almaty, April 2009

Registered on the site - 556. Present - 310. From: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, UK, Africa - USA. 60 presentations in 8 simultaneous flows, 2 presentations from sponsors (Microsoft Kazakhstan, Opera Software), 2 panel discussions (Stella Systems, Internews Kazakhstan). BarCamp Ideas Market - start-up section - 21 project was presented.

BarCamp Central Asia 2010: Almaty

Almaty, April 2010

Registered on the site - 686. Present - 610. From: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, USA, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, South Korea.  60 presentation about Internet, more than 5 large-scale presentations from our partners, start-up and blog competitions Blog contest were won by 4 candidates, that were short-listed out of 10 blogs. Start-up contest were held for 18 social ideas, 4 projects get prizes and further funding.

Conference's site were visited by more than 4500 unique users from 61 countries, 3500 users became our everyday readers on Tauport.kz special barcamp news project.

BarCamp Outcome• During 2 years we doubled amount of participants (people who learned),

companies started to see the event as a place for getting feedback and finding perspective candidates;

• State support: main Internet provider supports every year including grants for Internet projects development; number of officials and governmental agencies representation grows; 2010 - interest of investment in local projects from the governmental side;

• Local projects development and PR stage; setting-up teams; finding feedback and investment; finding new job (several bloggers who promoted themselves after 2d barcamp got an offer to work for Kazkontent agency to develop “Kaznet development programm”), etc;

• Some fresh air for Kaznet: new conferences, new agencies, new projects.

Conclusions

• Internet growth speed is very promising;• People are open to learn new things ;• Projects tendency – from content oriented towards

entertaining (blogs -> social networks);• Users tendency – less writing, more commenting &

communicating, absorbing, high quality content preferred;• Number of projects grows rapidly, and in order to survive you

need to invent new format;• More developed the country becomes, less people are ready

to do something for free: citizen journalism will survive if the format will be changed

Researcher info:• Yelena Jetpyspayeva is a journalist, new media

specialist & consultant, political researcher• She obtained Master Degree in European Studies,

studied EU integration in Bremen (Germany) as a DAAD scholar

• She graduated from Al-Farabi State National University in Almaty (Kazakhstan) with honored Bachelor degree in International Journalism

• She worked in several traditional & online media in Kazakhstan and abroad

• Currently she holds a position of Managing editor for NewEurasia.net (Russian); writes for Swiss newspaper, does new media consulting including Internet consulting for Freedom House (Freedom of the Net project);

• Yelena is the main organizer of BarCamp Central Asia conference for new media specialists.

• Working languages: Russian, English, German • Email: mursya@gmail.com• Twitter: http://twitter.com/mursya