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Web Information | Global Coverage and/or Distribution | Large Corporations: Global Interests | Online Resources and Services | Events and Chat Areas | Try it out!

We have been and will continue to be involved in major global transformations of economies, cultures and societies. The best way to monitor the impact of transitional economies is through vigorous news attention and lively public discussions on fundamental issues. While global coverage has expanded (with new news outlets like CNN for example) coverage has been hampered in most traditional sources of news information such as television and newspapers.

One key paradox of the Information Age is that for economic discussions to be meaningful and democratic, they must be carried out in the popular media as well as in educational settings. Yet public debates about the structure and ownership of the media are often not in the best economic interests of the media owners. Nonetheless, in some places, local groups and consumer movements are addressing media issues that affect individual and community life. Such movements may be united by geographic ties, by common ethnic background, or by shared concerns about technology. The Internet has made it possible for such groups to form globally, united around issues such as contesting censorship or monitoring the activities of large multinational corporations.

Interaction on the Web, however, does not only take the high road of intellectual discourse alone. Across this world, people, average people, are getting together (virtually speaking) in their homes, or in cyber-cafes, in schools or at work, and are "chatting" about ... life. Sometimes these chats are serious, sometimes they are not, but clearly they open up new avenues to promote understanding of this new global village.

Web Information

Most Internet service providers, browsers, online services and search engines offer an option to visit an international site on the home page. (If you are using Navigator, offerings for international sites appear on the home page; you will also see international offerings when you conduct a search.) America Online and Compuserve offer international sites and chat areas. Yahoo, Excite, and Lycos also offer worldwide resources, events and chat areas.

Global Coverage and/or Distribution

The following are just a few of the many sites that offer a global perspective on news and issues and will link you to a variety of resources (reports, journalists, organizations). Be sure to browse around the other industry links pages -- we have sprinkled them with international sites.

• Alternative Press Center
• European Journalism Page
• The Digital Freedom Network
• International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX)
• Savvy Search

Large Corporations: Global Interests

• Burston Marsteller
• Hill and Knowlton
• Townsend Raimundo Besler & Usher Edelman Worldwide
• Fleishman Hillard
• Ogilvy Adams & Rinehart

• Phillips
• Bertlesmann
• Hachette Filipacchi
• Matsushita (MCA)
• Sony
• News Corp. (Fox -- Rupert Murdoch)
• TCI Communications
• Viacom

Online Resources and Services

Events and Chat areas

Several browsers and online services offer special events or opportunities to enter into a "live" conversation with someone in the media: an entertainer, writer, producer, or newsmaker, for example. Most services and browsers also offer bulletin boards where you can post comments or pose questions on a specific topic or show, and chat areas where you can enter into live conversations with other people from around the world. There are also hundreds of newsgroups and mailing lists/listservs that bring people together to talk about common interests.

Some of these include:

• Online Services: America Online, Compuserve, Prodigy, and the Microsoft Network often offer world entertainers and newsmakers for an evening live chat.

• Browsers and search engines: Netscape, Yahoo, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, and other browsers or search engines offer a number of events and chat areas to discuss stories making news around the world.

• There are two excellent Web resources for locating newsgroups and mailing lists. But don't forget your netiquette if you decide to join in!
  • DejaNews is a search engine for newsgroups. As with a Web search engine, entering keywords will return links to newsgroup articles that contain your keyword.
  • Liszt, the mailing list directory, is a guide to a wide variety of mailing lists (complete with instructions on how to join them).

Try it out!

Since this list is nowhere near exhaustive, do some searching and create your own bookmarks of sites including:

• Countries throughout the world

• Magazines and newspapers from other countries, or targeted at different ethnic groups in the United States

• Interest Groups (any group with a position or cause) from around the world

• Companies with world interests or ownership