Can the Internet Save the World?

For anyone interested in the www and the dissemination of news, a piece "Can the Internet Save the World?" from newmatilda.com:

"The global economy might be melting faster than Greenland but not all the news is grim. Technological advances mean that democracy and citizen journalism are surging, writes Barry Saunders in a review of the year online

2009 will be an interesting year. Aside from being possibly the last chance to deal with climate change before we have to, well, deal with it, there are some interesting, fun, terrifying and worrying things afoot. The economic crisis/meltdown, call it what you will, is showing that the mainstream media has very little time left. We've gone from worrying about cross media ownership laws to suggesting that the only option left to save the New York Times is Google or Murdoch. So while the American press refuses public funding, dinosaur car companies are sucking the treasury dry, and governments continue to bail out old industries and business models that do not and can not work any longer.

Is there anything to look forward to? The gnomes running the internet have given us a few reasons to be optimistic about journalism and democracy."

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