One World, One Web [Day]

Today is OneWebDay, a day of internet awareness. This year's theme is "Online Participation in Democracy" which fits in very well with what is going on in the world today.

Essentially, anyone with a computer is part of the Global Village. A few mouse clicks and you're scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef, a few more and you're window shopping in Paris, another and you're walking the streets of New York City. The whole world is at your fingertips.
For me, a Canadian who dreams of Broadway stardom, the internet has connected me with that theatrical community the way a yearly Tony Awards telecast never could. I can quickly and easily gain access to information about all of the shows currently running, shows scheduled to open/close, auditions, workshops, actors and actresses and their projects, their biographies - all of which I can use to map my way onto the Great White Way.

I've also planned an entire trip to NYC using just the internet. Flights, hotels, show tickets, special events, etc. all the information is online. Millie, from the musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie" tells about studying magazines and books, memorizing the subway map in 1922 to prepare herself for the big city. In 2008, all I had to do was search NYC through Google Maps and I was walking step by step down Broadway via satellite imaging. I felt like a native New Yorker when I got there! I never once had to ask for directions. In fact, a clearly lost tourist-type asked my mom and I where Times Square was...we were on 7th Ave and 52nd. No joke. You can smell (let alone see & hear) Times Square from there!

Besides world-wide browsing ability, the internet has changed the way we keep in touch with each other. E-mail, voice mail, instant and text messaging, cellular and camera phones; altogether Information Communications Technologies (ICT's) have sped up transfer of information from person to person, officially taking us out of the past and into the 21st Century.

The most significant application (I think) of ICT's is in the area of citizen journalism. I've already mentioned the idea of Me-Media in the first blog post, but i've just come across something very fascinating; iReport. CNN has invited people all over to send in video or photo footage of news as it happens using their cell phones, all of which is put on a website. The website's slogan is "Unedited. Unflitered. News." The site features various news topics all uploaded and anchored by every-day people.

For a piece of technology originally thought up to make our lives easier and more mobile, such as a cell phone, to eventually lead to a greater media democracy, through it's use of the internet, is simply remarkable.

I wonder what's next.