technoculture203-09

I thought the point of how the blogosphere was the biggest challenge to authority in non-western countries was an interesting point in this week’s lecture. Luke used the example of Iran and how the death penalty may be put into place for citizens who are speaking out against the government in their blogs. One blogger, Hossein Derakhshan argued, "it will probably be one of the most open and transparent elections Iran has ever seen" (www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/2947/bloggers_of_iran) due to the huge amount of blogs all offering insight to the 2009 election. Iran has 75,000 bloggers and this number is getting bigger everyday despite the threats of the government and holds much power by the number of followers, essentially a virtual word of mouth for rumors and political issues. The restrictions of the Iranian people in the blogosphere are ones that many western world people cannot relate to as we are free to speak and express our political opinions online.

However, in New Zealand we have political blogs where we can express and exchange ideas and points without nearly as many restrictions as the Iranian people. http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/ is a blog written by David Farrer where the public are welcome to comment and add their opinions. He has been writing since 2003 and makes his opnion known without any problems or interruptions from the government or any death threats! he is a known national supporter but even when labour were in power, his blogs were not censored by the government. I think that in western worlds, we often don’t realize how lucky we are with the amount of freedom we are given in the blogosphere especially when we compare to countries such as Iran.