HA/PACAIA 2011

PAN AFRICAN CONFERENCE ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION

AFRICAN MEDIA AND THE GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA 1720 SEPTEMBER 2011

media to
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ENVIRONMENTAL

rmation

INFO

awareness

access pg

OPEN SOURCE COVERING BOTH HIGHWAY AFRICA 2011 AND PAN AFRICAN CONFERENCE ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Souvenir smiles of HA and PACAI

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Ory Okolloh http://www.pacaia.org pro free flow http://reportingDNA.org http://www.highwayafrica.com of info

Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director of the Association for Progressive Communications, discussed the destruction of internet neutrality, at the panel discussion. Photo: Desiree Schirlinger

EDITION 4 TUESDAY 20 SEPT 2011

Mendi Njonjo, moderator for the panel discussion about Freedom of Access to Online Information. Photo: Fungai Tichawangna.

Prof. Harry Dugmore, director of the Discovery Centre for Health Journalism, speaks about his Knight Foundation-funded project, Indaba Ziyafika which trains citizen journalists. Photo: Desiree Schirlinger

Julie Posetti, described by Jane Duncan as The Queen of Twitter shared advice on social networking at the Digital Citizens Indaba. Photo: Desiree Schirlinger

Whats trending @DCIndaba?

By Enathi Mqokeli, Candace Gawler and Wilhelmina Maboja

he 6th Digital Citizens Indaba (DCI) got off to an exciting start on a chilly Monday morning. Unfortunately, keynote speaker Ndesanjo Macha, Sub-Saharan Africa editor of Global Voices Online, was unable to attend due to a road accident. Nevertheless, Prof. Jane Duncan (DCI Coordinator and Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society at Rhodes University) gave a strong welcoming address to a room full of citizen journalists, media pro-

fessionals and curious members of the public. Weve tried to capture the moment, said Duncan in reference to this years DCI themes. The WikiLeaks controversy has many implications for online journalism: when does the mass release of information start to threaten society? she asked. Also on the agenda was the question of how free and open the internet really is, in light of the clamp down on access to information on the internet in various African countries (such as Zimbabwe and recently Tunisia. Related to access to information, is the importance of information being available in local

languages. Ndesanjo Macha was one of the first people to set up a blog exclusively in an African language called Jikomboe (free yourself in Swahili). The first panel discussion was on net neutrality and the censorship of information online. The panel comprised Electronic Freedom Charter author, hacktivist David Robert Lewis, and Association for Progressive Communications (APC) executive director Anriette Esterhuysen. Lewis advocated for the idea of net neutrality, not just in terms of bandwidth access, but also accessing information without national boundaries. He also brought up the Blackberry

furore, and their encryption of their instant messaging service. Esterhuysen similarly pointed out that everyday devices and tools threaten net neutrality. In terms of the iPhone, telecommunication network Safaricom and the Vodafone product M-pesa from Kenya: be aware that youre financing the destruction of net neutrality, she said. As early as 1985, American writer and online innovator Stewart Brand said, information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive ... that tension will not go away. Years later, this remains a key issue.