`The blog I looked up from the reading “Making Global Voices Heard” was Issaac Mao’s. The set-up was pretty simplistic, as was the language. It’s very much journal-style writing. The main topic is censorship in China, and he’s been documenting the process of “The Great Chinese Firewall”. I’m going to be honest, I know close to nothing about computers and the internet. That’s why I like Mao’s blog: It is pretty easy to understand.
In the chapter, MacKinnon does not really go into great detail describing Mao’s blog, but what she did say was exactly what I saw. She first mentions that he posts not only in Chinese but English too, and that is why he became so popular. Then MacKinnon goes on to “objectionable content”, which are trigger words that if set off by what the system considers inappropriate language, the post will not be published. This is probably why while reading Mao’s writing, there’s a lack of passion or pure opinion. His posts are mostly factual, and are filled with links to other articles, so his credibility isn’t questioned. He draws a few conclusions, but they are very general, and are left up to interpretation.
Of course, some will probably disagree with this assertion that his censorship was an act of protecting himself. You could argue since he is from China, and may be fluent in English; some things could be lost in translation. And perhaps this site was not designed to enrage people, but to educate them, objectively.
Regardless of his intended or not intended language, Mao accomplishes his mission of arming his fellow bloggers with knowledge.
http://isaacmao.com/meta/
1 comment:
Nicely done...relates blog to reading, and uses the "planting a skeptic" template, as requested.
So that readers outside the class will know what your text you're referring to, you could say;
from the Rebecca MacKinnon interview, "Making Global Voices Heard" (Kline & Burstein 325-333), was Isaac Mao's.
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