Photo © John Brown All Rights ReservedThis little blog reaches you through this power and communications network from Kampong Cham, Cambodia. The Kampong Cham area is subject to frequent power blackouts due to the ever-increasing energy demand of tens of thousands of people hammering away at computers while blogging about what they're thinking. Only kidding folks. Actually, 40,000 people use the internet out of a population of 15 million. youtube.com anyone?
Why do you blog? That question was asked in a Technorati.com report "State of the Blogosphere 2008" that examined over 1000 bloggers. Are you a "citizen journalist" who realizes there is an over-supply of written content on the web but keeps blogging anyway? That fact mattered little to the 79% of us who blog in order to speak our minds in areas we're interested in.
Is what we have to say that important to anyone else? Well that's for the rest of the world to determine I suppose. According to Technorati.com, their most popular tags include the words celebrities, culture, fashion, film, entertainment, environment, football, Microsoft, parties and nightlife, photography, podcast, sports, television and youtube.
I blog frequently about politics but that subject isn't very popular in Asia. I attribute this to the overall political atmosphere in countries such as China, Vietnam, Philippines, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, etc. where governments restrict press freedom and expressing ones point of view can be risky business.
The question I ask myself is; how important are my thoughts to anyone else? Might I just be blowing smoke up my own you know what?
I recognize that although this blog post is one of 133 million blog records indexed by Technorati since 2002, this post matters little to the average US blogger, half of whom have a household income over $75,000 per year. Last night my friend's cow drowned and I doubt explaining how the event will economically affect a farm family comprised of seven Cambodians would be of interest to anyone based on the tags I've listed. It's just the way it is.
When I speak my mind, to whom am I speaking? Certainly not the 5.7 billion people on our planet without the where with all to be "hooked up". Billions of people have no access to "new technology".
One of the things I have learned about the American media machine and news content living abroad is that it's different from in the rest of the world. While every country of course looks inward, the US media seems disproportionately occupied with itself culturally speaking. Firms will exaggerate numbers and talk about the dramatic impact blogs are having on the world but the smoke they're blowing you is the same brand as mine.
Everyone should speak their mind but why do so many of us care so much about the same old subjects? After we get 10 million Khmer people (66% of the population) who have no toilet facilities a decent hole in the ground, I might start to think that this little blog and what I have to say is important, but I would really like to hear from them first. Unfortunately, when I search the tags above, it seems that no one else is linking up with these folks in this great blogosphere of ours either.
I have a feeling that, at least to the 10 million Khmer people mentioned above as well as hundreds of millions like them, we bloggers aren't as important as either Technorati.com or we proclaim.
John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
My Mondo Library Photography
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