Technorati Chart: danish cartoon
I am considering writing a paper on the Danish cartoons, and I was curious how many people were talking about it in the blogosphere. Looking at the graph, it isn’t hard to figure out when the incident took place.
I am interested in how incidents over taboos like the Danish cartoons do not just make social and cultural boundaries more rigid (I mean, yes, the Muslims and non-Muslims could barely see eye to eye on this matter), but at the same time, it also offers us an opportunity to renegotiate these very boundaries. Especially with the advent of the internet, it is now possible for citizens to directly talk and engage with each other, adding a much richer picture to the otherwise more simplistic picture the mainstream media provides us with, suggesting we are perhaps on our way to a truly global dialogue. Am I naive? I prefer idealistic.
Starting points for exploration:
Global Voices posts on the Danish cartoons and Bridge the Gap in Blogspace – a blog dedicated to cultivating a cross-cultural (trans-cultural?) dialogue.
Posted in bridgeblog, dissertation, media
November 8th, 2006 at 2:18 am
Your idea of renegotiating social and cultural boundaries reminded me of two cases in point:
1. Sino-Japan dialogu during last year’s anti-Japan protest in China and the dialogue book project initiated by Joi Ito that result from the blog discourse on the topic.
2. Sino-African relations – I think there is a conscious effort somewhere on the internet, as mentioned by someone at the recent Chinese Blogger Conference, to aggregate blog posts of Africans’ views on China and vice versa.
Like you, I am inclined to be an idealist, though I am also still not sure if I’m just naive.