Television Out-Influences the Internet in Asia

The following is a summary from the Leadership Network of an article entitled: This Just In: The Boob-Tube, Not YouTube, Is Transforming the World

Television has become a revolutionary force for good in the majority of the world -- not just a couch potato-maker. Using a robust sample of data over many years and countries, Charles Kenny, a development economist with the World Bank, found a high correlation between areas that receive and consume TV and positive trends in literacy, school enrollment, health outcomes, birth control, lower levels of drug use and corruption, and even increased prosperity.

His conclusion is that we live and consume media in two worlds: The Internet-ascendant minority world (US & Europe) and the TV-ascendant majority World (the Developing World). "Television has had important development impacts," says Ethan Zuckerman, a global social entrepreneur with Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "So have radio, especially community radio, and mobile phones. Because we're going through an Internet revolution in the U.S., we tend to look for a parallel revolution in the developing world."

According to Internet World Stats, world Internet penetration rates are highest in North America at 74%, followed by Oceania/Australia at 60%, Europe at 52%, Latin America/Caribbean at 31%, Middle East at 29%, Asia at 19% and Africa at 7%. The world average is 26%.

In SuperFreakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, the authors point out how the attitudes of Indian women are changing because of greater access to TV. Note, of course, that the TV they're seeing isn't necessarily the kind of third rate filler that's appearing on most NZ television channels these days!

Immigration Paper

VisionNetwork publishes short papers on a regular basis, and has just produced by written by Dr Andrew Butcher & Dr George Wieland. Butcher is the Director of Policy and Research at the Asia New Zealand Foundation, and Wieland is a lecturer in New Testament at Carey College, NZ.

The Introduction states:

Immigration has played a significant role in the making of New Zealand. However, the growth in immigration from Asia since the mid-1980s onwards has significantly altered the ethnic composition of New Zealand society. This has, in turn, presented significant challenges for how New Zealanders respond to these changes, for how socially cohesive New Zealand is and could become, and for how churches in New Zealand respond to these changes as reflected in their congregations and parishes.

This paper seeks to identify and address some of these challenges as well as present implications and actions for the way forward. To begin, this paper provides a brief overview of immigrants and immigration policy in New Zealand. This is followed by a discussion of immigration and immigrants in the Bible. To conclude, we discuss the implications for Christian attitudes towards immigrants and immigration today.

The paper is available online here.

The State of the Art

Technorati was one of the early birds in the blogging scene, and they've managed to outstay many other competitors. Their status is such, now, that they were able to produce a major report on blogging globally, based on a substantial survey amongst bloggers in the US, Europe and Asia. If you have time to read the stats, there are some interesting points. Here's the introduction.

Welcome to Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 report, which will be released in five consecutive daily segments. Since 2004, our annual study has unearthed and analyzed the trends and themes of blogging, but for the 2008 study, we resolved to go beyond the numbers of the Technorati Index to deliver even deeper insights into the blogging mind. For the first time, we surveyed bloggers directly about the role of blogging in their lives, the tools, time, and resources used to produce their blogs, and how blogging has impacted them personally, professionally, and financially. Our bloggers were generous with their thoughts and insights. Thanks to all of the bloggers who took the time to respond to our survey.

Just a few of the many intriguing stats:

Who are the global bloggers?

• Two-thirds are male
• 50% are 18-34 (so 50% are over 34 - in fact, age isn't necessarily a restriction in the blogging world)
  
• More affluent and educated than the general population
  • 70% have college degrees
  • Four in ten have an annual household income of $75K+
  • One in four have an annual household income of $100K+
• 44% are parents
• The survey was only administered in English, but Technorati heard from bloggers on six continents (although they're sure someone is blogging from Antarctica). They had respondents from 66 countries, who publish blogs in 20 different languages.
• 43% of blogger respondents live in the U.S.
• 72% publish their blog in English (the survey was only provided in English, so it may have excluded a large number of Asian bloggers)

NZ Diversity Forum 2008 Programme

This year's New Zealand Diversity Forum is on 25-26 August in Auckland. Check out the varied programmes offered by community and professional groups and government agencies here and register here for any of the separate events or the diversity awards and plenary programme. This is New Zealand's premier race relations forum.

For those aiming to reach out to the different ethnic groups in our country, this is a great opportunity to gain insights into the ways different ethnic people live and think, and what their expectations are.

Some of the useful workshops might be:

The Benefits of Diversity
Finding Common Ground: are we more similar than different?
The Religious Diversity Forum
Building Bridges: working with the Muslim community