5 Graph on "Blogging for Social Change"

The News:

Mona Eltahawy spoke Wednesday, September 15th in the Heritage Room of the Oklahoma Memorial Union about Blogging for Social Change. Eltahawy teaches "Women in media in the Middle East" at the University of Oklahoma and is an activist in residence. Eltahawy also spoke about her blogging experiences (started in 2005) and other countries that have been blogging the last few years.

The Impact:

Eltahawy explained how the Middle East was using blogs and used these facts:

• Middle East blogs are perceived as dictatorships that are just venting.
• Egypt now has over 6,000 blogs in circulation.
• Egypt has been under severe police brutality for almost 30 years.

Eltahawy spent alot of time talking about an incident that happened with blogging in Egypt. A man in Egypt had been killed by the police force after he posted a video on facebook of a police officer being involved with a drug deal. This had led Eltahawy on a further interest in blogging.

The Human Dimension:

Eltahawy talked about many of her own personal experiences when dealing with blogging. After the tragedy of 9/11, Eltahawy began opinion writing which is usually how most amateur blogs begin. Eltahawy mentioned her opinion on how to be a good  blogger, "The best way to blog is to go out there. Challenge yourself in your blogs and in your writing." The audience seemed to really connect to her statement, therefore the questions they asked went deeper into being a better blogger.

What's Next:

Learning about how blogs are effected in the social world, really helped develop the importance of not only blogging in the U.S., but accurate blogging for a purpose. The lecture made the students in the audience understand better about blogging, how and why to blog, and now the function of blogging can make a difference in the world, whether negative or positive.