Found in translation

The Global Voices conference called to mind a United Nations of blogging: there was a Cambodian sitting next to an Iranian sitting next to an Indian sitting next to a Kenyan sitting next to Richard Dreyfuss.

No one batted an eyelid at the presence of the Oscar-winning actor at a summit about the global communications revolution the internet has sparked. It was hard, however, to work out whether this was because few of the international participants knew who he was or because everyone was more interested in hearing how blogging has spawned a whole new generation of citizen journalists whose voices provide an alternative commentary to mainstream newspapers and broadcasters.

This was no ordinary technology conference: it dispensed with the ego-boosting keynote speeches and elaborately choreographed question-and-answer sessions, relying instead on nothing more elaborate than a microphone shuttled from person to person as the debate flowed among the 80 or so bloggers and journalists present, as well as those joining in virtually via a webcast and a chatroom.

Everyone had a story to tell. The Iranians Farid Pouya and Shahram Kholdi described how all types of people, from homosexuals using pseudonyms to write about their personal lives to pro-Islamic republic Hezbollah supporters, have latched on to blogs as a tool for self-expression.

In China, where a new blog is created every two seconds, photographs of a series of mine disasters have appeared on blogs in defiance of the straitjacketed mainstream media, commented blogger Kevin Wen.

And Dina Mehta, from Mumbai, explained how a blog set up in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami prompted hundreds of offers of help from people around the globe and published SMS messages and calls for help from people in the affected areas.

"It was one of my experiences that changed my life," she said. "It wasn't the television telling you what was going on in some other part of the world; it was real voices."

Global Voices Online, set up 12 months ago to offer an online guide to international blogs beyond North America and western Europe, is sponsored by the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard's law school. The not-for-profit team of volunteer blogger-contributors from around the globe tracks the growing community of "bridge bloggers" - people who are writing about their country or region to a global audience, usually in English - and summarise the debates taking place within their own blogging communities.

And it's working: the Global Voices website has grown at a phenomenal rate, and is now getting 300,000 visitors a month. A year into the project, Global Voices contributors are considering where to go next. Should the organisation become a kind of alternative world news agency? How should blogging be encouraged in countries that lack a free press? Should the site be translated into other languages? Which bloggers provide trusted sources of information.

Accessibility was key, said Neha Viswanathan, Global Voices' South Asia editor. She warned against alienating newcomers to blogging with "geek talk" - the kind of technical jargon that can dominate such gatherings. "I swear it can sound like a different language altogether," she said.

The mainstream media has helped to bring blogging to a wider audience and bring new bloggers into the fold. Judging from the number of bloggers-turned-journalists and journalists-turned- bloggers at the conference, a symbiotic relationship was beginning to blossom between citizen and mainstream media, said Dean Wright, senior vice president of the conference's sponsor, Reuters.

"It's difficult, as a mainstream journalist, to report all sides of the story when you are just parachuting into a country; with bloggers, we can report many sides of an issue. This contributes to the conversation the world has with each other," he said.

Tel Aviv-based Lisa Goldman writes for Global Voices Online about Middle East blogs. She said the diverse range of authentic Israeli and Palestinian voices she tries to reflect can sound like a cacophony: "There's a long way to go before people start listening to the other side," she said. "And when bloggers do challenge the status quo, unlike journalists, they don't have any protection or backup.

The Nigerian blogger Sokari Ekine said: "Every time you press the send button, you set yourself up for some very negative responses. You can feel very isolated." Conferences such as these help to counter that isolation and vulnerability.

As Global Voices Online's co-founder, Ethan Zuckerman, one of the few Americans in the room, said as the bloggers began to pack away their laptops, ready to continue the discussion in a London bar: "We're no longer lost in translation."

And where does a Hollywood actor fit into this global conversation? Dreyfuss just seemed to be there to listen. "I am interested in the aspects of information dissemination and how people listen," he said. "The issue is not about free speech, but about how we hear it."

The seemingly retired Hollywood actor said he was a visiting fellow at St Anthony's College, Oxford, and was working there on a project about the teaching of democracy in US public schools. No word, though, on whether he has set up a blog yet.