A TED Talk on Expanding our Horizons through Embracing a Multilingual Conversation Online
At least, that's kind of what I took out of it. It's a few years old now, but Ethan Zuckerman's TED Talk, entitled "Listening to Global Voices", explores just how little the World Wide Web actually does for most people in expanding their horizons!
Many people simply take for granted that the Internet has caused this amazing opening of doors and influx of new and varied information for many unique sources. Zuckerman, however, claims that most people tend to use the WWW in such a way that generally results in them being exposed to information from sources with similar opinions!
In this talk, Zuckerman mentions embracing xenophilia, a love of the strange and different. Using the Internet in such a way that you actually manage to find information and sources that not only open your virtual and personal doors, but come from languages other than your own mother tongue. These may even be languages you don't understand but are able to work out through machine translation utilities, like Google Translate, or by engaging in communities which translate information voluntarily.
Zuckerman is part of Global Voices, "an international community of bloggers who report on blogs and citizen media from around the world". Bravo!
Watch this TED Talk
About Ethan Zuckerman
Sure, the web connects the globe, but most of us end up hearing mainly from people just like ourselves. Blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman wants to help share the stories of the whole wide world. He talks about clever strategies to open up your Twitter world and read the news in languages you don't even know.
Ethan Zuckerman studies how the world -- the whole world -- uses new media to share information and moods across cultures, languages and platforms.