Kazakhstan = Rupert Murdoch-ism

Kyrgyzstan = Factionalism + “NGO addiction”

Tajikistan = Weakened governance → “freedom”

Turkmenistan = Absolute state control

Uzbekistan = Divide and conquer

The Unreality of Journalism

Reporters Sans Frontières2010 Press Freedom Index:

Tajikistan: 115th (due to fractured governance)

Kyrgyzstan: 159th (down from 110th in 2007)

Kazakhstan: 162nd (despite its OSCE chairmanship)

Uzbekistan: 163rd (no surprise)

Turkmenistan: 176th (betw. Iran and North Korea)

These are societies that were for generations succored on media that was pedagogical, ideological, and often in denial, where too much classical music on the radio meant there was a crisis – Tchaikovsky's “Swan Lake” signified the death of a leader; on 19 August, 1991, the death of the Soviet Union.

Content may change, as well as values – gone is the shared destiny of fifteen nations merged into homo sovieticus, replaced now with the Altyn Asyr (Golden Age) or the glittering future embodied in the city of Astana – but media forms persist, morph, mutate, adapt.

What do we do?• Megaphone for reginal voices

- all ages, ethnic backgrounds and political and religious persuasions

• Blogs and podcasts as a journalistic medium

- news, culture, analysis

• Languages: English, Russian, Kazakh and Kyrgyz

- formerly Uzbek and Tajik / soon: Turkmen

Pluralism as an antidote to media imbalances:

- Contending state-controlled narratives- De-exotifying Central Asia to outside world

Creating a space for interaction at a regional and global level between regionals and non-regionals.

Broadening what it means to be “Central Asian” (do Westerners committed to the region also count?)

Central Asian views

Highlights• Pioneering local language blogging 2006-08 + bringing

together Westerners and Central Asians

• Original coverage of several major news events

• Blocked in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan

• Over 50 in-country training sessions, seminars and conferences since 2007

• Our bloggers have been interviewed by CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, RFE/RL and our work has been cited by Freedom House and Reporters Sans Frontières

• In 2011, published CyberChaikhana: Digital Conversations from Central Asia, a crowdsourced contemporary history

• We have worked with: We currently work with:

• We also liaise with

Our bloggers: trained journalists human rights activists most of all, normal people like you

Political conditions require many of our bloggers to operate under pseudonyms

We believe that an independent and pluralistic media is critically important for

Central Asia's development

No digital panacea

• The Internet is vital to promote Central Asia's vast number of perspectives

• Yet, it's also a fragile and dangerous place

- Decays over time (Twitter)- Easy to censor- Monitoring potential

• Low Internet penetration throughout the region

“Regular” Internet penetration (as of 2010):

Kyrgyzstan = 39.8%

Kazakhstan = 34.3%

Uzbekistan = 26.8%

Tajikistan = 9.3%

Turkmenistan = 1.6% (of ~5 million)

Internet access is largely concentrated in major and secondary urban centers – which also happen to be infrastructural hubs. Passports reportedly needed at Ashgabat Internet cafes.

Mobile Internet penetration (as of 2010):

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were reportedly nearing full mobile penetration by December 2010, and Turkmenistan achieved 3G before Kyrgyzstan.

Business Monitor International (Spring 2011): “Mobile broadband services … will make a strong contribution to the growth of internet services in Central Asia.”

Yet, telecoms deeply politicized/personalized, e.g., Russian provider MTS abruptly kicked out of Turkmenistan. Widespread censorship and “snooping”, e.g., Kazakh policing of WordPress.

“Cyber-revolution” and “counter-revolution”

The mysterious explosion in Abadan outside of Ashgabat in July 2011 was met by an intense online social network response to gather and disseminate accurate information.

The Turkmen government eventually seems to have responded with a call to exiled opposition to return home for “elections”. Meanwhile, a massive hack attack was launched against the Chronicles of Turkmenistan, with a threatening e-mail and URLs of sensitive content from the Chronicles sent to neweurasia as a warning.

“Message in a Bottle”

• Hivos and neweurasia's goal: making the Stanosphere “real”

- to commemorate- to preserve- to promote

• A book can physically go where PDF files and cached HTMLs may not (yet)

The Un-Travel Log

• “A story weaved from blog posts and forum discussions, which might at first appear unrelated or inchoate, but are in fact part of a single, multifaceted and digital conversation”

• Bloggers and readers themselves wrote the book:

- Selection of content- Reviewing rough drafts- Prowling for content beyond neweurasia

= Central Asian history by Central Asians

• 10 chapters

• 5 country-specific + 5 cross-regional

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

Education, Media, Women, Religionand National Identity

= an “un-travel log”

The Authentic Story

• Country-specific chapters

- KZ: May I go Back in Time? (Modernity)

- KG: Wait for the Wheel (Revolution)

- TJ: Central Asian Sisyphus (Poverty)

- TM: The Length of a Man's Shadow (Ideology)

- UZ: The Long Loud Silence (Authoritarianism)

• Cross-regional chapters

- Education: Got Spellcheck, Will Work for Food (Ambition vs. Infrastructure)

- Media: When the Pen Runs Dry (Censorship)

- Women: No Daughters of Traditon (Not Modernity vs. Tradition?)

- Religion: The Conversation of the Gods (Conflict and Continuity)

- National Identity: The Way We Weren't (Historical Memory and Nation-building)

05/09/09

CyberChaikhana

Digital Conversations from Central Asia

CyberChaikhana team

• Christopher Schwartz, Editor• Ben Paarmann, Project Manager/Ed. Direction• Oliver Dams, Production Manager• Andrey Tolstoy, Russian Translator• Rolf Bremer, Illustrator

Produced with a generous grant from Hivos

neweurasia team (2011)• Christopher Schwartz, Managing Editor (ENG) United States of America, Belgium

• Yelena Jetpyspayeva, Managing Editor (RUS)Kazakhstan, Switzerland

• Oliver Dams, Technical Director Germany, Switzerland

• Askhat Yerkimbay, KZ blogger + coordinator Kazakhstan

• Mirsulzhan Namazaliev, KG blogger Kyrgyzstan

• Tolkun Umaraliev, KG coordinatorKyrgyzstan

• Camilla Asyrankulova, Editorial AssistantKyrgyzstan, Sweden

neweurasia team (2012)• Christopher Schwartz, Editor-in-Chief

United States of America, Belgium

• Oliver Dams, Project Manager

Germany, Switzerland

• Yelena Jetpyspayeva, Social Media Officer

Kazakhstan, Russian Federation

• Askhat Yerkimbay, Kazakhstan Managing Editor

Kazakhstan, United States of America

• Mirsulzhan Namazaliev, Kyrgyzstan Managing Editor

Kyrgyzstan

• Annasoltan Turkmen, Turkmenistan Managing Editor

[Undisclosed]

• Tolkun Umaraliev, Audiovisual/Multimedia Editor

Kyrgyzstan

• Camilla Asyrankulova, Editorial Assistant

Kyrgyzstan