Finding, blogging, and podcasting your voice

I spoke this afternoon at the National Institute for Youth and Democracy (INJD) in Rabat on "the role of blogs in marketing elections." I used this draft set of notes as an example of my own blogging, and I promised to append a link to my recorded remarks later. Here it is:
Excerpted audio in Moroccan darija.

Talking points:

• Youthful disaffection with conventional parties and candidates in the U.S. and in Morocco; examples from polls, from conventional media, and from popular culture
• Youthful articulation of political views by means of new information technologies in the U.S. and in Morocco; examples from blogs, from conventional media broadcasts, and from Youtube
• Reaching the powers that be and affecting the outcome of elections, laws, and policy implementation in the U.S. and in Morocco

Links mentioned:

• An article about the INJD in Magharebia
• Project on Middle Eastern Democracy (POMED) blog on April 26-27 INJD conference "Find Your Voice"
• Google blog search on "obama"
• Google blog search on "clinton"
• Google blog search on "mccain"
• "Yes We Can" video on YouTube
• Tanmia.ma podcasting page ("آصوات الشباب)
• Wikipedia entry on Moroccan Arabic (darija)
• A Sidi Kacem youth comments on Moroccan education and the Internet (darija)
• A "political" play in darija: l7muq ila nt9 ("If the Crazy Talked")
• an interview with Moroccan rapper Bigg in darija on Dailymotion (July, 2006)
• Nass El Ghiwane: "Lebtana" lyrics (Arabic)
• blafrancia

Comments

[Sarah Zaaimi]

Hi, thanks for your inspiring words in the INJD. I think I would start looking for a way to teach the "Aroubiya" youth how to blog and pod cast their voices, because we need to hear what they have to say. Maybe they are more inspiring than our voices , us the city children. If you have any suggestions regarding this, I would go for it. My parents are from Sidi Kassem by the way, so maybe it would be good to go train kids in my region? Sarah