Rebecca MacKinnon

Biography

Now: I am currently an Open Society Fellow, working on a book about how authoritarian regimes survive the Internet, and what that means for the future of democracy. Beginning in February I will be a Visiting Fellow at Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy.

In 2007 and 2008 I worked as Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre, teaching online journalism and conducting research related to free expression and the Chinese Internet. During that time I was also Project Lead for Creative Commons Hong Kong.

I am an active member of the Board of Directors for Global Voices, an award-winning citizen media community which I co-founded in 2004 with Ethan Zuckerman. I am also on the Board of Directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Global Network Initiative, a multistakeholder initiative for free expression and privacy in the ICT sector.

I am also on several other advisory boards, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Prior life as a TV journalist in Asia: Soon after college, after a one-year stint as a Fullbright scholar in Taiwan, I worked my way up from the very bottom of CNN's Beijing bureau. Somehow I managed to wind up as CNN's Beijing correspondent and Bureau Chief from 1998-2001. After that I moved on to be Tokyo Bureau Chief from 2001-03.

Transition from TV to Internet: In January 2004 I went on leave from CNN to do a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. My research focus was on blogs and participatory online media, especially as relates to international news. After about 3 months at Harvard I resigned from CNN and was invited to stay at Harvard as a Research Fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, enabling me to evolve from a TV person into an Internet person. I remained a Berkman Fellow for two and a half years, from mid-2004 until the end of 2006.

Selected writings beyond the blog...

• The Power of the Internet in China, (PDF) review of a book by Guobin Yang, Far Eastern Economic Review, September 18, 2009.
• After the Green Dam Victory (PDF), CSIS Freeman Report June/July 2009.
• The Green Dam Phenomenon (PDF)Asian Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2009.
• Firewalls to Freedom (with Evgeny Morozov), Project Syndicate February, 2009.
• China's Censorship 2.0: How Companies Censor Bloggers, First Monday, February 2009.
• Dear President Obama: In Talking to China, Remember its People Huffington Post, January 29, 2009.
• The Chinese Censorship Foreigners Don't See Asian Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2008.
• "Blogs and China Correspondence: Lessons About Global Information Flows,"Chinese Journal of Communication, Vol. 1, Issue 2, October 2008 Free draft PDF here.
• "Cyber Zone: how China's online pioneers are pushing the boundaries of free speech." Index on Censorship, Volume 37, Issue 2 May 2008 , pages 82 - 89. Free version here.
• "Asia's Fight For Web Rights", Far Eastern Economic Review, April 2008.
• "Teaching Multimedia Journalism" and "Valued Classroom Resources," Nieman Reports Vol. 6, No. 1, Spring 2008.
• “Flatter World and Thicker Walls? Blogs, Censorship and Civic Discourse in China ” , In Drezner, D., and H. Farrell, eds., Special Issue: WILL THE REVOLUTION BE BLOGGED? Public Choice. Volume 134, Numbers 1-2 / January, 2008. (Online for subscribers only.) Free draft here (PDF).
• "Shi Tao, Yahoo!, and the lessons for corporate social responsibility" (PDF), a working paper presented December 2007 at the International Conference on Information Technology and Social Responsibility, Chinese University, Hong Kong.
• "Blogging, Journalism and Credibility: The Future of Global Participatory Media" (PDF of English original) in Ono, Yoshikuni, ed., On Global Communication, (Kyoto: Seikai Shisosya 2007) [In Japanese].
• Blogs and China Correspondence: How foreign correspondents covering China use blogs (PDF). Paper presented at the World Journalism Education Conference, Singapore, June 25-28, 2007.
• Internet Intervention: How Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Sold Their Souls to China, GOOD Magazine.
• Blogs and bridges: Citizen participation in global journalism RTHK Media Digest.
• Gathering Voices to Share With a Worldwide Online Audience (with Ethan Zuckerman), Nieman Reports Winter 2006.
• Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship (Human Rights Watch, August 2006) (Primary author)
• The Self-Expression Sector, The Nation, (July 3, 2006 issue).
• Washington Post Editorial: "Shattering the China Dream" (PDF 93.1K)
• The Nation.com: America's Online Censors
• Newsweek International: Censorship, Inc.
• The Great Firewall of China
• China's Internet: Let a Thousand Filters Bloom YaleGlobal 28 June 2005
• The Precarious State of TV News Nieman Reports, Spring 2005
• Blogging, Journalism & Credibility: The Conference Report (PDF)
• Chinese Cell Phone Breaches North Korean Hermit Kingdom YaleGlobal, 17 January 2005
• Global Voices: International Bloggers Start Connecting the Dots | Personal Democracy Forum
• Priorities of American Global TV JAMCO International Symposium, November-December 2004
• Asia Times
• Blogging North Korea Nieman Reports Fall 2004
• "Worldwide Conversation"- Research paper for Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy (PDF)

Video

• Free Culture and Free Speech: Why strong and vibrant free culture communities are important for freedom of expressionLecture delivered January 2008 at Workshop on Asia and Commons Taipei, Taiwan.
• DIGITAL AGE - WNYE/CH 25, IN NY: Are Bloggers as Trustworthy as Mainstream Media?
• DIGITAL AGE - WNYE/CH 25, IN NY: Did Google Sell Out?
• WGBH: Thinking Big: News in the Digital Age
• NewsHour:Google in China Raises Censorship Issues
• CBS Online Video: Rights of Chinese Internet Users

Audio

• Diane Rehm Show: Internet Censorship in China
• KQED Pacific Time Commentary: Microsoft Bows to Chinese Blog Censorship
• Pop!Tech talk: The Internet in China: Change goes both ways
• The Connection: Cyber-dissidents
• Echo Chamber Project: Talking about journalism, blogs, and Global Voices.
• Global Voices Online Radio Report
• WFIU: Profiles
• On the Media: N.Korea