Microblogs, Youtube, and mobile communications. These are a few of the digital platforms changing how we connect, and subsequently, reshaping global societies. 

Confluence of technology and pervasive desire for information has in effect created widespread adoption. There is no doubt the Information Technology (IT) revolution is in full swing.

Comparing case studies across Asia and the United States, the fifth and final Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue (DISCONTINUED) considered opportunities and challenges posed by digital media. Experts and top-level administrators from Stanford and universities across Asia, as well as policymakers, journalists, and business professionals, met in Kyoto on Sept. 12-13, 2013.

Relevant questions asked included: What shifts have occurred in traditional versus digital media for how people get information, and how does this differ across countries? What is the potential for digital media in civil society and democratization? Is it a force for positive change or a source of instability?

In the presentations and discussion sessions, participants raised a number of key, policy-relevant points, which are highlighted in the Dialogue’s final report. These include:

Digital media does not, on its own, automatically revolutionize politics or foster greater democratization. While the Internet and digital media can play an instrumental role, particularly where traditional media is highly controlled by the government, participants cautioned against overemphasizing the hype. One conception is that the Internet can instead be viewed as a catalyst or powerful multiplier, but only if a casual chain of latent interest exists. That being said, greater exposure of youth to digital media, particularly in areas of tight media control, can open new areas of awareness.

The upending of traditional media business models has not been replaced by viable digital media business models. As media organizations struggle with their business models, the quality of reporting is threatened. For traditional organizations, maintaining public trust can be challenging, particularly during wars after disasters, while in areas with previously tightly controlled press, digital media may be perceived as more authentic. On the one hand, policy-driven agenda setting may be easier in some issue areas, but digital media may amplify interest in controversial issues, particularly with history issues in Asia.

As Cloud Computing platforms provided by a small group of mostly U.S. companies is increasingly the underlying platform for digital media—as well as our digital lives in general—issues of information security and privacy are at the forefront of much of the public’s mind. Revelations by former U.S. contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of the US government’s espionage activities raise concerns among journalists concerned with issues such as free speech of the press, media independence from government, and protection of sources. 

Previous Dialogues have brought together a diverse range of scholars and thought leaders from Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, India, Australia and the United States. Participants have explored issues such as the global environmental and economic impacts of energy usage in Asia and the United States; the question of building an East Asian regional organization; and addressing higher education policy and the dramatic demographic shift across Asia.

The annual Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue was made possible through the generosity of the City of Kyoto, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and Yumi and Yasunori Kaneko.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Lisa Griswold

STANFORD, California – Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) is pleased to announce Aung Zaw as the 2013 recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award. Zaw has been selected for his leadership in establishing independent media in Myanmar (Burma) and his dedication to integrity in reporting on Southeast Asia. 

Launched in 2002, the Shorenstein Journalism Award recognizes outstanding journalists who are leaders in constructing a new role for reporting on Asia, including incorporation of Internet-based journalism and social media. The award was originally designed to honor distinguished American journalists for their work on Asia, but since 2011, Shorenstein APARC re-envisioned the award to encompass distinguished Asian journalists who pave the way for press freedom, and have aided in the growth of mutual understanding between Asia and the United States. Shorenstein APARC is delighted to recognize Zaw as the first Burmese recipient of the award.

Aung Zaw’s commitment to independent journalism flows from his long involvement in the struggle against authoritarian military rule in Myanmar and his engagement in the movement for democracy in that Southeast Asian nation. For two decades, Aung Zaw was an active participant in the resistance to military rule and the push for greater press freedom. In 1988, he participated in the mass protests of students, monks, housewives and ordinary citizens against the regime of General Ne Win.

Zaw was arrested, interrogated, and held in the Insein prison for his pro-democracy activities. Upon release, Zaw continued to work with the resistance movement until the military staged a coup in September of that year, whereupon he was forced into exile in neighboring Thailand. From there, he wrote political commentaries for various media outlets and launched The Irrawaddy magazine with a group of fellow Burmese exiles.

Upon the selection of Aung Zaw as the 2013 Shorenstein Journalism Award recipient, jury member Nayan Chanda of Yale University’s Center for the Study on Globalization said:

 “In the darkness that descended over Burma in the years following the brutal military crackdown on the democracy movement, former student leader Aung Zaw was one of the few who kept a flickering lamp burning from exile. Nothing was more important than to get news out of the country where fear stalked and jails overflowed with detainees. From his exile perch in Thailand, Aung Zaw published The Irrawaddy which emerged as an important news magazine not only for a muzzled Burma, but it also covered stories from all over Southeast Asia that were often left out by mainstream media. Aung Zaw's contribution to bringing original news and analysis from Southeast Asia to the world cannot be overestimated.” 

The Irrawaddy newsmagazine is published in both English and Burmese and features in-depth analysis and interviews with experts from Myanmar and contributors from around the world. As the first independent publication in Myanmar, The Irrawaddy remains a significant resource for current news on the dynamic political and economic environment. In 2012, Zaw returned to his homeland of Myanmar for the first time in 24 years and established a local office for The Irrawaddy in Yangon. This past year, the Burmese government lifted the ban on major media, allowing for readership and distribution of The Irrawaddy throughout the country.

In addition to managing The Irrawaddy, Zaw is a contributor for the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, The Guardian, Bangkok Post, The Nation, and several other publications based in Europe. He has been featured on interviews on CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera. He is the author of Face of Resistance and has written publications distributed through the Irrawaddy Publishing Group, including ten-installments of The Dictators, a series that analyzes the lives and careers of Myanmar’s main military chiefs and their cohorts.

In 2010, Zaw was awarded the prestigious Price Claus Award for Journalism, which honors journalists who reflect progressive approaches to culturally focused journalism in developing countries. Zaw is currently a visiting scholar at Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

On March 6, 2014, Zaw will visit Stanford University to take part in a lunchtime panel discussion on the future of democracy in Myanmar. Zaw will receive the award at a dinner ceremony where he will deliver a talk on his work as a journalist and the role of the media in democratization of Myanmar. 

ABOUT THE AWARD

The Shorenstein Journalism Award honors a journalist not only for their distinguished body of work, but also for their promotion of free, vibrant media and for the future of relations between Asia and the United States. The award, which carries a prize of $10,000, is presented to a journalist who consistently creates innovative approaches to unravel the complexities of Asia to readers, among them the use of the Internet and how it can act as a catalyst for change.

The award was named after Walter H. Shorenstein, the philanthropist, activist, and businessman who endowed two institutions that are focused respectively on Asia and the press. The Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The award honors Shorenstein’s legacy and endows rising journalists with a grant to continue their work.

Originally created to identify journalists based in the U.S. reporting on Asia, the Shorenstein Journalism Award now also recognizes Asian journalists who report on Asian affairs with readers in the U.S. and Asia. Past recipients have included: Barbara Demick of the Los Angeles Times (2012), Caixin Media of Caixin Weekly/Caijing Magazine (2011), Barbara Crossette of The Nation (2010), Seth Mydans of the New York Times (2009), Ian Buruma (2008), John Pomfret (2007), Melinda Liu of Newsweek and The Daily Beast (2006), Nayan Chanda (2005), Don Oberdofer (2004), Orville Schell(2003), and Stanley Karnow (2002). 

For the 2013 award, the distinguished selection jury includes:

Nayan Chanda is the director of publications and the editor of YaleGlobal Online Magazine at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. For nearly thirty years, Chanda was at the Hong Kong-based magazine, Far Eastern Economic Review. He writes the ‘Bound Together’ column in India’s BusinessWorld and is the author of Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and Warrior Shaped Globalization. Chanda received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2005.

Susan Chira is the assistant managing editor for news and former foreign editor of the New York Times. Chira has extensive experience in Asia, including serving as Japan correspondent for the Times in the 1980s. During her tenure as foreign editor, the Times twice won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting (2009 and 2007).

Donald K. Emmerson is a well-respected Indonesia scholar and director of Shorenstein APARC’s Southeast Asia Forum and a research fellow for the National Asia Research Program. Frequently cited in international media, Emmerson also contributes to leading publications, such as Asia Times and International Business Times.

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross director at the Asia Society of New York’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and former jury member for the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Schell has written extensively on China and was awarded the 1997 George Peabody Award for producing the groundbreaking documentary the Gate of Heavenly Peace. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2003.

Daniel C. Sneider is the associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC and was a research fellow at the National Bureau for Asian Research. Sneider frequently contributes to publications such as Foreign Policy, Asia Policy, and Slate and has three decades of experience as a foreign correspondent and editor for publications including the Christian Science Monitor and the San Jose Mercury News.

Ben Rudolph was an ambitious computer science major planning to remain in Silicon Valley and join one of the many start-ups eager for young Stanford grads. But in his senior year he took a class, “Rethinking Refugee Communities,” which knocked him off his path and got him thinking about how to use that ambition for the greater good.

The class was co-taught by Tino Cuéllar, a Stanford Law School professor and director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Cuéllar led the class while co-director of FSI's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), which had just launched a collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The agency was looking for innovative ideas to support and protect the more than 42 million refugees, internally displaced and stateless people around the world.

When Rudolph graduated in June, he turned down offers in local tech firms and headed to Geneva as an intern for UNHCR’s nascent innovation lab. He joined Stanford alumna and CISAC faithful, Alice Bosley, in the small office with a big mission: to aid refugees by driving innovation using the latest tools of technology. 

“I get to make a difference in the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world: refugees,” said Rudolph, a 23-year-old from Naperville, Ill., who came to Stanford on a gymnastics scholarship. “And I love that I get to meet such a diverse group of people with wildly different opinions about so many things.” 

Rudolph has now joined UNHCR Innovation full time and has traveled to Ecuador to pilot one of his projects and to Thailand for an innovation workshop. On a recent trip to Esmeraldas on the northwestern coast of Ecuador, he tested out an SMS program that would help displaced people get information from the UNHCR and its partner organizations. 

Bosley, the associate operations officer at UNHCR Innovation, first joined the U.N. as an intern speechwriter at the Permanent Mission of East Timor to the United Nations in New York. She was visiting some CISAC colleagues in the spring of 2012 when she learned about the burgeoning collaboration between the center and UNHCR. She volunteered for the project and became an intern with the newly formed UNHCR Innovation team, where she was later offered a full-time position.

Alice Bosley crossing a river near the Dollo Ado UNHCR refugee camp in Ethiopia.

“UNHCR Innovation is my dream job; I am constantly traveling to new and interesting locations to work on projects and I’m able to support some of the most creative and impressive people in the organization,” said Bosley, 25, who graduated in 2011 with a degree in international relations. “It’s challenging and sometimes overwhelming. But I wouldn’t pick anything else to do at this point in my life.” 

Rudolph and Bosley are models of the CISAC mission: to train the next generation of experts who will make the world a safer place. While not entrenched in the policy arena or at the forefront of arms control or Track II diplomacy, they are quietly, doggedly fulfilling the CISAC pledge to improve lives around the world. 

"One of CISAC's greatest strengths over the years has been its record of attracting enormously talented students and fellows from a diverse array of disciplines and giving them a chance to work on problems that affect lives around the world,” said Cuéllar. 

The UNHCR came to Cuéllar in early 2012 asking to collaborate. That initial request has led to an array of projects across campus and around the world. Cuéllar last year co-taught the class, “Rethinking Refugee Communities,” with Leslie Witt of the Palo Alto-based global design firm IDEO. That class in turn led to research trips in Ethiopia and Rwanda with UNHCR and the International Rescue Committee to test out some of the student projects to improve food security, communications, camp design and an SMS platform that Rudolph later tested with the innovation lab. 

“Ben and Alice were attracted to the refugee project because of its focus on improving conditions for forced migrants,” said Cuéllar. “Both of them are brimming with intellectual curiosity, ability, and dedication, so it's no surprise that UNHCR has put them at the center of its innovation work." 

The collaboration now extends far beyond CISAC. Cuéllar, CISAC visiting professor Jim Hathaway of the University of Michigan Law School, Roland Hsu of the Stanford Humanities Center and the NGO Asylum Access are convening a winter quarter working group on refugee rights. Stanford faculty will come from many departments to talk about the tension between providing emergency care and protecting refugee rights. 

CISAC led the UNHCR to the Stanford Geospatial Center, where students are working on four mapping projects to help refugees, including an interactive map that displays the density for refugees seeking shelter in that conflict. 

“Working with the UNHCR was truly a unique experience for us,” said Patricia Carbajales, geospatial manager at the Branner Earth Sciences Library who linked the students with the UNHCR advisers in Geneva and field offices around the world. “The students were completely engaged, understanding the importance that their projects had for UNHCR and, most importantly, for the refugees themselves.” 

The popularity of the projects has led to a new class in the spring, “GIS for Good: Applications for GIS for International Development and Humanitarian Relief.” 

Cuéllar and Elizabeth Gardner, associate director for partnerships and special projects at FSI, are working with UNHCR architects and the New York-based Ennead Architects Lab to develop new tools to expedite the complex process of laying out new refugee camps. 

Stanford’s Haas Center for Public Service and the student-led Stanford in Government is making moves to permanently place interns or postgraduate fellows at UNHCR. FSI Senior Fellow Paul Wise, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford’s School of Medicine, will mentor that intern in the coming year. 

Meanwhile, out in the field, Rudolph doesn’t know if his UNHCR experience has forever changed his career path. He may come back to the valley and pick up where he left off; he may continue his humanitarian work. 

Either way, he says, “This work has really opened me up to a world of problems that are so vast it’s hard to grasp. It will be forever difficult to go back to my ignorant bliss.”

Ben Rudolph, center, with Sudanese refugees in a UNHCR refugee camp in Ethiopia, March 2013.