Open location

I "t could be said that anything published on paper that re.lates to the World Wide Web is guaranteed to be out of date, as amongst the fundamental characteristics of this new media are that the ease and speed with which it changes. This particular column is almost certain to be overtaken by events for this reason and also because it deals with a topic of huge current interest, the crisis in Kosovo. As I write, the NATO air campaign is on-going; by the time this is published, I hope the situation will have come to a happy resolution. It is not my intent here, however, to comment on the political situation, but rather to examine what is available on the conflict on the WWW and to see what can be concluded from that about the increasing integration of the Internet into the fabric of our daily lives. My initial idea for this column was to visit and review some of the Internet sites that relate to the political situation in Kosovo and provide a brief overview of them, as I have already done when considering other topics. When I began this research, I quickly realised that this was a task which would take much more time and space than I had available. All the major newsites have extensive sections on Kosovo. Using Kosovo as a keyword in search engines turns up hundreds of pages, and each of those seems to point to a myriad of new sites. The sheer volume of material was overwhelming. A report on the BBC Web site (http://news.bbc.co.uk/) provides a summary of the main sites of relavance it may still be available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/ special_report/1998/kosovo/newsid_305000/305849.htm. From reading this and visiting some of the sites listed, it quickly became clear that all sides have extensive Internet presences, and that they are using it to disseminate their particular messages. To take some examples, the official NATO site (http:// www.nato.int/) contains all their press material, transciptions of news conferences and even downloadable movies from missiles and gun cameras. The United States Information Agency Kosovo site (http://www.usia.gov/kosovo/) is similar in nature, although with a lot of background material and documentation on alleged war crimes. This perspective on the conflict is countered by the Serbian Ministry of Information (http://www.serbia-info.com/) and by the Federal Secretariat of Information (http://www.gov.yu/sszi/), which contain news stories from the Serbian viewpoint. Meanwhile, the Kosovo Press (http://www.kosovapress.com/english/ index.htm) contains information on the Kosovo Liberation Army and lists of people allegedly murdered by the Serbs. Perhaps the best starting point is http:l/www.cdsp.neu.edu/ info/students/marko/yuindpress.html, which contains information on the Yugoslav Independent Press. There are indications, also, that the war has spilt into cyberspace in a more definite form there are reports that Yugoslavian hackers launched denial-of-service attacks on the NATO website, to prevent it from functioning, which NATO had to deal with. While this is not the full-scale "info-war" about which warnings are circulating at present, it is significant that some see Websites as "legitimate targets" in a conflict, and that others see them as worth defending. We can now learn much about such important events from the Internet; for those (like myself) without access to 24-hour news channels such as CNN, the Web can often be a more up-to-date source of information. Furthermore, the nature of the Web means that the information available is not necessarily condensed into a broadcast media soundbite; if one is willing to spend some time online, there is a wealth of information to be uncovered, covering all aspects of the Kosovo conflict from the personal to the political. How reliable this information is is another question. Much of what is available is clearly biased; some is blatant propaganda. This is interesting on two counts. One is the availability of it outside its normal boundaries: the prejudices and preconceptions of each side can be juxtaposed and contrasted with each other in ways that illuminate their respective mindsets and the reasons underlying the conflict. The other aspect of interest is that the World Wide Web is seen as a tool of propaganda. It is said that sexual expression is amongst the first uses of any new medium; that is certainly a use to which the Web has been put. One of the early uses of radio, and now of television, "was for propaganda. The Web is now being used for that purpose, and this marks another (somewhat unhappy) milestone in its emergence as an important component of modern society. On the positive side, the Web encourages a depth and breadth of reporting--and access to varying viewpoints--which other mass media are often lacking. •