Africa correspondent covers six or seven countries with populations as big as Europe, and half of dozen active wars in
progress. The obvious question is whether better coverage or persistent Web casts could stop or minimise human casual-
ties there. Can a camcorder attached to a satellite phone indirectly save thousands of lives?

The article “A Vision of Electronic Gear in a Journalist's Future" that appeared in the Business section of NY Times on 18th
of February reflect the enormous interest and hopes journalism has in this new technology. The school of Journalism of
Columbia University is experimenting with satellite technology, Internet and light equipment for field journalists. Similar
experiments are being performed by B92 reporting from Kosovo. Satellite phones are still out of reach, but small light DVD
cameras and Internet transmission of the material to the web is a significant advantage and available now. The results of
Such reportage are available at http://rex.opennet.org/cyberex/kosovo/klecka.htm. The plan is to use this practice as much
as possible, in Kosovo and world-wide.

ELECTRONIC MEDIA STREAMING ON THE NET

Internet has embedded classical media through a digital multimedia gateway. Internet users are exposed by to huge offer-
ings of so-called multimedia products. The general intention is integration of classical media into the Net framework. One
can listen to the radio or watch television or read newspapers sitting in front of the computer screen. The Net's similari-
ties with its classical counterparts are limited in scale due to the nature of classical media and bandwidth limitations of
the Internet network. Clicking on a Web page icon can expose one to audio and video STREAMING. from a quality stand-
point audio streaming is parallel or better to current “on air” traditional transmissions. This opens the possibility for tacti-
Cal use of Internet as a carrier of radio signals. Radio broadcast and experimentation with audio is in full bloom on the Net.
Things have developed so far in fact that the free exchange of audio material had begun to jeopardised the CD industry.
The relaxed copyright practice so usual to the Net will force the CD industry to rethink its own basics. This is not unlike
what text on the internet did to the information services when information became easily available free of charge. Is full
video that far behind on the Net? .

Classical electronic media is still much more influential then Internet due to the lesser financial and intellectual involve-
ment required of an end user, and the limited proliferation of the Net thus far. While one hundred million people have ac-
Cess to it and the growth rate is exponential, this statistic still represents a small fraction of the world’s population. On the
production side, all around the world radio and TV frequencies are subjected to some procedure of licensing. In less un-
democratic countries, the procedure is easier; in totalitarian regimes it is an impossible nightmare. And that is another
striking parallel; The difficulties for a media organisation to get a broadcasting license and opportunity of an individual to
get access to Internet are in direct correlation in any society.

The technology offers endless possibilities; at least it looks like that to an optimistically inclined observer. One does not
have to go through a legislative procedure to start a radio station. Just a computer on the Net and a will to broadcast is
enough. TV on the Net is still out of actual reach, unless we call TV any stream of moving pictures accompanied by sound
whatever the quality or resolution, The key elements for activists using the Internet is the ability to immediately disseminate
information world-wide. And when streamed multimedia content is disseminated over the Internet, the message is even more
powerful. The very moment the government jammed the signal of Radio B92 in 1996, the international community was alert-
ed and radio newscasts put on the Net. The Radio came back on the air soon. But the full Potential of the new technology
was demonstrated when it was combined with classical media and networking of radio stations within the ANEM network.
ANEM's example and its experience is well known to many organisations, NGOs and governments throughout the world.
Their daily presence on the Internet and their sharing of strategies with other organisations through the Internet has made
B92 and ANEM (Association of Independent Electronic Media in Serbia) a recognised source of expertise in the field of
new media. There are similar examples of success with other new media. Thus the Internet has become a repository for
strategies in new and classical media practice. One of the most recent results is expansion of web radio coverage on the
Kosovo crisis. There are.three radio stations operating exclusively on the Internet. The daily newspaper Koha sends its
news as radio clips via Internet to London. From there the program is converted into a classical radio broadcast for re-
transmission via satellite.