Instead of just lamenting the hostile - or at best, chilly - response of the government to blogging, bloggers have several challenges that they themselves can immediately tackle, a forum on 'Blogs and Digital Democracy' was told on Wednesday.

Chief among them is to conquer the fear that has in Malaysia gripped most bloggers and prevented them from unleashing the immense potential of the blogging medium to build a democratic society, said the forum's panelists.

Among the earliest journalists in the country to blog, former NST group editor Abdul Kadir Jasin said he was disappointed that fear had led many bloggers and their commentators to hide behind pseudonyms.

About 70 people attended the event - held by the National Alliance of Bloggers (All-Blogs) at the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club - including diplomats, NGO activists, lawyers, and former and current journalists from the alternative and mainstream meda.

Abdul Kadir, currently Berita Publishing Group's group editor-in-chief, has himself lost some clients due to his outspokenness in the print as well as on the blog media, He said such was the price to pay if people want to stand up for what they believe is true.

"It's a bit sad, (people are) fearful for their salary, their roti canai and teh tarik. You have to pay a bit of a price if you believe in what you're doing," said Abdul Kadir.

Another panelist, All-Blogs president Ahirudin Attan, said while bloggers live in perpetual fear of the authorities, journalists in the mainstream media are in turn afraid of being attacked for their reports by bloggers.

"The mainstream journalists also hold a key to what is important to us, which is democracy itself. If we don't have journalists who enjoy press freedom - who could write and who could report as we think they should report - then as a civil society we are not balanced," said Ahirudin.

"If bloggers can take the initiative to help our friends in the mainstream media to understand us better, to engage them and get them to be less fearful of us, I think they would be a lot of help to the blogging scene to achieve (...) digital democracy," he added.

Take a lot of work

Guest speaker David Sasaki, who heads the global blogging network Global Voice Outreach, addressed the fear more squarely in a historical and comprehensive presentation of blogging as an international phenomenon.

Sasaki, who is on a global tour as part of his work to promote blogging, believes there is great potential for bloggers in Malaysia not only to expand and become more influential but also to promote the transition from the 'digital democracy' of cyberspace to actual democracy in society.

"But it's going to take a lot of work, a lot of commitment, and it's also going to take less fear factor and more 'tipping point'," Sasaki told an audience.

The term 'tipping factor', Sasaki explained, was coined to describe the state of near-paralysis or hesitation he and his friends experienced as teenagers whenever they were about to dive off a particular rock into a river - 40 feet below - they used to swim in.

None of them would initially want to be the first to jump off that rock - to go beyond that tipping point - into the air and plunge 40 feet into the water, said Sasaki. It was only when one of them overcame that fear that the rest followed.

Comparing this to blogging in Malaysia, Sasaki said the interests and welfare of bloggers demand that there be a critical mass of bloggers to take the plunge by embarking on blogging projects to promote democracy and government accountability.

"I can tell that, in Malaysia, there's a big fear factor when it comes to blogging: 'If I write something, am I going to lose my job? Is it going to prevent me from getting a job in the future? Am I going to be detained by some authority and questioned? What's going to happen to me?' he said.

He noted that there were many organisations - including his - willing to fund grants worth millions of dollars on blogging projects that could serve as tools to promote democratic practices.

"Blogging, podcasting, and citizen media has not reached that tipping point in Malaysia because there aren't enough people jumping off the rock. We need a concerted effort and a lot of people who are motivated to apply for some of these grants - who are willing to take the risk.

"If there are enough people to do it, then there's not going to be any arrests because you have that critical mass," he added.

Countries such as Burma, Barbados, Egypt, Malaysia, Turkey, and Thailand have sought to scare bloggers from competing against the states' monopoly over news and information, said Sasaki.

Embrace blogging

In several other nations, however, bloggers have succeeded in engaging the government and persuading its officials to embrace blogging as a medium of communication, said Sasaki.

Some government authorities, such as the city of Buenos Aires, now even have official 'chief bloggers' who serve to moderate discussions on blogs and channel constructive criticisms and proposals to the relevant government bodies for action, he noted.

Chile had blogs set up for all candidates to the 2001 presidential elections. Each candidate was obligated to answer each and every question posed on his or her blog.

"You need to not always criticise the government... Instead of taking that stand, you should say, 'Hey, there's some great software for you out there. You could really get your side of the story out there, you could really promote what you're doing as a politician," said Sasaki.

The experiment in Chile was soon repeated in Taiwan for its presidential elections, he noted. He also cited the example of Cambodia, which had organised last year a national conference of bloggers.

That conference, in turn, led investors around the world to start thinking seriously about investing in Cambodia.

Sasaki also noted that Cambodian King was the country's first blogger. "Even president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a blog," Sasaki added.

"Once (the government) starts thinking, 'Hey, this is good for me, too,' they're going to start to embrace it. Once you've got a supporter of the medium of blogging on the inside (of the government), you can get official support for outreach programmes or for political parties," he said.

Other examples of governments that had incorporated blogging as part of its communication tools were Ecuador and Brazil. The latter's state news agency in its reports contain links to all blogs discussing its articles, said Sasaki.

While some governments have either embraced or cracked down on bloggers, bloggers may also be faced by a government that simply ignores them. In this event, said Sasaki, bloggers have to look elsewhere for institutional and financial support to help their cause.

"Look to civil society groups and explain the potential of citizen media to them," he urged.

'Cultural ambassadors'

He cited such success stories as that of the Mzalendo blog in Kenya which documents the bills passed by and the voting patterns of Kenyan parliamentarians. TechPresident in the US, meanwhile, is funded to show how US presidential candidates have been rated by influential bloggers.

Because such blogs had raised the level of discussion above mere rumour-mongering, said Sasaki, "it's not the bloggers trying to get the politicians to come to their conventions - it's the politicians trying to get the bloggers to their conventions."

Part of the reason such blogs have been supported is the realisation that bloggers have become 'cultural ambassadors' of their respective countries.

"So when people look for information on Malaysia, when they search Google, the first thing that's probably going to come up is probably Jeff Ooi's blog," said Sasaki.

"This is the guy who's representing your country to the rest of the world. Blogs have a very good Google ranking. They generate a lot of links, so they get highly ranked," he added.

Even large corporations have to some extent depended on and embraced blogs and bloggers.

"If you want bloggers to say good things about your company, educate them on what's going on. If you disagree, there needs to be some interaction. You can't just be ignoring them. That's not going to work. There's too much support for blogs and for bloggers who get sued or who get shut down," he said.