jackfruit of the week (09.10.08)

Over the past two years I've experimented with a feature on this blog called "Jackfruit of the week," most recently last November. It's usually a picture of (what else?) a jackfruit accompanied by some of the most intriguing things I've read or seen that week, similar to Chris Blattman's Links I liked posts.

For the next two years, I'm going to try to make JOTW a regular occurrence by basing it on things I'm reading or watching for class. My degree is in Economic and Political Development with a focus in (new) media, so most of the things I share here will be vaguely related to things like Internet and political development, but there might be the occasional piece of statistics humor. Without further ado:

This week's jackfruit comes from my friend and colleague Jillian York. It was spotted, believe it or not, in Canada.

The Machine is Us/ing Us, a video by Kansas State University professor Mike Wesch, explores the implications of Web 2.0 in our world. Wesch has spent significant time in Papua New Guinea, observing the introduction of new media to a society and how technology impacts culture.

Vijay Prashad's Darker Nations explores post-colonial countries and traces the rise and (he claims) fall of the Third World. The first sentence of the introduction claims, "The Third World was not a place. It was a project."