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On the eve of the election, a number of Magnum photographers have been venturing into American to capture what they can of this historic moment in time. The project is called InSight America. But rather than publish this work as a book a year after the fact, Magnum is posting the work online and on the fly. I caught up with Alex Webb after his recent journey to Ohio:

It's no secret that social media's played an important - maybe even historic - role in the Iran election protests that have swept the nation into discord and disarray. Many social media companies have made a contribution towards opening the flow of communication within and out of Iran, YouTube (YouTube) included. As we reported earlier this week, thousands of Iran-related videos are being uploaded to YouTube every day, revealing first-hand accounts of the crisis to the world. Some are incredible, some are eye-opening, and other shock you to your very core. We've included ten of these incredible videos, in a chronological order that helps provide context to the crisis in Iran. Be prepared, for these videos can evoke some very strong emotions:

Then & Now - Eight South African Photographers Then and Now 160 Images View photos from the exhibit An exhibition of 160 photographs mounted in 5 venues at Duke University. South African photographer Paul Weinberg conceived and curated Then & Now which is comprised of black and white and color photographs from 8 South African documentary photographers. Twenty photographs were selected from each photographer, 10 made under apartheid and 10 photographs made after the historic democratic elections of 1994.

At TEDU 2009, Erik Hersman presents the remarkable story of Ushahidi, a GoogleMap mashup that allowed Kenyans to report and track violence via cell phone texts following the 2008 elections, and has evolved to continue saving lives in other countries.

For two hectic weeks between the US presidential election and the inauguration, one photographer was invited to make portraits of every member of Obama's new incoming administration. The result is a series of 52 unlikely semi-formal portraits that reveal a refreshingly diverse, young, energetic group of the people who will be key to helping forward Obama's agenda. This series of portraits originally appeared in The New York Times Magazine, in print and online. Now, for the first time anywhere, an exhibition of life-size prints of these images will go on display (not in America) but in Birmingham, UK. UK-based photographer Nadav Kander talks with Jim Casper of Lens Culture about how this daunting project came into being, and provides some very interesting personal observations about his brief encounters with the new power-brokers of America. See some of the images, and listen to the interview, here in Lens Culture.

This article was looks at the role of new media in Sri Lanka and mentions other places. It briefly looks at the politics and history of the conflict in SL and the problems (assassinations, kidnapping, threats and deportation by the government and police)  of conventional reporting from SL. Can Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and new media help promote human rights and good governance?\n\nNew media and ICTs can be used by illiberal regimes as well as by civilians, but overall it can be used to strengthen democracy, record violence and holds those responsible up for public scrutiny. Mobile phones are redefining our idea of what a journalist is. online reports and bogs are unstoppable because they are decentralized. there are all ways more bloggers if a few are arrested and there are ways around the system even if some sites are blocked.\n\nSri Lanka has many mobile phones among low income groups. It also has low internet costs. But there need to be understanding of the potential of this media. people need to be motivated to participate in governance and policy beyond just at election time.\n\nInternet is 2 way communication making people feel more connected. everyone has a equal voice. Blogs can be used to show conflict and phones with cameras can add images. New media and citizen journalism is different to e-goverment initiative (where gov will open up info for public and present it online)\n\nNew Media and Citizen journo can play important role in info, relief and conflict management and in providing news pictures from disasters and conflicts. SL citizens found a ways to express concerns when mainstream media was cut off. Currently most material comes from english speakers in urban areas, but has the potential to give voice to all citizens. It is also very useful for collecting ststs such as deaths etc.\n\nRealtime video over highspeed internet offers more possibility of having many TV camera man rather than just 1 film crew.\n\nGroundviews.org

10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information sharing, crowdsourcing, and the election of a President.

"Recently, the "citizen photo agency" Demotix has had reason to celebrate. The site gained fame by selling front-page photos to the New York Times taken by Iranians who captured shots of protests after the disputed presidential election in Iran. Then came another seminal moment when the site got the only shot of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in handcuffs when he was arrested. That photo was featured on CNN, CBS and NBC and in the Washington Post, Boston Globe and other papers, bringing in more than $4,000 for Demotix and the photographer, William B. Carter."

Ahmadinejad Rally Photoshopped to Appear Larger

"On the Internet, everybody is a millenarian. Internet journalism, according to those who produce manifestos on its behalf, represents a world-historical development-not so much because of the expressive power of the new medium as because of its accessibility to producers and consumers. That permits it to break the long-standing choke hold on public information and discussion that the traditional media-usually known, when this argument is made, as "gatekeepers" or "the priesthood"-have supposedly been able to maintain up to now. "Millions of Americans who were once in awe of the punditocracy now realize that anyone can do this stuff-and that many unknowns can do it better than the lords of the profession," Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who operates one of the leading blogs, Instapundit, writes, typically, in his new book, "An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government and Other Goliaths." The rhetoric about Internet journalism produced by Reynolds and many others is plausible only because it conflates several distinct categories of material that are widely available online and didn't use to be. One is pure opinion, especially political opinion, which the Internet has made infinitely easy to purvey. Another is information originally published in other media-everything from Chilean newspaper stories and entries in German encyclopedias to papers presented at Micronesian conferences on accounting methods-which one can find instantly on search and aggregation sites. Lately, grand journalistic claims have been made on behalf of material produced specifically for Web sites by people who don't have jobs with news organizations. According to a study published last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, there are twelve million bloggers in the United States, and thirty-four per cent of them consider blogging to be a form of journalism. That would add