The blogs of war

The internet has become a key battleground for public opinion as the Middle Eastern crisis deepens, but it is also providing a forum for discussion between people caught up in the crisis and those watching from afar.

In many cases, the language barrier complicates attempts to exchange information and share experiences, especially as both Hebrew and Arabic use an entirely different script from English, the likely lingua franca. For those who want to take part in the debate but who struggle to express themselves, help could be at hand from an automatic language correction and enrichment service.

WhiteSmoke’s language improvement tool incorporates some features familiar from Microsoft Word – it underlines spelling mistakes in red and grammatical errors in green – but it also suggests ways of improving the writing, either by substituting synonyms or adding adjectives.

The company says that its software, which took three years to develop, scans whole sentences and uses the context in which appear to suggest appropriate alternatives and embellishments. The application, which can be used in conjunction with any word processor, e-mail or instant messaging service, also includes a dictionary so that users can check the definition of unfamiliar words suggested as alternatives.

"With strong sales in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the UK, the US and Turkey, our technology reaches the key stakeholders in the Middle East conflict and helps clarify communication in English between these countries and the rest of the world" Hilla Brenner, chief executive of WhiteSmoke, said. "We want non-native English speaking bloggers or participants in online discussions on the war to feel confident in voicing their opinions."

The service would probably be of little use to absolute beginners, who would have no way of judging whether the suggested amendments were clarifying or obscuring the text, but for people with a basic grasp of the language it could make a vast difference. Instead of feeling confined by their limited knowledge, users would be able to branch out and learn new words and expressions, with the re-assurance that they’re not straying too far from conventional usage.

Whether that’s enough to bring peace to the Middle East is another question entirely, but getting people talking to each other can only be a good thing.

Comments

[Electronic Lebanon]

Why no mention of any actual blogs? Electronic Lebanon has been publishing diaries from on the ground in Lebanon since the first day of hostilities.

[randa m]

There's a lot of Lebanese blogs made by civilians and talking about the daily experience of moderate people during this war.

Some of them are:
http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com/
http://beirutupdate.blogspot.com/
http://frombeirutwithlove.blogspot.com/
http://www.beirutlive.blogspot.com/

Peace, love and trees