Kiwi Internet Users Turn to Online Indy Media

Kiwi Internet Users Turn to Online Indy Media

To Get A Balanced Perspective of the War

With predictions that the war in Iraq will take longer than expected, coupled with polarized views on the US, UK and Australia's involvement, New Zealanders are looking to independent online media sources to gain a balanced perspective of what's occurring in the Middle East.

According to Tessa Court, SVP of Hitwise, "with blurred mainstream media messages on the purpose of the US, UK and Australia's involvement with war - anti-terrorism, oil interests and democracy in the region, the public are obviously craving 'behind the scenes' opinions as to what's really happening - and why."

On March 24, 2003 in the Lifestyle-Politics category, Hitwise recorded significant jumps in traffic to the following independent online media sources:

* http://www.michaelmore.com/ rose from a ranking of #30 to #9 since the 8th March, with over 8.1% of all visits bookmarking that site with an intention to return. Michael Moore's 'The Awful Truth' website features political parody and humour, Rage Against The Machine filmclips, and links to Dog Eat Dog Films, communities, political action organisations and research.

* http://www.indymedia.org/ rose from a ranking of #28 to #12 with over 3.57% of all visits bookmarking that site with an intention to return. Indymedia is a collective of independent media organisations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth.

* http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ rose from #29 to #16 over the past two weeks. This website contains an independent news and information source dedicated to international affairs and world conflict. The website contains a newsletter, world news radio links, in-depth feature articles and political commentary.

* http://www.arabicnews.com/ an Arabic news website which is dedicated to giving coverage on breaking political news in the Middle East rose from a weekly ranking of #71 on the 8th March to its current ranking of 14th position in the Politics category.

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