Today, non-profit governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Save Darfur, an alliance of organizations committed to making the public aware of the ongoing genocide in Darfur, utilize blogging as a means of heralding their mission around the world (2007). The site blog is cross-posted between SaveDarfur.org and GlobeforDarfur.org. The blogs are posted weekly and often campaign for the world to take action in Darfur or sum up that particular week's press on the Darfur region. With Internet access barely penetrating one-sixth of the world's population, GlobeforDarfur.org, in particular, stands as a prime example of human rights blogging sites that contradictorily call upon the world to take action. Blogging in eight different languages, the audience that GlobeforDarfur.org targets, is an imaginary worldwide audience. McChesney discusses the notion that ?dominant media firms increasingly view themselves as global entities? (2001). This concept can be applied to larger human rights blogging sites as well. By viewing themselves as ?global entities,? they are able blindly target imaginary Internet audiences. If blogging sites such as GlobeforDarfur.org were able to realize who their audience were, then they would be better equipped to target or persuade that particular audience in knowing who they were.

As noted above, GlobeforDarfur.org blogs in several different languages. For the most part, the blogs tend to be translated from one language to the next, but particular stories are catered to particular countries as well. For example, there may be a blog about President Bush's opinion on the matter of Darfur on the English blog, but then that same story may not appear on the French blog. ?Translators are permanently faced with the problem of how to treat the cultural aspects implicit in a source text and of finding the most appropriate technique of successfully conveying these aspects in the target language? (James 2005).

In applying globalization to this translation, Hardt and Negri discuss a theory of a global ?empire.? Empire under this context refers to a concept that is ?characterized by a lack of boundaries? (Hardt and Negri 2000). The manner in which the blogging sites are translated and cater particular articles to different blogs is at the very least, minimal evidence contradicting Hardt and Negri's theory. This lies in the fact that it has been deemed necessary to cater particular articles because of cultural differences. Whereas the concept of empire suggests more of a unified culture. Featherstone notes that ?the varieties of response to the globalization process clearly suggest that there is little prospect of a unified global culture, rather there are global cultures in the plural? (1990).

References:

Featherstone, M. (1990). Global culture: an introduction. In M. Featherstone (Ed.), Global culture: Nationalism, globalization, and modernity. London; Newbury Park : Sage. Electronic reserve: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/eresdocs/files2/h6045.pdf.

Hardt, Michael, and Negri, Antonio (2000). ?Preface? (pp.xi-xvii) and Part I (pp. 1-66), Empire. Cambridge, MA, and London, England: Harvard University Press. Online:
http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/~wiley/courses/447/hardtnegri2000.pdf.

James, Kate (2005). ?Cultural Implications for Translation.? Translation Theory. Retrieved June 8, 2007, from: http://www.proz.com/translation-articles/articles/256/1/-Cultural-Implications-for-translation.

Save Darfur (2007). ?Blog.? Retrieved May 25, 2007, from http://www.savedarfur.org/blog.

McChesney, Robert W. (2001). ?Global media, Neoliberalism, and Imperialism.? Monthly Review, 52. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from: http://www.monthlyreview.org/301rwm.htm.

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