It’s that time of year again. DW is looking for your suggestions for the eighth annual Deutsche Welle International Blog Awards – better known as the BOBs. Like last year, we’re accepting your favorite sites in 11 languages: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesia, Persian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. This year our jury of media experts, activists and bloggers will meet up in Berlin in May to debate and decide who takes home top honors in the BOBs.

This year our “Special Topic Award” puts the spotlight on culture and education. This is also the focus of the 2012 Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn. While we will certainly continue to commend the bloggers taking a stand for freedom of expression, we’ll also be playing special attention to projects and initiatives that look at the right to education and promote intercultural dialogue.

We have already received more than 1,000 suggestions. If you know of a blog that is worthy of a BOB, you better hurry up – we are only accepting suggestions until March 13!

Timeline

Until March 13: Suggest the blogs, websites and projects that impress you.

April 2 to May 2: Look over the nominees and in each category and vote for the ones you think represent the best of the best.

May 2: Sit back and find out who won as we announce the winners.

June 26: Come to Bonn, Germany, and meet the Jury Award winners at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum.

DW Akademie believes more should be done for local journalists and that thorough research needs to be recognized. With Investiga DW is introducing a journalism prize in Latin America that should highlight these issues and the journalists that work to ensure them. The competition is open to television, radio and online journalists and the deadline for submissions is April 30, 2012.

The focus will be on reports with a social and political weight – topics that Colombian journalists are sometimes hesitant to tackle. “We’re hoping for a courageous type of local journalism, one that shapes public opinion without being patronizing. This is incredibly important in Latin American countries where media systems are usually centralized,” says Petra Berner from DW Akademie.

DW Akademie will award the winner a ten-day trip to Germany. This will include participation in the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum and discussions with DW staff in Bonn and Berlin. The runner-up will receive a multimedia equipment set, funded by the Universidad del Norte.

In Spanish, “investigar” means to investigate, to research. “We want to motivate local journalists to dig deeper. We’re looking for stories that haven’t been told,” says DW Akademie Director Gerda Meuer.

An interesting look at the process behind all of the monumental changes at DW.

DW has completed its rebranding process with a new online presence that offers more information, a clear structure and fresh design. The new website will retain the multilingual, multimedia content that DW has been known for, but will have a look and feel based on Germany’s international broadcaster’s new corporate identity. The website also has a new Internet address: www.dw.com.

Users will be able to get their bearings quickly at dw.de due to its intuitive navigation and design. Content is developed and organized exactly to the users’ expectations – from the homepage to the last article. Visually, dw.de resembles a high-quality magazine with clearly defined structure and topical focus. And the large-scale layout provides more room for images and videos and makes it easier for the user to sift through the day’s news.

The new design is also based on a new technical infrastructure. The website will automatically readjust to match the device that is being used – regardless of it is a desktop computer, a tablet or a smart phone. Access for all of these devices is available today: The media player has been converted to HTML5 – a real bonus for people watching videos on mobile devices.