In Ethiopia [where the independent media is banned except that it is not officially declared], they outpaced the international media with detailed, often dramatic coverage of the recent trial of 100 opposition supporters and journalists.

Here in Kenya, they debate news, politics, music and local gossip with equal gusto.

Africa’s bloggers are coming of age, thanks to fastexpanding Internet access and a growing awareness of the power of the medium, creating a public space in countries where traditional media still face repression.

MORE LOCAL SITES

Until recently, the African blogosphere had a foreign tilt, with the vast majority of websites manned by Africans living overseas or by missionaries, Peace Corps volunteers and other foreigners passing through the continent.

”There’s still a strong expatriate influence. But over time we’re seeing more people in these countries working with blogs,” said Ethan Zuckerman, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and an expert on technology in the developing world.

Internet access is expanding faster across Africa than anywhere else in the world, albeit from a very low base. There are 33.4 million Web users on the continent now, a sixfold increase from 2000, according to Internet worldstats.com, a website that tracks Internet usage.

Still, that represents only 3.6 percent of Africa’s population — by contrast, 70 percent of Americans have Web access — so blogging mostly comes from the urban, college-educated middle class. As a result, many sites focus on current events, with writers voicing frustration at the corruption and bad government plaguing African nations.

The center of the trend is Kenya, which enjoys one of the continent’s most open societies. Although the government periodically cracks down on news media, voters have dealt blows to incumbents in the past two nationwide elections — defeating longtime President Daniel Arap Moi’s handpicked successor in 2002 and rejecting current President Mwai Kibaki’s draft constitution in 2005.

”The powers that be have lost the last two elections. Subconsciously, this makes people think that we all count, that my voice counts,” said Daudi Were, a 28-year-old who blogs as Mental Acrobatics and who cofounded the Kenyan Blogs Webring.

Established in 2004 with 10 member sites, the group now includes more than 430 blogs about Kenya. Were describes it as a democratic space, with about half the blogs written from in Kenya and half written by women.

AIR CRASH DEBATE

When Kenya Airways Flight 507 crashed mysteriously in a jungle in southern Cameroon last month, killing all 114 people aboard, some of the most thoughtful reactions came in Kenyan blogs.

”I don’t know if I’d want to fly Kenya Airways again,” wrote Kenyanentrepre neur.com, a blog about business. “I’m sorry . . . this is the second fatal accident in less than 10 years.”

On his site, Were countered that Kenya Airways’ safety record was good. ”The plane involved in the incident today was a brand-new Boeing 737-800” that had been in service for only six months, he wrote. “No ramshackle plane this.”

Thinker’s Room rebuked Western media outlets for playing up the handful of European casualties. ‘They were energetic enough to say five Brits, one Swiss and one Swede, but could not be bothered to break down the African casulaties, settling for `The remainder were Africans,’ ” he wrote. “Are we second-class human beings?”