The BBC’s remit is not just broadcast. It has the power to improve our experiences online, and to realise the digital public sphere we want.

Amid saturation media coverage of the coming UK general election, corporate control of big news organisations goes unquestioned. Yet if the public could vote on that, they'd change it.

Britain's most vehement conservative newspaper, in the course of an assault on Ralph Miliband, father of the Labour Party leader, accused the Belgian-born academic of having "hated" the country he found refuge in and fought for. Martin Shaw offers both a personal and political take on the ensuing controversy. 

One of the only consistencies in Egypt, from the Mubarak era through to the SCAF period to Morsi’s rule to the tumultuous summer of 2013, has been encroachments on press freedom and attacks on journalists.  But there have been subtle shifts in how journalists have been targeted, and attacks are becoming more systematic.

The Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, doesn't like his online nickname “Dimon,” but whatever we think of Dimon’s playground problems how does one stand up to online bullies? And why are so many of them Russian?

Hot on the heels of a new law establishing a register of forbidden sites, Russian authorities are now promoting a system of 'virtual' borders and international supervision. Their proposal has so far failed to find significant support, but Russia will keep trying, says Irina Borogan

The imminent withdrawal of Radio Liberty from medium wave broadcasting has dented the image of American public democracy, which is perceived as kowtowing to the autocratic will of the Kremlin. The outcry has, predictably, been ferocious. Kristina Gorelik looks back at the Soviet and more recent past.

The WikiLeaks storm of 2010 seems to be spent. But as a symptom of what is happening to journalism the WikiLeaks phenomenon carries profound significance, says Charlie Beckett.

The tide of news swill from the US presidential race becomes weirder and more pervasive as falsehoods and media stunts are passed off as truth and gain a life of their own

The successful New York-set crime series Law & Order has generated numerous spin-offs, remakes and reworkings. A coincidental showing of the same episode in its US and UK versions offers David Elstein, a devotee of the original, the chance to make a scene-by-scene comparison. Such an analysis, he says, confirms the superior quality of Dick Wolf's show and suggests that this is symptomatic of a wide gap in the creative cultures of US and UK drama.

The worst disaster in Japan since the second world war hit the country's north-east coastal region on 11 March 2011. The combination of tsunami and nuclear crisis presented the media with great practical problems and ethical concerns. Wataru Sawamura, an experienced journalist with the leading newspaper the Asahi Shimbun, reflects on how he and his colleagues sought to fulfil their professional responsibilities as the tragedy unfolded.

Evgeny Morozov, an engaging thinker whom we have enjoyed publishing on openDemocracy, produced an intemperate review of a peer's book. Here, that peer responds in an exemplary way. An attempt to shut down conversation has, in the best sort of Streisand effect, back-fired and opened it up.

The public debate in Norway following the massacre of 22 July 2011 is taking shape. A key focus is the obsessional and hate-filled language that pervades and dominates online discussion, says Thomas Hylland Eriksen.

A voice of wry observation and quiet authority that made humane sense of distant events to a domestic public helped James Cameron become the most respected international journalist in post-1945 Britain. But is there room for his world-reporting craft in a very different media age, asks David Hayes.

The tools that help Arab democracy protesters also extend the reach of three United States corporations. The power of Facebook, Google, and Twitter represents an appropriation of the hacker-utopian ideals of the early internet, says Becky Hogge. The challenge to those who still uphold these ideals is to recover a true freedom path.

The Egyptian blogosphere has gained real influence in the political process

The eternal campus of the global middle class; the solution to the injunction to love ones fellow; a riskless replacement to reality. You could not have designed Facebook better to opiate 21st Century occidentals