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.
The multi-billion dollar industry of Public Relations (PR) is divided between those who use it for genuine democratic exchange, and those who use it for commercial propaganda. There are precious few promoters of the former and far too many pushing the latter.
The first full-time executive director of the Open Rights Group (and one-time openDemocracy technology director) describes the clash of cultures she experienced as a citizen activist trying to influence digital policy. Expect centralising managerialism to continue to have all the wrong instincts o
While the left presume they are the internationalists, it is the far right who have mastered network politics, by scaling seamlessly from the local to the national to the civilisational
The London Metropolitan Police have withdrawn an appeal to the public to 'report anarchists'. This incident is part of a state offensive against anarchism, driven by the fear that anarchist ideas are gaining ground amongst the younger generation in the UK
The role of the writer in politics is to speak truth to power. But the relationship of politicians to the truth has shifted over the last generation, due in part to the perceived power of the media. So how do the writers who would be speakers of the truth respond?
There are two new models of crisis: the 'Wikileaks Moment' and the 'Napster Moment'. They involve the technological freeing up of information, and the consequent delegitimisation of the elites who have controlled that information. The News of the World scandal relates to both
A rare and candid interview conducted with Topiary, founding member of LulzSec and self-described ‘captain of the Lulz Boat’ – on becoming involved in hacktivism, fighting extortion claims, donating to Wikileaks, revolution, and the US government
The News of the World scandal has changed our perception of the term 'hacker'. But the technique of hacking is opening up a new future for online news and newsgathering that is in the public interest and is becoming increasingly vital for holding power to account
The Arab Spring is frequently portrayed as a series of uprisings against oppressive regimes. A more historically-oriented reading would see it as a rejection by young Arabs (the more than 185-million under the age of 30 years) of the socio-political heritage they inherited from the previous genera
The threat of cyber-attack is driving states and corporations to devote ever-greater resources to meet the challenge. The accompanying debate about the scale of the risk has profound implications for the future of the internet, says Ben Schiller.
