Media & communications - openDemocracy (Page 122)

The wild west of surveillance

Here we have an anatomy of a surveillance world that grows more, not less, powerful and full of itself with every passing moment and technological advance, a national security world whose global ambitions know no bounds.

By Tom Engelhardt and Pratap Chatterjee

/ 6 Feb 2014

Egyptian editors organise to confront media crisis

The military-backed government has sought to enrol journalists as foot-soldiers in its battle against the ousted Muslim Brotherhood. But when editors met this week in Cairo, a collective spirit stirred.

By Aidan White

/ 5 Feb 2014

Over by Christmas – the non-debate that is BBC Charter renewal

Who is talking about BBC Charter renewal? Relatively few people. And it’s not too soon to start.

By Lis Howell

/ 4 Feb 2014

We need to talk about the UK media war on women

While Dylan Farrow's child abuse allegations against Woody Allen hold the headlines, it is time for journalists to realise that sexual violence is not about evil individuals, Asian grooming gangs, or 1970s BBC culture.

By Sarah Graham

/ 4 Feb 2014

Silence = death: Sarah Schulman on ACT UP, the forgotten resistance to the AIDS crisis

When the AIDS activist movement ACT UP was formed in New York in 1987, 50 per cent of Americans wanted people with AIDS quarantined, while 15 per cent favoured tattoos. An interview with Sarah Schulman on her film United In Anger: A History of ACT UP.

By Ray Filar

/ 30 Jan 2014

UAE's political show trials

The latest trial saw 20 Egyptians and 10 Emiratis found guilty in a process marred by a litany of human rights and fair trial violations.The widening influence of security services, which act with complete impunity, causes grave concern for the safety of those brave enough to challenge repressive

By Rori Donaghy

/ 29 Jan 2014

Selling dictatorship

Liberal opinion has been outraged by the disclosures about US and UK electronic surveillance. Yet the most unpalatable revelation is that, in an unregulated capitalist economy, liberal democracy is always threatened with authoritarian regression.

By Rod Jones

/ 23 Jan 2014

Participation Now: patterns, possibilities, politics

At one end of this spectrum we have started to place initiatives that offer to rationalise public engagement and make the participatory self-organisation of publics more efficient. At the other end, initiatives seem more focused on enriching processes of engagement and participation.

By Nick Mahony and Hilde C. Stephansen

/ 23 Jan 2014

The golden age of journalism?

It took the arrival of the twenty-first century to turn the journalistic world of the 1950s upside down and point it toward the trash heap of history. So when was the golden age?

By Tom Engelhardt

/ 22 Jan 2014

China vs Facebook: intimate rivals

The Chinese state and the United States company are engaged in an epic if undeclared contest over control and wealth-creation, says Kerry Brown.

By Kerry Brown

/ 21 Jan 2014

Surveillance and scandal: time-tested weapons for US global power

The US president’s recent NSA speech makes it clear that genuine “change” or “reform” isn't on the agenda, that little that matters will alter in the NSA’s methodology, and that nothing will be allowed to shake the system itself. Why not give an inch?

By Alfred McCoy

/ 20 Jan 2014

Violence against women in Syria: a hidden truth

Despite saturated media coverage of the conflict, violence against women in Syria has largely gone unreported. Often horrifically abused, they have been doubly victimised by the public silence.

By Hayet Zeghiche

/ 20 Jan 2014