Media & communications - openDemocracy (Page 123)

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

Moral panic in India

Transitions and disruptions are changing relations between generations, between genders, between classes and between religious groups. It is not just a simple conflict between tradition and modernity that sparks occasional violence. India has become an excellent laboratory for studying change.

By L.K. Sharma

/ 20 Jan 2014

Next-generation extremism: next-generation responsibility

Gaming companies occupy a much stronger position to create effective and legitimate counter-narratives than governments.

By Neil Miller

/ 17 Jan 2014

Local surveillance since 2001

The almost exclusive focus on the NSA obscures the degree to which surveillance has become integrated into almost every level of government. For most of us, the first point of contact with the surveillance state isn’t the NSA – it’s the local police department.

By Martin Eiermann

/ 11 Jan 2014

The Dutch media monopoly kills journalism in the Netherlands: internet doesn’t help

Politics has marginalized the people with the crucial support of the media.

By Tabe Bergman

/ 9 Jan 2014

Machismo on the move

The shifting experience of masculinity is connected to the rise of populist politics in Finland.

By Johanna Korhonen

/ 7 Jan 2014

An artist’s duty: an interview with Ai Weiwei

Still denied his passport after nearly three years, Ai Weiwei exists in a strange purgatory. In this exclusive openDemocracy interview, the dissident Chinese artist speaks truth to power, as China’s exploitative processes of development demand great responsibility from the nation’s intellectual an

By En Liang Khong and Ai Weiwei

/ 6 Jan 2014

Volatile, stable and extractive participation

At a conference on the theme of ‘Participatory Cultural Citizenship’ in Aarhus, Denmark last November, Participation Now asked keynote speaker Chris Kelty about questions posed by his current research project: Who gets to decide what participation should be like? Who should be deciding? How might

By Nick Mahony, Hilde C. Stephansen and Chris Kelty

/ 6 Jan 2014

When is citizen participation transformative?

When is participation empowering and transformative? What is the relationship between ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ modes of participation? At a conference on the theme of ‘Participatory Cultural Citizenship’ in Aarhus, last November, keynote speaker Leah Lievrouw shared her thoughts on this with Par

By Nick Mahony, Hilde C. Stephansen and Leah A. Lievrouw

/ 6 Jan 2014

Three things learned from the Snowden files

The line they crossed separates the possibly legitimate, though dirty and distasteful tactics of spies from the impossible-to-justify, “let’s hope it never becomes public” stratagems of an out-of-control surveillance establishment.

By Jay Rosen

/ 30 Dec 2013

From utopia to dystopia: technology, society and what we can do about it

The superficial post-war dream that technology would solve the world’s social problems has transformed into a nightmare of electronically enabled global surveillance and suppression. Yet with consumer-oriented industries replacing the military as the main driver of innovation, citizens are acquiri

By Alejandro Garcia de la Garza

/ 20 Dec 2013