Media & communications - openDemocracy (Page 130)

Surveillance blowback:  the making of the US surveillance state, 1898-2020

For well over a century, what might be called ‘surveillance blowback’ from America’s wars has ensured the creation of an ever more massive and omnipresent internal security and surveillance apparatus. Its future (though not ours) looks bright indeed.

By Alfred W. McCoy

/ 17 Jul 2013

Neoliberalism and the revenge of the “social”

Neoliberalism was launched as an attack on socialism, as a state-centric project; it is now being subtly reinvented, in ways that take account of the social nature of the individual.

By William Davies

/ 16 Jul 2013

How did Tamarrod topple the Muslim Brotherhood?

Tamarrod didn’t exclude any political faction from its mission, whether the armed forces, or National Democratic Party members “who weren’t convicted of any crimes”, as long as they shared the same end-goal.

By Ahmed Zidan

/ 15 Jul 2013

A global security initiative

Muslims using computers in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only ones to fall under the gaze of US surveillance. Since 9/11, American Muslims have been disproportionately targeted compared to right-wing Christian groups on the erroneous belief that their religion makes them more suscepti

By Nick Turse and Matthew Harwood

/ 13 Jul 2013

Restore the Fourth

The protests mark growing dissatisfaction with the policy of the Obama administration which appears to view the US Constitution as a mere suggestion, rather than as a fundamental contract between a people and the representatives chosen by those people.

By Mark Nelson

/ 12 Jul 2013

'Sorry for the inconvenience, we are changing the country': Brazil

In the last month, Brazil has joined the growing number of countries whose civil society has gone to the streets to start large demonstrations. Why did it happen? Who are the protesters? What do they want? What were the main reactions? These are some of the important questions.

By Leonardo Paz Neves

/ 10 Jul 2013

What is happening to civil society in a disunited Lebanon?

Most popular frustration is aimed at the nexus of corruption between political elites, party militias, and the legal system in Lebanon. A lack of confidence in the judicial system is attracting much activism online onto facebook pages and twitter.

By Helen Mackreath

/ 9 Jul 2013

Bulgaria’s belated struggle for democracy

Our protests cannot match theirs in scale. But we demand our share, however small it might be. It is ideas and determination that unite all these events.

By Borislav Gizdavkov

/ 9 Jul 2013

Don't feed the trolls? Cultivating civility online

A general truism about dealing with online trolls says never to give them the attention they crave. But the Internet isn't a murky realm us polite folks ignore, it's a constantly contested space. Let's use civility to slay the trolls.

By Sally Kohn

/ 8 Jul 2013

When we talk about the Internet, we are talking about the bone marrow of contemporary monopoly capitalism

In a wide-ranging interview, the author and media reform activist Robert W. McChesney discusses the political economy of the Internet, the crisis in contemporary journalism, and the struggle to create a media system equal to the needs of democracy.

By Robert W. McChesney and Dan Hind

/ 8 Jul 2013

Don't say 'I told you so'

Avoid the temptation to be smug about it: Snowden's leaks matter, and others will follow.

By Magnus Nome

/ 6 Jul 2013

The EU won’t stand up to the USA or protect our rights against ‘the eyes’

For all their purported shock and outrage, the inconvenient truth for many European leaders is that their own intelligence services are up to their necks in unregulated surveillance and/or cooperation with the global USA-UK spying infrastructure.

By Ben Hayes

/ 4 Jul 2013