Media & communications - openDemocracy (Page 144)

Reflections on Britain's student movement

This exchange revisits the student movement that erupted in Britain over the winter of 2010-2011. It produced a new cohort of young activists, fueling the anti-cuts movements and Occupy. But to what extent was the movement middle-class, a-historical, and shaped by neoliberalism?

By Guy Aitchison and Jeremy Gilbert

/ 2 Mar 2012

Moscow on the eve of the presidential election

Rustem Adagamov, writing under the name Drugoi, is Russia’s most popular political blogger. At one time a fan of President Medvedev, who appeared to embrace the Russian internet and its young, dynamic class of active users, Adagamov was brought into the Kremlin fold and given access to cover impor

By Rustem Adagamov

/ 1 Mar 2012

Project_ID: Who’s bugging the Russian opposition?

The 2011-12 election cycle has seen the full catalogue of dirty surveillance tricks return to Russian politics, from covert video recording to phone hacking of opposition leaders. Most have pointed the finger of suspicion directly at the door of the FSB. In reality, any one of a number of agencies

By Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov

/ 24 Feb 2012

'An excess of democracy'

Occupy and the direct action movements of today have much in common with the radical movements of the 1960s/70s. Can the new generation move beyond the successes and failures of the past, to develop an alternative political economy?

By Hilary Wainwright

/ 24 Feb 2012

Regeneration: the launch of a new collection on intergenerational justice

A new collection of essays on intergenerational justice was launched in London with an open debate. Is the generational prism useful, and what are the distinctive challenges for the young?

By Niki Seth-Smith

/ 24 Feb 2012

Subterranean politics and the European debate

Subterranean European politics draws on a new meaning of Europe already visible in cross-border citizens’ mobilisations, civil society networks, trade union struggles; it has now to shape Europe’s politics and policy-making.

By Rosemary Bechler

/ 23 Feb 2012

Netwar 2.0: the convergence of streets and networks

To the extent to which we are not witnessing a clash between two capitalisms but a process of reconfiguration realized through the hegemony of finance, information and circulation, the only way to change the current situation is through the autonomous organization of the multitude’s living labour

By Giorgio Griziotti, Tiziana Terranova and Dario Lovaglio

/ 23 Feb 2012

Cinema, citizenship and the promise of the internet: a personal view from the Third World

Piracy is typically portrayed as the vice of only those who wish to steal media for the sake of self-indulgent entertainment. But 'file sharing' is also, for some, the only means of gaining access to educational material or information censored by oppressive governments, let alone revolutionary in

By Salik Shah

/ 21 Feb 2012

Law & Order, take two

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

By David Elstein

/ 21 Feb 2012

Janusz Palikot’s ‘Cannabis Stunt’ Overshadowed a More Complex Debate about Drug Policy Reform in Poland

Palikot’s symbolic gesture played into the hands of a media that is eager to demonize the decriminalization campaign. The symbol however overshadowed a more complex debate around the decriminalization of cannabis and other illicit drugs in Poland.

By Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch

/ 13 Feb 2012

Japan, the earthquake and the media

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 new

By Wataru Sawamura

/ 11 Feb 2012

Localism and the web: a new era for England's democracy?

Local English democracy may look endangered, but new technologies are revolutionising the way we perceive our communities and take collective decisions.

By Gavin Barker

/ 10 Feb 2012