Media & communications - openDemocracy (Page 153)

Where does the west stand on global freedom of expression?

US talk of global freedom of expression and an open internet sit uneasily with their sharp clampdown on Wikileaks. Can the west be honest with itself?

By Andy Yee

/ 14 Mar 2011

Bloggers are best at covering local cuts across the UK: so we're being banned

Bloggers are essential for covering the council cuts: we know the local scene, are immune to pressure from politicians, and are always on the ground. Is that why councils are attempting to ban us from filming, recording or tweeting in controversial meetings?

By Kate Belgrave

/ 11 Mar 2011

The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as if the Future Matters

Diane Coyle’s The Economics of Enough is an eerily calm introduction to the severity of our economic situation. While the facts outlined appear to justify an overhaul of our entire political economy, the book leaves us with disappointingly timid proposals for change.

By William Davies

/ 9 Mar 2011

A social democracy of the people? A review of Fight Back!

A review of Fight Back! A Reader on the Winter of Protest, published by OurKingdom on February 15 and free to download. Stuart White concludes that the Reader is

By Stuart White

/ 4 Mar 2011

NewsCorp BSkyB settlement says more about failures at Ofcom and BBC dominance than problems with Murdoch

The asymmetry of the UK's regulatory treatment of NewsCorp and the BBC needs examination. This paper was prepared for a media-law seminar at the LSE convened by Damian Tambini. A summary of the author's position can be read here.

By David Elstein

/ 4 Mar 2011

UK regulator's Sky News deal will weaken media plurality

Sky News is a respected, trusted and high quality news provider in a UK television market dominated by the BBC. The regulatory agreement by which NewsCorp can take full control of BSkyB as long as it effectively divests itself of Sky News jeopardises this valued news service. A detailed version of

By David Elstein

/ 4 Mar 2011

Wilson, Trotsky, Assange: lessons from the history of diplomatic transparency

Bentham and Kant were clear that diplomatic secrecy was bad. So were Wilson and Trotsky. And while Wikileaks may not be the ideal organisation to take diplomatic publicity to a new level, we should embrace its challenge.

By Daniele Archibugi and Marina Chiarugi

/ 28 Feb 2011

Literature's game changers: how the console moulds us and our fiction

The greatest novel has probably been written, while the greatest computer game is still almost certainly to come. Will the medium change us enough to turn itself into mainstream art, as the novel once did?

By James Warner

/ 28 Feb 2011

Camera in hand, idea in head: Notes from a video blogger

The first video blogger for the New Statesman reveals his project to create a full-length documentary of the anti-cuts movement. In a new world of cheap digi-cameras and easy upload, he highlights some of the best video platforms online, and offers his perspective on the changing nature of the doc

By Michael Chanan

/ 23 Feb 2011

WikiHunt and the (in)visible handshake

The second wave of anti-WikiLeaks measures has recruited the private sector in a manner that calls for an urgent re-think of constitutional safeguards for civil liberties

By Michael Birnack and Niva Elkin-Koren

/ 20 Feb 2011

In a world where education is a commodity, why not subcontract your PhD?

In trading off plagiarism, essay-writing companies undermine basic goods in education, beginning with critical, independent thinking. But in reducing students to consumers, they may also be giving them a crash course in the prevailing attitude to education.

By Samir Jeraj and Heather McRobie

/ 19 Feb 2011

Did the Internet matter in Tunisia and Egypt?

An audio interview in which Nabila Ramdani describes the role of the social networks in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions – to what extent are Morozov's and Gladwell's arguments proved wrong by events?

By Tony Curzon Price and Nabila Ramdani

/ 18 Feb 2011