The Internet and Politics: Citizens, Voters and Activists (2006)

Changes in the media landscape present new challenges for scholars interested in the relationship between the mass media and civil society. Notably, the explosion of the Internet in advanced industrial democracies and its more limited introduction in other types of regimes has provided new pathways for communication.

This volume explores the nature of the Internet’s impact on civil society, addressing the following central questions:
· Is the Internet qualitatively different from the more traditional forms of the media?
· Has the Internet demonstrated real potential to improve civil society through a wider provision of information, an enhancement of communication between government and citizen or via better state transparency?
· Alternatively, does the Internet pose a threat to the coherence of civil society as people are encouraged to abandon shared media experiences and pursue narrow interests?
· In authoritarian states, does the Internet function as a beacon for free speech or another tool for propaganda?

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the Internet and civil society.

Editors Sarah Oates, Diana Marie Owen, Rachel Kay Gibson
Publisher Routledge, 2006
ISBN 041534784X, 9780415347846
228 pages

Keywords and phrases
Countryside Alliance, mass media, Yabloko, NGOs, Pew Research Center, social capital, Hizbollah, Ukraine Without Kuchma, United Russia, Cumbria, However, Ukrainska Pravda, cyber-terrorism, civil society, Republican Sinn Fein, Ukrainian, GreenNet, Ulster Loyalist, Russian parties, 2004 presidential election

More info (publisher)
More info (google books)

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Database State – a comprehensive map of UK government databases (2009)

In recent years, the UK Government has built or extended many central databases that hold information on every aspect of our lives, from health and education to welfare, law–enforcement and tax. This ‘Transformational Government’ programme was supposed to make public services better or cheaper, but it has been repeatedly challenged by controversies over effectiveness, privacy, legality and cost.

Many question the consequences of giving increasing numbers of civil servants daily access to our personal information. Objections range from cost through efficiency to privacy. The emphasis on data capture, form-filling, mechanical assessment and profiling damages professional responsibility and alienates the citizen from the state. Over two-thirds of the population no longer trust the government with their personal data.

This report charts these databases, creating the most comprehensive map so far of what has become Britain’s Database State.

All of these systems had a rationale and purpose. But this report shows how, in too many cases, the public are neither served nor protected by the increasingly complex and intrusive holdings of personal information invading every aspect of our lives.

By Ross Anderson, Ian Brown, Terri Dowty, Philip Inglesant, William Heath, Angela Sasse (March 2009)
Published by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd., York, UK

More info (Guardian)

Direct download:
Database State – full report (PDF, 879KB)
Database State – Executive Summary (PDF, 260KB)

Jodi Dean, Jon W. Anderson, Geert Lovink (eds.): Reformatting Politics: Information Technology and Global Civil Society (2006)

“Reformatting Politics examines the ways in which new information and communication technologies (ICTs) are being used by civil society organizations (CSOs) to achieve their aims through activities and networks that cross national borders. These new ICTs–the internet, mobile phones, satellite radio and television–have allowed these civil society organizations to form extensive networks linking the local and the global in new ways and to flourish internationally in ways that were not possible without them.

The book consists of four sections containing essays by some of the top scholars and activists working at the intersections of networked societies, civil society organizations, and information technology. The book also includes a section that takes a critical look at the UN World Summit of Information Society and the role that global governance has played and will play in the use and dissemination of these new technologies. Finally, the book aims to influence this important and emerging field of inquiry by posing a set of questions and directions for future research. In sum, Reformatting Politics is a fresh look at the way critical network practice through the use of information technology is reformatting the terms and terrains of global politics.”

Publisher CRC Press, 2006
ISBN 0415952980, 9780415952989
237 pages

Key terms: ICANN, weblogs, Islamic fundamentalism, mobile phone, Suharto, MacBride Report, Internet governance, WSIS, Indymedia, CSOs, neoliberal, NWICO, power law, Taliban, Information Society, open publishing, ICTs, BitTorrent, Laskar Jihad, microfinance

Review: Athina Karatzogianni.

PDF (updated on 2018-10-24)