Dan Hancox (ed.): Fight Back! A Reader on the Winter of Protest (2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · activism, democracy, education, internet, politics, protest, resistance, social movements, united kingdom
The first book to be produced by an ‘editorial kettle’ – all seven of its editors are under 30 and have been kettled by the police during 2010 winter protests in United Kingdom. Fight Back! features 350 pages of reports, analysis, images, reflections and overviews on the UK’s winter of protests by 43 authors. It asks: Is this the start of a successful movement against fees and cuts? From a 15-year-old UK Uncut flash-mob activist to a rebel Lib Dem peer – Fight Back! captures both the spirit and arguments of Britain’s winter revolt, bringing together the best reportage and analysis of an extraordinary political moment.
Editorial Kettle: Guy Aitchison, Siraj Datoo, Cailean Gallagher, Laurie Penny, Aaron Peters and Paul Sagar
Published by openDemocracy via OurKingdom, London, February/March 2011
ISBN 978 0 955677 502
340 pages
Licensed under Creative Commons
editor
publisher and more on the protests
Evgeny Morozov: The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · activism, democracy, internet, internet activism, media activism, revolution, technology, twitter, web 2.0
The internet will set us free—or will it? In this spirited critique of “internet freedom,” blogger and commentator Evgeny Morozov shows how social media and web 2.0 do not always foster civic engagement and democratic reform. In fact, the net can make authoritarian governments even more powerful and repressive.
“The revolution will be Twittered!” declared journalist Andrew Sullivan after protests erupted in Iran in June 2009. Yet for all the talk about the democratizing power of the Internet, regimes in Iran and China are as stable and repressive as ever. In fact, authoritarian governments are effectively using the Internet to suppress free speech, hone their surveillance techniques, disseminate cutting-edge propaganda, and pacify their populations with digital entertainment. Could the recent Western obsession with promoting democracy by digital means backfire?
In this spirited book, journalist and social commentator Evgeny Morozov shows that by falling for the supposedly democratizing nature of the Internet, Western do-gooders may have missed how it also entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder—not easier—to promote democracy. Buzzwords like “21st-century statecraft” sound good in PowerPoint presentations, but the reality is that “digital diplomacy” requires just as much oversight and consideration as any other kind of diplomacy.
Marshaling compelling evidence, Morozov shows why we must stop thinking of the Internet and social media as inherently liberating and why ambitious and seemingly noble initiatives like the promotion of “Internet freedom” might have disastrous implications for the future of democracy as a whole.
Publisher PublicAffairs, 2011
ISBN 1586488740, 9781586488741
432 pages
commentary (Cory Doctorow, The Guardian)
PDF (PDF; updated 2012-7-15)
PDF (EPUB; updated 2012-7-15)
Megan Boler (ed.): Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times (2008)
Filed under book | Tags: · activism, alternative media, democracy, internet, journalism, mass media, media activism, politics, tactical media, technology, youtube
In an age of proliferating media and news sources, who has the power to define reality? When the dominant media declared the existence of WMDs in Iraq, did that make it a fact? Today, the “social web” (sometimes known as Web 2.0, groupware, or the participatory Web)—epitomized by blogs, viral videos, and YouTube—creates new pathways for truths to emerge and makes possible new tactics for media activism. In Digital Media and Democracy, leading scholars in media and communication studies, media activists, journalists, and artists explore the contradiction at the heart of the relationship between truth and power today: the fact that the radical democratization of knowledge and multiplication of sources and voices made possible by digital media coexists with the blatant falsification of information by political and corporate powers.
The book maps a new digital media landscape that features citizen journalism, The Daily Show, blogging, and alternative media. The contributors discuss broad questions of media and politics, offer nuanced analyses of change in journalism, and undertake detailed examinations of the use of Web-based media in shaping political and social movements. The chapters include not only essays by noted media scholars but also interviews with such journalists and media activists as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Media Matters host Robert McChesney, and Hassan Ibrahim of Al Jazeera.
Publisher MIT Press, 2008
ISBN 0262026422, 9780262026420
464 pages
PDF (updated on 2014-8-29)
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