Hi everyone, Morozow is provocative but too pessimistic. Roger Cohen's "Revolutionary Arab Geeks" had a nice rebuttal/assessment of his arguments ( http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/opinion/28iht-edcohen28.html?partner=rssny...). While western mainstream media may be hyping up the role of social media, I do think that social media are playing a role in channeling decades of pent up frustrations with autocratic regimes into the street. Why haven't been any mass uprisings in the region before this decade? What is intriguing is that political parties' role in these protests is virtually non-existent. Foreign influence? The Bush administration's ill-fated democracy promotion campaign failed to bring any tangible democratic change. Keeping in mind that the largest majority of these protesters are young people (at least at the beginning of the protests), a generation of "digital natives," the connection between online media and offline movements needs to be taken into account. At the very least, social media appear to facilitate a social contagion, from Tunisia to Egypt, facilitating something similar to Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point." It is always tricky and difficult to cogently theorize the connection between the two (online protests and how offline movements lead to social change. Theoretical difficulties don't mean the absence of rational/real connections. Cheers, Aziz On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 12:45 PM, <elhamucla@hotmail.com> wrote:
I am reading his book, net delusion. He is on the end of the spectrum: true that autocratic states use internet to suppress dissidents, but that's not the whole picture. Too pessimistic.
Best, Elham gheytanchi
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-----Original Message----- From: Mathieu ONeil <mathieu.oneil@anu.edu.au> Sender: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:06:10 To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Subject: Re: [Air-L] ISOC Statement on Egypt’s Internet shu tdown
Um, since no-one else brought him up: this guy E. Morozow sees what he calls the "Internet Freedom Agenda" as a kind of failed tool of the US government so in that sense the Western mass media would just be acting as the cheerleader. cheers Mathieu
ps. See for example: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/freedomgov?page=full And earlier:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/26/think_again_the_internet?pa...
----- Original Message ----- From: joana ro <joanaro@googlemail.com> Date: Monday, January 31, 2011 5:44 pm Subject: Re: [Air-L] ISOC Statement on Egypt’s Internet shutdown To: "Edward M. Corrado" <ecorrado@ecorrado.us> Cc: air-l@listserv.aoir.org
I wonder why Western media have overemphaiszed SM's role. What good does that do them?
Does it simply make the story more accessible for its viewers, give us something in common? Obviously, it also fits nicely into a story of emancipation through media/technology - which would be favorable for other media.
Or is this a subtle way of suggesting that the West and its emancipatorytechnologies are somehow responsible for what is happening? Best, Johanna
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-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aziz Douai, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Faculty of Social Science and Humanities University of Ontario Institute of Technology 55 Bond Street East Oshawa, ON L1G 0A5 Tel: 905.721.8668 <tel:+19057218668>, ext. 3790 Fax: 905.721.3372 <tel:+19057213372> E-mail: aziz.douai@uoit.ca -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both." James Madison, 1822 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------