Tag Archives: democratisation of the internet

Dec 6 2011

Twitter’s Biggest News Stories

We have spoken at length about the and the role of new media in helping create or facilitate the  ‘Arab Spring’ and most of us agree that whilst it did not cause the revolutions, it did help foster greater unity and organisation.

Interestingly, the most tweeted about event this year was the resignation of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and the fifth most tweeted event surrounded Gaddafi’s death. Therefore, it appears that these events reached a global threshold and perhaps, further still, these proves to some extent the importance of Twitter to such social change. Lastly, it indicates the changes that have taken place in the news media – citizen journalists can now dictate (in countries where there is no censorship) the stories they wish to cover.

Mar 2 2011

Wikileaks


 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/05/wikileaks-cables-al-jazeera-qatari-foreign-policy 

But don’t accept conjecture as reality says former Al-Jazeera journalist, Mark Seddon:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/06/al-jazeera-qatar-us-embassy

The article highlights the incredible pressure that media institutions are put under. That is why you always have to write about the influence of institutions upon media texts; they are not objective and unbiased, they hold certain ideolgies which often shaped by political pressure. The perspective of Marxism can easily be applied to these examples, governments (the powerful) appear to be trying to shape the flow of media information and thus are exercising a hegemony over the general public.

But don’t people have a right to privacy?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8169712/WikiLeaks-Do-they-have-a-right-to-privacy.html

The wikileaks scandal is hot news – the website is on the run, governments are placing huge pressures on ISPs to block the site. This is such a great example to use as it opens up the debate of censorship – the internet is clearly an incredible medium as it can transmit information so quickly, easily and to a global audience but should the internet have a free reign?. The site is clearly seen as a major threat but should it be outlawed? What ever happened to freedom of speech?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-embassy-cables-key-points

The site is now being hosted by a ‘pirate’ online company. Mastercard, Paypal and others have blocked donations to wikileaks. Strangely, the founder Julian Assange has been arrested on sex crime charges.

The timeline of Wikileaks under attack:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-under-attack-definitive-timeline