Grassroots Democratization or Increased Government Control?
Is new media, in and of itself, a positive force in contemporary states and societies? Or, will states, corporations, and other elite actors prove just as adept at controlling and monopolizing these new forms of expression?
Reading examples:
- Woodier, Jonathan. “Introduction: Disruptive Technologies–Change, Conflict, and Breakdown.” The Media and Political Change in Southeast Asia: Karaoke Culture and the Evolution of Personality Politics. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008. 1-26.
- Livingston, Steven, and W. Lance Bennett. 2003. Gatekeeping, Indexing, and Live-Event News: Is Technology Altering the Construction of News? Political Communication 20.4: 363–380. UBC library [link]
- McCargo, Duncan. 2003. Media in Times of Crisis: Media and Democratic Transitions in Southeast Asia. In Media and Politics in Pacific Asia, 19-49. Routledge. UBC library [link]
- Kellner, Douglas M., and Richard Kahn. 2006. Oppositional Politics and the Internet: A Critical / Reconstructive Approach. In Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, ed. Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner, 703-725. Revised. Wiley-Blackwell.
- Shirky, Clay. 2011. The Political Power of Social Media. Foreign Affairs. Online [link]
- Hindman, Matthew Scott. 2009. The Internet and the “Democratization” of Politics. In The Myth of Digital Democracy, 1-19. Princeton University Press. Online [link]
- Myriam Dunn, Sai Felicia Krishna-Hensel & Victor Mauer, eds. 2007. The Resurgence of the State: Trends and Processes in Cyberspace Governance. Ashgate Publishing.
- Rikke Frank Jrgensen, ed. 2006. Human Rights in the Global Information Society. MIT Press.
Case examples and media coverage:
- Egyptian anti-government protests, winter 2011. The Lede updates on the protests, Geek System, and others.
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