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"Although much prized in daily conversation, good listening has been almost completely ignored in that form of political conversation we know as democracy. Practically all the attention has been paid to speaking, both in terms of the skills to be developed and the ways in which we should understand what enhancing 'inclusion' might mean (i.e. getting more people to speak). The argument here is that both democratic theory and democratic practice would be reinvigorated by attention to listening. To ask why listening has been ignored is to inquire into the very nature of politics, and to suggest a range of ways in which listening could both improve political processes (particularly democratic ones) and enhance our understanding of them - including where they do not always work as well as we might want them to. Four ways in which good listening can help achieve democratic objectives are outlined: enhancing legitimacy, helping to deal with deep disagreements, improving understanding and increasing empowerment. This leads to a discussion of the difference between good and bad political listening, before the question of 'political noise' is broached (i.e. what we should be listening for). Finally, the listening lacuna in Habermas' theory of communicative rationality is pointed out, leading to a discussion of the potential analytic power of listening in relation to deliberative democracy in general and one citizens' jury case in particular."

"The past three decades have seen the resurgence of China's civil society through the blossoming of NGOs that campaign for various marginalised interests, including environmental protection. Many studies have examined the co-evolution of the Internet and China's civil society. This paper examines the role of the Internet in strengthening grassroots environmental activism, taking into consideration the corporatised character of Chinese NGOs. Through a detailed ethnographic case study of a leading grassroots environmental group, the Global Village of Beijing (GVB), I argue that Internet technologies effectively empower resource-poor activists in their self-representation, information brokering, network building, public mobilisation and construction of discourse communities. The Net therefore contributes to the nascent formation of a green public sphere in China by fostering a discourse that counterbalances rapid economic development. Also discussed here are issues that hamper this process, including resource limitations, the fragmentation of online discourse communities, and the marginalisation and "caging" of environmental discourse."

"This article examines the role of the new media in the 'Arab Spring' in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It argues that although the new media is one of the factors in the social revolution among others such as social and political factors in the region, it nevertheless played a critical role especially in light of the absence of an open media and a civil society. The significance of the globalization of the new media is highlighted as it presents an interesting case of horizontal connectivity in social mobilization as well signaling a new trend in the intersection of new media and conventional media such as television, radio, and mobile phone. One of the contradictions of the present phase of globalization is that the state in many contexts facilitated the promotion of new media due to economic compulsion, inadvertently facing the social and political consequences of the new media."

The Internet, mobile phones, and other forms of "liberation technology" enable citizens to express opinions, mobilize protests, and expand the horizons of freedom. Autocratic governments are also learning to master these technologies, however. Ultimately,

On Zuckerberg and power "It's as if the president of a university "Save Darfur" club was appointed the UN envoy to the region." Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at Georgetown University. His book about the internet and democracy will be published in November.

Rather than seeing technologies in oppositional terms, as either "empty" vessels to be filled by human intent, or powerful forces imbued with some kind of agency that no one can withstand, technologies are complex and continuously evolving manifestations

The Kremlin is embracing the Internet, heralding online participation as 'direct democracy.' This might seem like a progressive step for Russia. In reality, it's just a smokescreen - the guise of free society without real political process or representati

This paper discusses the work of Noam Chomsky in the context of democracy, the media, and education. Through the analysis of selected works, a critical perspective emerges. This view demands that educators at all levels understand and confront the often d

This article aims to contribute to a critical research agenda for investigating the democratic implications of citizen journalism and social news. The article calls for a broad conception of 'citizen journalism' which is (1) not an exclusively online phen

Chile is a classic example of the concentration of media ownership in too few hands, says Chilean journalist María Olivia Mönckeberg in her latest book "Los magnates de la prensa" (The Press Magnates). If the state does not exercise stricter regulation, d

The progress of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in post-Socialist countries is characterized by uneven economic and technological development, thus leading to contradictory results. Both industry and the social/cultural policies of these

This article describes the key features of eBay's user interface and argues that particularly in digital contexts, top-down (i.e. corporate, quasi-governmental, administrative) entities can very effectively enhance their abilities to rationalize and contr

The article offers new insights for democracy and for news producers by mapping the use and users of today's cross-media news landscape, as the everyday consumption of news across the range of available news media and formats is shifting reflecting transf

The concepts news flow, global journalism/news and media regime are under theoretical construction. News media content is becoming increasingly deterritorialized, involving complex relations and flows across national borders and continents. Consequently,

In spite of positive developments in terms of human rights, the rule of law and democratisation in Central Asia following the adoption of the European Union (EU) Strategy in June 2007, the state of the mass media continues to deteriorate in all five count

A pesar del compromiso de la UE con Asia Central fruto de la adopción de la Estrategia de la Unión Europea en junio 2007, la situación de los medios de comunicación sigue deteriorándose en los cinco países de la región. El diálogo sobre derechos humanos i

Broad and diverse civic participation is essential to a democratic society. Studies of opinion leadership show that politically active citizens report that Internet information and communication helped increase civic involvement by enabling them to keep u

This article argues that media in China today enjoys greater leeway for independent expression than popularly perceived outside that country, and analyzes vectors responsible for this transformation. It discusses Western and Chinese media models and deconstructs the view that while the West provides for free press, media in China provides no room for independent, anti-hegemonic thought streams. It establishes that while both media are subject to similar pressures and identify with a near similar set of social and ethical responsibilities which shape their discourse, the manner in which the two construct discourses are different, and, this manifest difference, rooted in dissimilar cultural, historical and audience realities has resulted in misconceptions regarding Chinese media. To reinforce this argument, the article analyzes articles from the Shanghai Daily, and demonstrates how, much like its Western counterparts, it too represents different sides of the debate even on issues sensitive to the state such as democracy and Tibet, albeit in a uniquely Chinese way. The article examines vectors responsible for transformation of Chinese media in the post liberalization phase, especially the Internet, and the concomitant changes they have brought in media practice. The article emphasizes the need to culturally contextualize media analyses.

This study examines the role of the media in sustaining regime stability in an authoritarian context. The article engages the recent work on authoritarian resilience in comparative politics but goes beyond the standard focus on elections to other important institutions, such as the media and courts, that are used by authoritarian leaders to bolster legitimacy. The authors find that the Chinese media contribute to regime legitimacy and effective rule by propagandizing citizens' experiences in the legal system. However, unlike the "mouthpieces" of earlier communist regimes, the marketized Chinese media provide more convincing and sophisticated messages that continue to accord with state censorship demands while satisfying readers' interest in real-life stories and problems. The "positive propaganda" and the relative uniformity of information sources because of state censorship lead aggrieved citizens to the law as a realm for dispute resolution and rights protection. Statistical analysis of a randomly sampled survey conducted in four Chinese cities in 2005 demonstrates that exposure to media reporting about labor-law-related issues successfully promotes the image of a proworker bias in the law among citizens, thus encouraging them to participate in the legal system. The state is able to achieve its political goal because of the lack of conflicting sources of information and the lack of previous experience with the reformed legal system among citizens.

Activists use emotional language and images - what Greenpeace co-founder Bob Hunter coined 'mindbombs' - to convince people that some actions are wrong, morally and environmentally. For instance, for over 50 years anti-sealing activists have employed mindbombs to transform seal pups into babies and seal hunters into barbarians. Although 'image politics' contributed to the decline of the Canadian sealing industry in the 1980s, its effectiveness has been - and continues to be - rocky, particularly as pro-sealing voices counter with competing claims of cultural rights, traditional livelihoods and sustainable use. Drawing on Tilly and Tarrow's 'cycles of contention' framework, this article argues that controlling and predicting the global uptake of messaging is becoming harder as activists operate in an increasingly crowded discursive landscape, as campaigners and counter-campaigners articulate scientific and moral frames that resonate differently across changing social and cultural contexts, and in light of globalising markets, transnational networks and changing media.