Group items tagged

New media conducive to fostering participation can indeed increase the freedoms Clinton outlined, just as the printing press, the postal service, the telegraph, and the telephone did before.

Despite this basic truth -- that communicative freedom is good for political freedom -- the instrumental mode of Internet statecraft is still problematic.

THE THEATER OF COLLAPSE

Opinions are first transmitted by the media, and then they get echoed by friends, family members, and colleagues. It is in this second, social step that political opinions are formed. This is the step in which the Internet in general, and social media in particular, can make a difference. As with the printing press, the Internet spreads not just media consumption but media production as well -- it allows people to privately and publicly articulate and debate a welter of conflicting views.

This condition of shared awareness -- which is increasingly evident in all modern states -- creates what is commonly called "the dictator's dilemma" but that might more accurately be described by the phrase coined by the media theorist Briggs: "the conservative dilemma," so named because it applies not only to autocrats but also to democratic governments and to religious and business leaders. The dilemma is created by new media that increase public access to speech or assembly; with the spread of such media, whether photocopiers or Web browsers, a state accustomed to having a monopoly on public speech finds itself called to account for anomalies between its view of events and the public's. The two responses to the conservative dilemma are censorship and propaganda. But neither of these is as effective a source of control as the enforced silence of the citizens. The state will censor critics or produce propaganda as it needs to, but both of those actions have higher costs than simply not having any critics to silence or reply to in the first place. But if a government were to shut down Internet access or ban cell phones, it would risk radicalizing otherwise pro-regime citizens or harming the economy.

mobile blogging is becoming more and more popular. 

If those kinds of trends continue—or start to find their way into the edusphere—that can only mean two things: Blog content will continue to play an important role in driving conversations in all fields. My own content could be drowned out, lost in the sea of posts being published by writers who are investing more time than I am in their blogs.

The lines are blurring between the blogosphere and social media spaces like Facebook and Twitter:

Bloggers spend more time interacting in social media spaces than the average American.

"partially connected"

breaking down traditional barriers of age, gender, and socioeconomic status

cell phones

cell-phone

cell phones

nature of civil society

more costs than benefits

connecting nations" -- places where technological development is still nascent and where both governments and citizens are testing out tools and their potential impact

"open by default"

the so-called failed states

Efforts by democratic governments to foster freedom and opportunity will be far stronger if they recognize the vital role technology can play in enabling their citizens to promote these values -- and that technology is overwhelmingly provided by the private sector.

interconnected estate

interconnected estate

to shape government and corporate behavior

by promoting freedom of expression and by protecting citizens from threatening governments.

join together in new alliances to multiply their impact.

offer a new way to exercise the duty to protect citizens around the world who are abused by their governments or barred from voicing their opinions

citizens' use of technology can be an effective vehicle to promote the values of freedom, equality, and human rights globally

shared power