Group items tagged

Article from Fibreculture journal.

International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology (IJIPT)

"..the impact of digital information and networking provokes a reconsideration of the model of medium theory. Every time it is written or stated that digital convergent technology has re-shaped the use and effects of media forms, then some form of medium theory is being employed." Good analysis of the strenths and weaknesses of both technological determinism and social shaping for understanding internet issues, with a look at the hybrid solutions like ActorNetwork Theory. Excellent background paper for understanding critical theories of technology.

Social media's role in the organisation and communication of the protests in Thailand is still small compared to the role traditional forms of media have played. This article however is a good primer on the details of how social media has been used - citizen journalism, regular journalism that is now "on the fly", amplification of messages via social media channels. Censorship by the government has also been a factor in the unrest.

Hot of the press, a new journal article analysing the apparent (alleged?) possibilites of the Internet to promote democracy.

A fair amount has been written about the politics of net neutrality, but its technical aspects have generally pushed the debate to the fringes of the mainstream press.

People are taking actions to express their feeling about Facebook privacy issue.

A short review on the book "SMS Uprising: Mobile activism in Africa" which is series of essays about the usage of SMS for citizen activism in Africa including in Zimbabwe.

The head of new media for Middle East broadcaster and news service Al Jazeera has poured cold water on the much-hyped role of Twitter as the technology that started grass-roots revolution in Iran. Despite the US government's moves to prevent scheduled maintenance of the site to enabled Iranians to "Tweet out" to the world about the election, it seems a torrent of on-the-ground Tweets simply doesn't add up. After analyzing information about the alleged Iranian-based Tweeters, just 6 accounts could be verified as actually being on the ground.

Additional information regarding Iceland's initiative. Watch the video, summarizing and explaining the plan, it's really good!

Iceland is planning to propose the "The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative" to save freedom of expression on the internet, aiming at press and source protection it would turn the country into a save haven for journalists and bloggers all around the world.

The evershifting sands of media and content. Theoretically, as McLuhan says, the media is the message. Practically speaking, the world is full of examples of companies (Google/Apple) trying to control both the content and the infrastructure and there becoming very little difference between them.

A comprehensive study conducted by the Pew Center for Research in the States looks at one of the demographics that experience the 'digital divide' - people with a chronic illness. The results indicate that although people with chronic diseases are less likely to have access to the internet, those that do use it productively to contribute to the online bank of knowledge about health-realated topics, as well as forming supportive online communities.

thanks Tiana, I'm actually covering a related topic in my DRP journal article. This is really helpful.

The Iranian government has allegedly blocked a popular French broadcaster website because of its reliance on social networking sites and other amateur techniques of online journalism.

PJFenwick is doing a PhD on facebook privacy and his explorations have shown that even when you lock up your settings, your friends (and friends of) can leak your information all over the place. "But by far the most interesting part of all of this have been dark users. Like dark matter, these users are not directly observable, usually because they've completely disabled API access. In fact, some of these users are completely dark unless you're a friend. They don't show up in search results. They don't show up on friends' lists. You can't send them messages. If you try to navigate to their user page (assuming you know it exists), you get redirected back to your homepage. These users have their privacy settings turned up real high, and are supposed to be hard to find. However like dark matter, dark users are observable due to their effects on the rest of the universe. If a dark user comments on a stream entry, I can see that comment. More importantly, I can see their user-ID, and I can generate a URL to a page that will contain their name. I can then watch for their activities elsewhere. Granted, I can't directly search for their activity, but I can observe their effects on my friends. For want of a better term, I've been calling this "dark stalking". What makes this all rather chilling is that I'm doing all of this via the application API. If your friend has installed an application, then it can access quite a lot of information about you, unless you turn it off. If your friend has granted the application the read_stream privilege, then it can read your status stream. Even if a friend of a friend has done this, and you comment on your friend's status entries, it's possible to infer your existence and retrieve those discussions through dark stalking."

PJ Fenwick gives the lowdown on facebook's personalisation and what you are sharing with whom. If anyone ever wondered where the money was in the 'free' internet, then follow the moves that facebook and google are making to market all of the personal info that you so lovingly and willingly provide to your 'friends'.