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The world is really not a global village. It is only so for those who are able to go anywhere without visas, have almost all the world’s knowledge production translated into their language, and the most important art institutions just around the corner from where they live. The rest only live under this pretense of globalism, internationalism and many other ism(s) that conceal the way power works in the world.

What exists is a hand-picking of a few films from all over the global south to be taken to world festivals to fulfill a quota of “world cinema,” African cinema, Arab cinema, Iranian cinema or whichever one is in vogue depending on the political climate.

with these exhibition circuits in mind, many filmmakers consciously or unconsciously tweak their narratives to appeal to the imaginary spectators located in this ambiguous global realm. Strategies deployed include explaining that which need not be explained if the film was targeted primarily to a familiar audience (including a phrase such as “Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt for 30 years” is an example), having the film speak in a language other than its subjects’ native tongue rather than just adding subtitles, and opting for the consolidation of a narrative at the expense of maintaining the almost always deeply fragmented political nuances of their story. These strategies often result in films that are simplistic, clichéd, and politically problematic.

though it is uncommon for a government to back down on censorship, there is precedent: In 2010, when Tunisia's government blocked Facebook, they were quickly forced into submission by street protests. And earlier this year, the Palestinian Authority was shamed into reversing a ban on a handful of opposition sites.

when the tools of our everyday lives become collateral damage in governmental efforts to block speech, citizens take notice

Iranians have developed a taste for the global internet. Despite an official ban on the site, Facebook is widely used (through the use of proxies and VPNs, which a reported half of Iran's population uses) and Twitter is increasing in popularity. Any attempt to block the social networks Iranians have become accustomed to would surely result in an uproar.

“Our job is to curate the conversation that is happening all over the Internet with people who really understand what is going on,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, a former Tokyo bureau chief for CNN who founded Global Voices with Ethan Zuckerman, a technologist and Africa expert, while they were fellows at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. “We amplify, contextualize and translate what these conversations are and why they are relevant.”

“We don’t parachute in. We are there all the time. “

Mr. Sigal said that having editors work with volunteer bloggers brought traditional journalistic values to the operation, like checking facts and sources. “But it is less about a finished story and more about a conversation,” he said. “When we build a story, we include links back to the original sources, so you can follow the story as far down as you want to. We want you to leave our site and go find the original, find more.”

Although podcasting is growing in Africa, radio, a close cousin that has been around since the days of colonization, remains prevalent.

The largest podcasting markets in Africa include Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya

the African podcasts that get exposure typically sound familiar with commercial appeal in terms of format, content, and tone

The scenes emerging from Iran today elicit a mix of reactions across a region still reeling from the dark legacy of the “Arab Spring,” which itself came on the heels of the “Green Movement” protests in the wake of Iran’s 2009 presidential election. Many Arabs cannot help but recall the sense of hope that reverberated from Tunisia to Yemen, only to be shattered by unyielding repression, war, and the resurgence of authoritarianism. Subsequent protest waves, including those that began in 2019 in Lebanon, Iraq, and Sudan, were similarly met with brutality, co-optation, and dissolution.

Over a decade on from the Arab uprisings, the path toward democracy and freedom for youth across the Middle East has become more treacherous than ever, as liberation movements find themselves fighting against stronger, smarter, and more entrenched regimes that have adapted to modern challenges to their domination.

Technologies that many hoped would help to evade state censorship and facilitate mobilization have been co-opted as repressive surveillance tools.

Saudi Arabia’s history with WWE, like much of its frenetic investment in sports and entertainment over the past few years, is a study in how little diplomacy is needed when you control one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in history. Using their Public Investment Fund, valued at more than $776 billion, the Saudis have effectively bought some of the world’s most loyal fan bases, bent opponents to their will and wildly shifted the economics of international sports.

In the sports world, overcoming a reputation as a global pariah — condemned by human rights organizations for alleged war atrocities and its links to the 9/11 hijackers, the imprisonment of activists and the Khashoggi assassination — has been as simple for Saudi Arabia as advancing claims of innocence or autonomy.

The Saudi Pro League has become the default destination for aging soccer legends seeking unprecedented paydays, including Cristiano Ronaldo, who reportedly is paid roughly $220 million per year to play for Al Nassr. Lionel Messi turned down a similar bounty in favor of playing in the United States. But he still agreed to promote Saudi Arabia for a reported $25 million under a contract that mandates he is not permitted to make any remarks that “tarnish” the kingdom.

Dubai, one of the seven principalities that make up the small, oil-rich United Arab Emirates, is a growing destination for students from the Middle East, India, and China, making it a logical host for the Going Global conference, said the British Council, the British government's cultural and educational arm and the event's organizer. But recently the Emirates have been better known as the site of an academic controversy.

countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, of which the U.A.E. is a member, are at the "cutting edge" of efforts to internationalize higher education, and that holding the conference in Dubai "contributes to the sterling efforts being made in countries like the U.A.E. and Qatar to open their societies to international debates."

Foreign universities are guests in the United Arab Emirates and need to be "aware of the environment they're entering," said Warren Fox, executive director for higher education at the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, a Dubai government agency that accredits and regulates foreign higher-education institutions. "If universities decided they could only go to countries with the same cultural and political values, they wouldn't go abroad at all," said Mr. Fox. "And I think they should, because of the benefits to students and to universities."

The social media giant finds itself under countervailing pressures after the uprisings in the Middle East. While it has become one of the primary tools for activists to mobilize protests and share information, Facebook does not want to be seen as picking sides for fear that some countries — like Syria, where it just gained a foothold — would impose restrictions on its use or more closely monitor users, according to some company executives who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal business.

Last week, Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, urged Facebook to take “immediate and tangible steps” to help protect democracy and human rights activists who use its services, including addressing concerns about not being able to use pseudonyms. In a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, Mr. Durbin said the recent events in Egypt and Tunisia had highlighted the costs and benefits of social tools to democracy and human rights advocates. “I am concerned that the company does not have adequate safeguards in place to protect human rights and avoid being exploited by repressive governments,” he wrote.

This is an incredible challenge and an incredible opportunity for Facebook, Twitter and Google,” said Ethan Zuckerman, a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, where he works on projects about the use of technology and media in the developing world. “It might be tougher for Facebook than anyone else. Facebook has been ambivalent about the use of their platform by activists.

The Peace Index for March 2016, published by the Israel Democracy Institute, shows that a sizable majority of the Jewish public rejects the distinction between global terrorism, nurtured by radical Islam, and Palestinian terrorism, nurtured by the desire to shake off the Israeli occupation. Of those polled, 64% said they agree with the idea espoused by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that global terrorism and Palestinian terrorism are one and the same.

Israelis are in no rush to change the status quo

Some 78% think Israel should not take into consideration international demands to refrain from “targeted killings” (as the Israel Defense Forces calls the killing of wanted Palestinians), demolitions of family homes of Palestinians involved in attacks on Israelis and other questionable means used by the Israeli defense establishment in the fight against terrorism.

how the young enacted their citizenship in the digital age as a way to both confront power and imagine a different future

While the economic benefits of globalization had bypassed the Middle East’s young generation, the information revolution did not (at least not to the urban centres). The children submerged in the information technology of the 1990s onwards are today’s youth.

El-Sharnouby analysed Egyptian news sources since the turn of twenty-first the century to examine how the government sought to accommodate the "youth bulge." The Mubarak government conceived of youth as prone to laziness and passivity. Moreover, El-Sharnouby highlights that many scholars erroneously thought that disenfranchised youth would turn either to drug abuse or religious extremism. It therefore came as a surprise to them when scores of the “problematic,” “apathetic” and “lazy” youth were the main actors and agents of dissent in the January 25 revolution

"It would be extremely arrogant for any specific technology company to claim credit" for protest movements in the Arab world

"People are now having the opportunity to communicate" more widely than ever before, he said, adding: "That's not a Facebook thing. That's an Internet thing."

In the post-war period in Britain, and especially in the 1960s, Commonwealth immigrants were often excluded from the social movement for housing rights discussions. This was not because these immigrants lacked housing problems. In fact many immigrants experienced housing difficulties and suffered from the housing shortage, not only because of financial hardship but also because they were denied council housing or because private landlords did not want to let them rent their property. And yet representations of ethnic minorities were never at the centre of this social outcry against the British welfare state. At the heart of the 1960s protest was the symbol of white, working class Cathy, not her West Indies equivalent. Although some groups such as Shelter tried to assist and solve the housing difficulties of recent immigrants, the fact remained that within a very lively discussions about Labour’s failure to find a solution for housing and the result of what they called “homeless families,” the hardship of recent immigrants was barely discussed by the public. Similarly, in Israel of 2011 the protest focuses on young, Jewish (mostly Ashkenazi) citizens and not on any of the other ethnic minorities. The tent movement – which I fully support and respect – can only exist through a clear demarcation of who is part of the imaginary whole and who is not; who deserves housing from the state and who doesn’t; who is part of the national home and who isn’t. And we don’t even have to go to the occupied territories for that. In other words, in both cases this is a protest about a right for citizens and not a universal right to a home. Even within the so-called “social agenda” there are many who are excluded.

This is the first time I have felt a glimmer of optimism about Israeli politics since attending the rally where Rabin was shot in 1995.

This Israeli protest is on the scale of ordinary (= not 1968) European protests and about European issues.  It just shows how not-Middle East and not-revolutionary Israel is.