Download or read book Directed Digital Dissidence in Autocracies written by Jason Gainous and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-25 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this book, we use the case of China to examine how state actors can transform the Internet and online discourse into a key strategic element for maintaining the government and relieving domestic pressure on national institutions. While scholars have long known that the democratizing influence of the Internet can be blunted by autocratic states, in this book, we show that the online sphere can effectively be co-opted by states like China and transformed into a supporting institution. Our theory, Directed Digital Dissidence, explains how autocracies manage critical online information flows and the impact this management has on mass opinion and behavior. While the expansion of the Internet may stimulate dissidence, it also provides the central government an avenue to direct that dissent away and toward selected targets. Under the strategy of Directed Digital Dissidence, the Internet becomes a mechanism to dissipate threats by serving as a targeted relief valve rather than a building pressure cooker. We consider the process and impact of this evolving state led manipulation of the political Internet using data and examples from China. We use an original large-scale random survey of Chinese citizens to measure Internet use, social media use, and political attitudes. We also consider the impact of the state firewall. Beyond simply identifying the government strategy, we focus on testing the effectiveness of the strategy with empirical data. We also consider how the redirection of dissent can be done across a broader range of targets, including non-state actors and other nations"--

Download or read book The Digital Double Bind written by Mohamed Zayani and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-16 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Middle East's digital turn has renewed hopes of socio-economic development and political change across the region, but it is also marked by stark contradictions and historical tensions. In this book, Mohamed Zayani and Joe F. Khalil contend that the region is caught in a digital double bind in which the same conditions that drive the state, market, and public immersion in the digital also inhibit change and perpetuate stasis. The Digital Double Bind offers a path-breaking analysis of how the Middle East negotiates its relation to the digital and provides a roadmap for a critical engagement with technology and change in the Global South.

Download or read book Hacking Hybrid Media written by Stephen R Barnard and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-20 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Hacking Hybrid Media, Stephen R. Barnard examines how networked media capital is changing the fields of politics and journalism. With a focus on the messaging strategies employed by Donald Trump and his most vocal online supporters, Barnard provides a theoretically oriented and empirically grounded analysis of the ways today's media afford deceptive political communication. He reflects not only on the tools and techniques of manipulative media campaigns, but also on the implications they hold for the future of journalism, politics, and democracy in the US and beyond.

Download or read book We Tried to Tell Y All written by Meredith D. Clark and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2025-01-07 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For decades, Black folks in America have used different media technologies with the express purpose of telling the truth about themselves and their experiences. "We Tried to Tell Y'all" adds to this rich history by positioning Black Twitter as both a space for building and sustaining community connections, as well as a tool for the development of digital counternarratives that stand in juxtaposition to news media coverage that distorts the reality of what it's like to be Black in America in the early 21st century. Drawing on interviews, personal observation, and news analysis, the book offers insight on the dynamic nature of how Black social media users' experiences on platform shaped social movements, elevated the voices of Black women intellectuals from all walks of life, and repeatedly shifted popular culture. As part of the emerging canon on Black digital cultural studies, the book is a testament about the gap between who the news media say Black people are, and who we know ourselves to be"--

Download or read book The Politics of Platform Regulation written by Postdoctoral Research Fellow Robert Gorwa and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-07 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Politics of Platform Regulation, Robert Gorwa outlines how governments are shaping the emerging space of online safety. Through case studies from Germany, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, Gorwa explores the domestic and international politics that influence how, why, and when platform regulation comes into being. Going beyond existing work that explores the hidden private rules and practices increasingly shaping our online lives, The Politics of Platform Regulation is a measured empirical and theoretical account of how the state is pushing back.

Download or read book Contesting Cyberspace in China written by Rongbin Han and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Internet was supposed to be an antidote to authoritarianism. It can enable citizens to express themselves freely and organize outside state control. Yet while online activity has helped challenge authoritarian rule in some cases, other regimes have endured: no movement comparable to the Arab Spring has arisen in China. In Contesting Cyberspace in China, Rongbin Han offers a powerful counterintuitive explanation for the survival of the world’s largest authoritarian regime in the digital age. Han reveals the complex internal dynamics of online expression in China, showing how the state, service providers, and netizens negotiate the limits of discourse. He finds that state censorship has conditioned online expression, yet has failed to bring it under control. However, Han also finds that freer expression may work to the advantage of the regime because its critics are not the only ones empowered: the Internet has proved less threatening than expected due to the multiplicity of beliefs, identities, and values online. State-sponsored and spontaneous pro-government commenters have turned out to be a major presence on the Chinese internet, denigrating dissenters and barraging oppositional voices. Han explores the recruitment, training, and behavior of hired commenters, the “fifty-cent army,” as well as group identity formation among nationalistic Internet posters who see themselves as patriots defending China against online saboteurs. Drawing on a rich set of data collected through interviews, participant observation, and long-term online ethnography, as well as official reports and state directives, Contesting Cyberspace in China interrogates our assumptions about authoritarian resilience and the democratizing power of the Internet.

Download or read book The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy written by Philip N. Howard and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-21 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around the developing world, political leaders face a dilemma: the very information and communication technologies that boost economic fortunes also undermine power structures. Globally, one in ten internet users is a Muslim living in a populous Muslim community. In these countries, young people are developing political identities online, and digital technologies are helping civil society build systems of political communication independent of the state and beyond easy manipulation by cultural or religious elites. With unique data on patterns of media ownership and technology use, The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy demonstrates how, since the mid-1990s, information technologies have had a role in political transformation. Democratic revolutions are not caused by new information technologies. But in the Muslim world, democratization is no longer possible without them.

Download or read book Public Sentinel written by Pippa Norris and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009-11-19 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the ideal roles the mass media should play as an institution to strengthen democratic governance and thus bolster human development? Under what conditions do media systems succeed or fail to meet these objectives? And what strategic reforms would close the gap between the democratic promise and performance of media systems? Working within the notion of the democratic public sphere, 'Public Sentinel: News Media and Governance Reform' emphasizes the institutional or collective roles of the news media as watchdogs over the powerful, as agenda setters calling attention to social needs in natural and human-caused disasters and humanitarian crises, and as gatekeepers incorporating a diverse and balanced range of political perspectives and social actors. Each is vital to making democratic governance work in an effective, transparent, inclusive, and accountable manner. The capacity of media systems and thus individual reporters embedded within those institutions to fulfill these roles is constrained by the broader context of the journalistic profession, the market, and ultimately the state. Successive chapters apply these arguments to countries and regions worldwide. This study brought together a wide range of international experts under the auspices of the Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) at the World Bank and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The book is designed for policy makers and media professionals working within the international development community, national governments, and grassroots organizations, and for journalists, democratic activists, and scholars engaged in understanding mass communications, democratic governance, and development.

Download or read book The Rise of Digital Repression written by Steven Feldstein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is undergoing a profound set of digital disruptions that are changing the nature of how governments counter dissent and assert control over their countries. While increasing numbers of people rely primarily or exclusively on online platforms, authoritarian regimes have concurrently developed a formidable array of technological capabilities to constrain and repress their citizens. In The Rise of Digital Repression, Steven Feldstein documents how the emergence of advanced digital tools bring new dimensions to political repression. Presenting new field research from Thailand, the Philippines, and Ethiopia, he investigates the goals, motivations, and drivers of these digital tactics. Feldstein further highlights how governments pursue digital strategies based on a range of factors: ongoing levels of repression, political leadership, state capacity, and technological development. The international community, he argues, is already seeing glimpses of what the frontiers of repression look like. For instance, Chinese authorities have brought together mass surveillance, censorship, DNA collection, and artificial intelligence to enforce their directives in Xinjiang. As many of these trends go global, Feldstein shows how this has major implications for democracies and civil society activists around the world. A compelling synthesis of how anti-democratic leaders harness powerful technology to advance their political objectives, The Rise of Digital Repression concludes by laying out innovative ideas and strategies for civil society and opposition movements to respond to the digital autocratic wave.

Download or read book The Anatomy of Fascism written by Robert O. Paxton and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is fascism? By focusing on the concrete: what the fascists did, rather than what they said, the esteemed historian Robert O. Paxton answers this question. From the first violent uniformed bands beating up “enemies of the state,” through Mussolini’s rise to power, to Germany’s fascist radicalization in World War II, Paxton shows clearly why fascists came to power in some countries and not others, and explores whether fascism could exist outside the early-twentieth-century European setting in which it emerged. "A deeply intelligent and very readable book. . . . Historical analysis at its best." –The Economist The Anatomy of Fascism will have a lasting impact on our understanding of modern European history, just as Paxton’s classic Vichy France redefined our vision of World War II. Based on a lifetime of research, this compelling and important book transforms our knowledge of fascism–“the major political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain.”

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis written by Chris Shei and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-14 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese is a discourse-oriented language and the underlying mechanisms of the language involve encoding and decoding so the language can be correctly delivered and understood. To date, there has been a lack of consolidation at the discourse level such that a reference framework for understanding the language in a top-down fashion is still underdeveloped. The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis is the first to showcase the latest research in the field of Chinese discourse analysis to consolidate existing findings, put the language in both theoretical and socio-functional perspectives, offer guidance and insights for further research and inspire innovative ideas for exploring the Chinese language in the discourse domain. The book is aimed at both students and scholars researching in the areas of Chinese linguistics and discourse analysis.

Download or read book Mediated Communication You written by Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book was written to introduce students to the state-of-the-art knowledge on how media and mediated communication affect people and society. Regarding the content, working through this book will allow students to gain knowledge on media use, develop awareness of diversity of mediated messages, and of media use responses, understand possible negative effects of media; acquire knowledge on theories about mediated communication and on research on mediated communication effects. The course setup was designed with the options of online or "hybrid" (a combination of online and in-person instruction) in mind and was actually taught in hybrid format during our "test runs.""--

Download or read book Democracy s Fourth Wave written by Philip N. Howard and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-29 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did digital media really "cause" the Arab Spring, or is it an important factor of the story behind what might become democracy's fourth wave? An unlikely network of citizens used digital media to start a cascade of social protest that ultimately toppled four of the world's most entrenched dictators. Howard and Hussain find that the complex causal recipe includes several economic, political and cultural factors, but that digital media is consistently one of the most important sufficient and necessary conditions for explaining both the fragility of regimes and the success of social movements. This book looks at not only the unexpected evolution of events during the Arab Spring, but the deeper history of creative digital activism throughout the region.

Download or read book A Diplomat s Handbook for Democracy Development Support written by Jeremy Kinsman and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2016-10-17 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, the conduct of international relations among and within states has been very considerably altered. Today, the content of these relations relies as much on international professional and civil society networks as it does on state-to-state transactions. The role of the Internet has been fundamental in widening communications opportunities for citizens and civil society, with a profound effect on democracy transition. In consequence, diplomacy has taken on a much more human and public face. Twenty-first century ambassadors and diplomats are learning to engage with civil societies, especially on the large themes of democratic change — an engagement that is often resisted by authoritarian regimes. A Diplomat’s Handbook for Democracy Development Support presents a wide variety of specific experiences of diplomats on the ground, identifying creative, human and material resources. More broadly, it is about the policy-making experience in capitals, as democratic states try to align national interests and democratic values. The Handbook also documents the increasingly prominent role of civil society as the essential building block for successful democratic transitions, with each case study examining specific national experiences in the aspiration for democratic and pluralistic governance, and lessons learned on all sides — for better or for worse. While each situation is different — presenting unique, unstructured problems and opportunities — a review of these experiences bears out the validity of the authors’ belief in the interdependence of democratic engagements, and provides practitioners with encouragement, counsel and a greater capacity to support democracy everywhere.

Download or read book Internet Freedom and Political Space written by Olesya Tkacheva and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2013-09-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Internet is a new battleground between governments that censor online content and those who advocate Internet freedom. This report examines the implications of Internet freedom for state-society relations in nondemocratic regimes.

Download or read book The UK s Changing Democracy written by Patrick Dunleavy and published by LSE Press. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.

Download or read book Hindsight Insight Foresight Thinking About Security in the Indo Pacific written by Alexander L. Vuving and published by Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hindsight, Insight, Foresight is a tour d’horizon of security issues in the Indo-Pacific. Written by 20 current and former members of the faculty at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, its 21 chapters provide hindsight, insight, and foresight on numerous aspects of security in the region. This book will help readers to understand the big picture, grasp the changing faces, and comprehend the local dynamics of regional security.