In The News

Ellen Lust and Jakob Wichmann July 24, 2012
The series of protests in 2011 that overturned governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have ushered in activism and new debate in the Arab world. Analyzing the reasons behind the surge of discontent requires an understanding of each nation’s history, regional relationships, demographics and governance failures. Achieving representative government and social justice is not a matter of simple...
Huong Nguyen May 11, 2012
The quick connections and passion forged over the internet challenge authoritarian governments worldwide. Vietnam is no exception. Social media and blogs connect social activists as well as the diaspora, reports Huong Nguyen, research fellow at the Center for Constitutional Democracy at the Indiana University in Bloomington. Notably, many activists take recourse to igniting nationalistic feelings...
Humphrey Hawksley February 10, 2012
Acts of intervention – with military action, aid and promotion of trade – have characterized international politics since the Cold War. Corporate intervention can now be added to the list of tools for alleviating poverty and encouraging development and education in impoverished nations. Social media and attention to global supply chains are exposing unfair labor practices, particularly child...
Simon Roughneen December 29, 2011
Lèse-majesté charges are on the rise in Thailand, from a single case in 2000 to nearly 500 in 2010. Among the charged is Joe Gordon, an American who translated excerpts of a biography of the Thai King, receiving critical acclaim everywhere but Thailand. Gordon was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, but may receive a royal pardon. Observers can’t help but wonder if such accusations aren’...
Garry Robson December 22, 2011
Violent riots broke out in Britain in August, and researchers, searching for reasons, examined the messages relayed by rioters over social media. Many of the calls to don disguises and join the mayhem were in a dialect labeled Multicultural London English by sociolinguists and Jafaican by the media – a post-racial blend that emerged from the more than 300 languages and dialects spoken by youth...
Fred Weir December 9, 2011
Russians are using social media to report vote rigging by authorities and organize flash protests in the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities. “For more than a decade, Russians appear to have quietly accepted Vladimir Putin's system of ‘managed democracy,’” writes Fred Weir for the Christian Science Monitor, explaining that measures “ensure that only Kremlin-approved parties...
Tom Phillips October 7, 2011
The powerful, never appreciating being the butt of comics’ jokes or withering commentary of critics, have long tried to keep a lid on criticism with ownership of media conglomerates and influence over media licenses. The freewheeling internet has changed all that, allowing comedy to take hold in nations like Brazil where the powerful expected unthinking deference. In the 1980s, jokes about...