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Articles on Democracy Futures: Networked Politics

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PAH activists occupy a bank office in Barcelona in July 2013. Albert Gea/Reuters

In the ‘fearless city’, Barcelona residents take charge

We rarely see residents of a city successfully push back in defence of their needs against the power of finance capital, which seeks to make money from the city. But Barcelona shows it can be done.
A mural in memory of Alton Sterling, who was shot several times at close range by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 5, 2016. W. Clarke/Wikipedia Commons

The backlash against Black Lives Matter is just more evidence of injustice

Neither the spurious ‘facts’ about killings of police nor the supposedly ‘colour-blind’ logic of the backlash against Black Lives Matter hold up under scrutiny. Instead, they confirm its point.
Global media systems cannot effectively contribute to social progress until opportunities are more widely shared. Internet.org by Facebook/Facebook

Why the media is a key dimension of global inequality

Global media systems cannot effectively contribute to social progress until opportunities not just for access, but also for active participation, are more widely shared.
Shifts in our communication infrastructures have reshaped the very possibilities of social order driven by markets and commercial exploitation. Marc Smith/flickr

The price of connection: ‘surveillance capitalism’

Capitalism has become focused on expanding the proportion of social life that is open to data collection and processing – as if the social itself has become the new target of capitalism’s expansion.
Bridging the digital divide in many developing countries is not simply about access to ICT. flickr/Matt Wilson

More technology doesn’t mean less inequality

While the internet penetration rate in the developed world sits at 81%, two-thirds of the developing world are still without access.
A young American celebrates the historic news of August 9, 1974. flickr/Pip R. Lagenta

The politics of public memory, from Watergate to Iraq

An individual may remember and forget what he or she likes, but once a version of past events is accepted and shared by a group, as a collective construction, it is on public record.
Blogger and media critic Anita Sarkeesian in a Feminist Frequency video. from www.feministfrequency.com

Rape threats and cyberhate? Vote no to the new digital divide

Cyberhate would deny women their full democratic rights as citizens, yet this is trivialised and dismissed – just as sexual violence, discrimination and workplace harassment have been for decades.
Nothing of what William’s subjects had in life escaped the Domesday Book. Today, more covertly, those in power are using mass surveillance to collect all the digital details of our lives. Flickr/Andrew Barclay

Digital Domesday: surveillance threatens us with a new serfdom

Almost 1000 years after their ruler demanded every detail of serfs’ lives, the digital age and mass surveillance are creating a new and undemocratic imbalance between citizens and those with power over them.
Notions of the ‘right to know’ forced Hillary Clinton to defend her use of a private email account as secretary of state - a far cry from the days when citizens didn’t even know how their representatives voted. EPA/Andrew Gombert

The right to know vs the need for secrecy: the US experience

The idea of the right to know as the ‘lifeblood of democracy’ is a surprisingly modern development. And in an age when transparency is prized, privacy and secrecy can still be justified in many cases.
Apple’s global network control has helped it achieve bumper profits. Andrey Bayda / Shutterstock.com

Why Apple is the world’s most successful company – the power of networks

The latest round of quarterly results have recently come out and the likes of Apple and Boeing have announced bumper profits. Others such as Sainsbury’s and Samsung have not fared so well. So what is it…
Hong Kong’s digitally connected protesters are mounting a thoroughly modern campaign for democracy, but the state too has updated its mechanisms of control and surveillance. EPA/Alex Hofford

Connective action: the public’s answer to democratic dysfunction

In the closing decades of the last century, many political and business elites were swept up in a global wave of policies favouring free markets, deregulation of business and finance and privatisation…
Senator John Faulkner’s call for political parties to re-engage with Australians through social media is laudable, but his own efforts illustrate how much politicians have to learn. Facebook/John Faulkner

Politics as usual? Ailing parties fail to get to grips with social media

After his speech about party renewal last week, I went to Labor Senator John Faulkner’s Facebook page. It has about 2700 likes. The page features links to speeches and pictures of events that Faulkner…

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