Long reads for today: Facebook's impact on democracy + ISIS after losing Raqqa
By Péter MARTON
1. "What Facebook did to American democracy" -- and not only to American democracy of course. A few days old but worth your time, at The Atlantic.
2. The BBC's summary (by Middle East correspondent Jim Muir) of the Islamic State's story so far, a timely a look back, but with a future to ponder.
It may also be interesting to explore the connections between the two subjects as there may be many.
If social media facilitates the coming to power of populists, if it rewards socially polarising media and communication strategies and policies, if it helps the spread of "fake news" as well as semi-informed and biased opinions, it can provide opportunities to various actors, and it can also contribute to creating and sustaining reservoirs of hatred that can feed violent movements.
On the other hand, it is ironic that whereas back in the 1970s developing countries were demanding "information sovereignty" as part of a "New World Information and Communications Order," in the age of the internet by now everyone seems to be suffering from a lack of it, including the richest countries.
Another major difference is that today "information sovereignty" is subverted not from beyond borders but from the omnipresent cyberspace where the distinction between internal and external has largely broken down.
In the meantime societies' transformation enhances the process, with the transnational linkages formed by diaspora groups. The kind of movement that feeds ISIS thus has a transnational information environment, along with a transnational audience whose "national" segments can hardly be isolated from one another.
1. "What Facebook did to American democracy" -- and not only to American democracy of course. A few days old but worth your time, at The Atlantic.
2. The BBC's summary (by Middle East correspondent Jim Muir) of the Islamic State's story so far, a timely a look back, but with a future to ponder.
It may also be interesting to explore the connections between the two subjects as there may be many.
If social media facilitates the coming to power of populists, if it rewards socially polarising media and communication strategies and policies, if it helps the spread of "fake news" as well as semi-informed and biased opinions, it can provide opportunities to various actors, and it can also contribute to creating and sustaining reservoirs of hatred that can feed violent movements.
On the other hand, it is ironic that whereas back in the 1970s developing countries were demanding "information sovereignty" as part of a "New World Information and Communications Order," in the age of the internet by now everyone seems to be suffering from a lack of it, including the richest countries.
Another major difference is that today "information sovereignty" is subverted not from beyond borders but from the omnipresent cyberspace where the distinction between internal and external has largely broken down.
In the meantime societies' transformation enhances the process, with the transnational linkages formed by diaspora groups. The kind of movement that feeds ISIS thus has a transnational information environment, along with a transnational audience whose "national" segments can hardly be isolated from one another.
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