Non-State Actors

For unrelated projects I have been working on an assessment of the interaction between the media and terrorism. I don't really have the time to write a very thoughtful post now -- any useful thoughts of mine belong in the two papers I've been working on ( one of these is already available, though it's in Hungarian). I can, however, put together something (to which I can keep adding later on) that might be interesting. Here are some noteworthy cases connected to the topic in focus. These can serve as ammunition for some important debates -- perhaps in class, if you are a colleague. These are the cases I used as examples in my own work. 1. Burhan Ozbilici's photo (AP) of Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş as he is holding up his index finger, gun in the other hand, having just killed Russia's ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov. The victim is seen behind him, lying on the ground. This was named photo of the year in the World Press Photo 2017 contest. Altıntaş is in the ce...

By Péter MARTON Here's a short story. ------------- A man came to the village one day. A mysterious figure. No one could quite make out his face under the wide-brimmed hat he wore. He even kept his head tilted constantly downward as if reading patterns from the ground to be covered by his steps. The people of the village came out to greet him and to learn who he is. They were a curious folk -- not the kind that would bunker in and hunker down if once in a while a stranger comes by. "I am the Truthteller," announced the unknown person, speaking with the confidence of someone accustomed to winning over audiences immediately. "No, you're not," replied one of the village elders. "You're a teller of lies, that's what you are." Now the man was ready to look people in the eye! A frantic gaze, challenging everyone -- how dare they! "That is a lie concocted by my enemies, the powers-that-be in this land," he shouted. "...

By Péter MARTON All that concern about Facebook's impact on democracy in the wake of the 2016 US presidential elections (mainly, along with some other developments elsewhere) has now apparently caused the company to react . So speculate some. This is a picture of me hearing about this. Trying to figure out an alternative to setting up sophisticated filters, to try to weed out fake news and other kinds of crap from the Newsfeed, it seems they came up with the idea to turn the Newsfeed into... just Feed. Because that filtering shit is hard. To remain: friend feed + junk feed. "The experiment, which began 19 October and is still ongoing, involves limiting the core element of Facebook’s social network to only personal posts and paid adverts. So-called public posts, such as those from media organisation Facebook pages, are being moved to a separate “explore” feed timeline." The declared aim of this is to see if people want personal posts and posts from pag...

By Péter MARTON The Google Doodle provided me with some instant inspiration for my scholarly work this morning. It is the late war and foreign affairs correspondent Clare Hollingworth's 106th birthday today. Sadly, she is not around to celebrate it, having passed away at the remarkable age of 105 this January. Among the achievements of her long career most prominently mentioned by people remembering her is her supposed discovery of Nazi Germany's force build-up along the Polish frontier. Time for some myth-busting! Back in January, writing her obituary, newspapers were happy to cite an anecdotal version of the story, copying details of the legendary reconnaissance feat from each other.  Some of these details may come originally from a biography by Patrick Garrett ("Of Fortunes and War"), as referenced and quoted here : "Driving alongside a valley, where a hessian screen that blocked the view had been pitched alongside the road, suddenly there wa...