Afghan Voice Radio: The frontline of a ‘new’ Afghanistan

All around the world, Afghan youth who have fled abroad are investing in online media and sports as vehicles for civic participation and peace, says Zubair Gharghasht.

By Open democracy

/ 19 Nov 2012

The end of ‘Liberty’

In Soviet days foreign radio stations were a lifeline for people seeking another point of view. They continued broadcasting after the collapse of the USSR, though the BBC Russian Service programmes went online only in 2009. Now US-funded Radio Liberty is closing its doors. Mumin Shakirov, a specia

By Open democracy

/ 26 Sep 2012

WikiLeaks and network-era news

The WikiLeaks storm of 2010 seems to be spent. But as a symptom of what is happening to journalism the WikiLeaks phenomenon carries profound significance, says Charlie Beckett.

By Open democracy

/ 15 Aug 2012

Russian journalists: poor, venal… but (usually) honest

Journalism in Russia has never been easy, but today the complications are many. If you write to order, you may be financially better off but you will be despised. If you are honest, then you can end up risking life and limb. But despite the dangers there are still journalists prepared to stand up

By Open democracy

/ 6 Jul 2012

Barrack Hussein Obama … (1) Holds an Active Estonian Passport! (2) Covertly Dates Britney Spears! (3) Cheats at Lawn Croquet! … and Now, You Can Too!

The tide of news swill from the US presidential race becomes weirder and more pervasive as falsehoods and media stunts are passed off as truth and gain a life of their own

By Open democracy

/ 11 Mar 2012

Cinema, citizenship and the promise of the internet: a personal view from the Third World

Piracy is typically portrayed as the vice of only those who wish to steal media for the sake of self-indulgent entertainment. But 'file sharing' is also, for some, the only means of gaining access to educational material or information censored by oppressive governments, let alone revolutionary in

By Open democracy

/ 21 Feb 2012

Law & Order, take two

The successful New York-set crime series Law & Order has generated numerous spin-offs, remakes and reworkings. A coincidental showing of the same episode in its US and UK versions offers David Elstein, a devotee of the original, the chance to make a scene-by-scene comparison. Such an analysis, he

By David Elstein

/ 21 Feb 2012

Janusz Palikot’s ‘Cannabis Stunt’ Overshadowed a More Complex Debate about Drug Policy Reform in Poland

Palikot’s symbolic gesture played into the hands of a media that is eager to demonize the decriminalization campaign. The symbol however overshadowed a more complex debate around the decriminalization of cannabis and other illicit drugs in Poland.

By Open democracy

/ 13 Feb 2012

Japan, the earthquake and the media

The worst disaster in Japan since the second world war hit the country's north-east coastal region on 11 March 2011. The combination of tsunami and nuclear crisis presented the media with great practical problems and ethical concerns. Wataru Sawamura, an experienced journalist with the leading new

By Open democracy

/ 11 Feb 2012

Jimmy Wales or Kim Dotcom - is anti-SOPA about fundamental principles or competing commercial interests?

In this podcast, Tony Curzon Price talks to Albert Wenger, partner at Union Square Ventures, the venture capital fund behind a lot of the most innovative and visible web companies of today, to try to understand: is anti-SOPA activism more about principle or about the competing interests of big Tec

By Tony Curzon Price

/ 28 Jan 2012

Intellectuals against the public sphere: how to do debate better than Evgeny Morozov's tear-down

Evgeny Morozov, an engaging thinker whom we have enjoyed publishing on openDemocracy, produced an intemperate review of a peer's book. Here, that peer responds in an exemplary way. An attempt to shut down conversation has, in the best sort of Streisand effect, back-fired and opened it up.

By Open democracy

/ 25 Oct 2011

Unruly politics: atomised movements, activist individuals and clientilism

Do new social media create new forms of citizen action? Jenny Morgan reports on a knowledge exchange conference in the Hague

By Open democracy

/ 10 Oct 2011

media & the net