Category Archives: Internet and Democracy

Optimal Information Disclosure Levels: Data.gov and "Taleb's Criticism"

Posted on September 27, 2009 by vcs

I was listening to the audio recording of last Friday’s :Scientific Data for Evidence Based Policy and Decision Making symposium at the National Academies, and was struck by the earnest effort on the part of members of the Whitehouse to … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Internet and Democracy, Law, Open Science, Reproducible Research, Scientific Method, Statistics, Technology | 2 Comments

Bill Gates to Development Researchers: Create and Share Statistics

Posted on June 8, 2009 by vcs

I was recently in Doha, Qatar, presenting my research on global communication technology use and democratic tendency at ICTD09. I spoke right before the keynote, Bill Gates, whose main point was that when you engage in a goal-oriented activity, such … Continue reading →

Posted in Conferences, Developing world, Economics, Human Rights, Internet and Democracy, Middle East, Open Science, Statistics, Talks, Technology | Leave a comment

Craig Newmark: "no vision, but I know how to keep things simple, and I can listen some"

Posted on November 14, 2008 by vcs

Craig Newmark was visiting the Berkman Center today and he explained how founding Craiglist brought him to his current role as community organizer. But these are really the same, he says. In 1994, Craig was working at Charles Schwab where … Continue reading →

Posted in Berkman, Internet and Democracy, Media, Technology | 1 Comment

A2K3: Connectivity and Democratic Ideals

Posted on September 10, 2008 by vcs

Also in the final A2K3 panel, The Global Public Sphere: Media and Communication Rights, Natasha Primo, National ICT policy advocacy coordinator for the Association for Progressive Communications, discusses three questions that happen to be related to my current research. 1) … Continue reading →

Posted in A2K3, Conferences, Developing world, Internet and Democracy | Leave a comment

A2K3: Communication Rights as a Framework for Global Connectivity

Posted on September 10, 2008 by vcs

In the last A2K3 panel, entitled The Global Public Sphere: Media and Communication Rights, Seán Ó Siochrú made some striking statements based on his experience building local communication networks in undeveloped areas of LCDs. He states that the global public … Continue reading →

Posted in A2K3, Conferences, Developing world, Human Rights, Internet and Democracy, Technology | 1 Comment

A2K3: Technological Standards are Public Policy

Posted on September 10, 2008 by vcs

Laura DeNardis, executive director of Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, spoke during the A2K3 panel on Technologies for Access. She makes the point that many of our technological standards are being made behind closed doors and by private, largely … Continue reading →

Posted in A2K3, Conferences, Developing world, Internet and Democracy, Technology | 2 Comments

Lessig stars at the Stanford FCC hearing

Posted on April 18, 2008 by vcs

After Comcast admitted to stuffing seats at the FCC hearing at Harvard Law School February 24th, the FCC decided another hearing was necessary. They chose to hold it at Stanford April 17 and I’m watching the FCC’s videocast of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Internet and Democracy, Media, Technology | Leave a comment

Cass Sunstein and Yochai Benkler at MIT – Our Digitized World: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.

Posted on April 14, 2008 by vcs

Last Thursday April 10 MIT hosted a debate/discussion between Yochai Benkler and Cass Sunstein (audio can be found here). Both are Harvard Law Professors (Sunstein coming here from Chicago in the fall) and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the discussion became very philosophical. … Continue reading →

Posted in Internet and Democracy, Media, Talks | Leave a comment

The Internet Drives Election Results in Malaysia

Posted on April 4, 2008 by vcs

On March 8, elections were held to the Malaysian parliament. The incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, who lost its two-third majority in parliament, had held power since independence from the United Kingdom in 1957. In the months leading up to … Continue reading →

Posted in Developing world, Internet and Democracy, Media | 1 Comment

Do you Know Where Your News Is? Predictions for 2013 by Media Experts:

Posted on March 28, 2008 by vcs

Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of the Berkman Center, is moderating a panel on the future of news at Berkman’s Media Re:public Forum. The panelists were given two minutes and gave us some soundbites. Paul Steiger is Editor-in-Chief of ProPublica, a non … Continue reading →

Posted in Berkman, Conferences, Internet and Democracy, Media, Talks | Leave a comment

Media Re:public Forum Panel on Participatory Media: Defining Success, Measuring Impact

Posted on March 28, 2008 by vcs

Margaret Duffy is a Professor from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and she is speaking at Berkman’s Media Re:public Forum. She leads a Citizen Media Participation project to create a taxonomy of news categories and get a sense … Continue reading →

Posted in Berkman, Conferences, Internet and Democracy, Media, Talks | Leave a comment

John Kelly: Parsing the Political Blogosphere

Posted on March 28, 2008 by vcs

John Kelly is a doctoral student a Columbia’s School of Communications, a startup founder (Morningside Analytics), as well as doing collaborative work with Berkman. He’s speaking Berkman’s Media Re:public Forum. Kelly says he takes an ecosystem approach to studying the … Continue reading →

Posted in Berkman, Conferences, Internet and Democracy, Media, Statistics, Talks | 1 Comment

David Weinberger: How new technologies and behaviors are changing the news

Posted on March 28, 2008 by vcs

David Weinberger is a fellow and colleague of mine at the Berkman Center and is at Berkman’s Media Re:public Forum discussing the difference the web is making to journalism: “what’s different about the web when it comes to media and … Continue reading →

Posted in Berkman, Conferences, Internet and Democracy, Media, Talks, Technology | Leave a comment

Robert Suro: Defining the qualities of information our democracy needs

Posted on March 28, 2008 by vcs

Robert Suro is a professor of journalism at USC and spoke today at Berkman’s Media Re:public Forum. His talk concerns journalism’s role in democratic processes and he draws two distinctions in how we think about journalism that often get conflated: … Continue reading →

Posted in Berkman, Conferences, Internet and Democracy, Media, Technology | Leave a comment

Richard Sambrook at the Media Re:public Forum

Posted on March 27, 2008 by vcs

I’m at Berkman’s Media Re:public Forum and Richard Sambrook, director of Global News at the BBC is giving the first talk. He is something of a technological visionary and his primary concern is with how technology is affecting the ability … Continue reading →

Posted in Berkman, Conferences, Internet and Democracy, Media, Technology | Leave a comment

A Test of the Internet's Free Speech Promise: China and Tibet

Posted on March 25, 2008 by vcs

I haven’t seen any evidence that the internet was an important facilitator of the organization of the protests in Tibet, but citizen reporting on the events in Lhasa beginning March 10 made heavy use of the internet. The interesting question … Continue reading →

Posted in Developing world, Human Rights, Internet and Democracy, Media | Leave a comment

Media Re:public Forum: Los Angeles March 27-28

Posted on March 18, 2008 by vcs

Berkman’s Media Re:public project is bringing people together to discuss the state of participatory media within the current information environment, called Media Re:public Forum. I’m going to be there! Crossposted on I&D Blog

Posted in Berkman, Internet and Democracy, Media | Leave a comment

Internet & Democracy Digital Activism Event

Posted on March 15, 2008 by vcs

On February 7th and 8th, the Berkman Center hosted a three day conference entitled “Digitally-Empowered Activists: Getting the Tools to the People Who Need Them” in Istanbul, Turkey. The presentations highlighted efforts by people to use tools, such as video, … Continue reading →

Posted in Berkman, Internet and Democracy | Leave a comment

Book Review: "What Went Wrong" by Bernard Lewis

Posted on March 15, 2008 by vcs

When we were in Istanbul my mother picked up this book on a whim. It was published in 2002 and entirely written, excepting the preface, before 9/11. The subtitle of the book is “Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response” and … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Developing world, Internet and Democracy, Middle East, Women's rights | Leave a comment

Reducing Election Violence Cheaply – eVoting?

Posted on March 12, 2008 by vcs

I can’t help but notice the violence surrounding the recent elections in Kenya, Pakistan, Zimbabwe (where I still have family) and many other places. To the extent that the problem is citizen mistrust of the voting process, this seems like … Continue reading →

Posted in Developing world, Internet and Democracy, Technology | Leave a comment