This book explores the technical, political economic and sociocultural implications of technological change. Using an international political economy approach, the author focuses on how the Internet is used by ethnic minorities to communicate.
In this ground-breaking study M.I. Franklin explores the form and substance of everyday life online from a critical postcolonial perspective. With Internet access and social media uses accelerating in the Global South, in-depth studies of just how non-western communities, at home and living abroad, actually use the Internet and web-based media are still relatively few. This book’s pioneering use of virtual ethnography and mixed method research in this study of a longstanding ‘media diaspora’ incorporates online participant-observation with offline fieldwork to explore how postcolonial diasporas from the south Pacific have been using the Internet since the early ways of the web. Through a critical reconsideration of the work of Michel de Certeau in light of postcolonial and feminist theories, the book provides insights into the practice of everyday life in a global and digital age by non-western participants online and offline. Critical of techno- and media-centric analyses of cyberspatial practices and power hierarchies, Franklin argues that a closer look at the content and communicative styles of these contemporary Pacific traversals suggest other Internet futures. These are visions of social media that can be more hospitable, culturally inclusive and economically equitable than those promulgated by both powerful commercial interests and state actors looking to take charge of the Internet ‘after Web 2.0’. The book will be of interest to students of international politics, media and communications, cultural studies, science and technology studies, anthropology and sociology interested in how successive waves of new media interact with shifting power relations at the intersection of politics, culture, and society.
Postcolonialism and Political Theory explores the intersection between the political and the postcolonial through an engagement with, critique of, and challenge to some of the prevalent, restrictive tenets and frameworks of Western political and social thought. It is a response to the call by postcolonial studies, as well as to the urgent need within world politics, to turn towards a multiplicity--largely excluded from globally dominant discourses of community, subjectivity, power and prosperity--constituted by otherness, radical alterity, or subordination to the newly reconsolidated West. The book offers a diverse range of essays that re-examine and open the boundaries of political and cultural modernity's historical domain; that look at how the racialized and gendered and cultured subject visualizes the social from elsewhere; that critique the limits of postcolonial theory and its claim to celebrate diversity; and that complicate the notion of postcolonial politics within settler societies that continue to practice exile of the indigenous. Postcolonialism and Political Theory is an ideal book for graduate and advanced undergraduate level study and for those working both disciplinarily and interdisciplinarily, both inside and outside academia.
In this systematic and mutual interrogation of radical democratic theory and Internet practice, contributors examine a range of democratic theories in relation to online communication and explore how such communication may advance democracy beyond what is conceptualized and practised within present liberal-capitalist political contexts.
The Handbook of Internet Studies HANDBOOKS IN COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA “Highly recommended.” CHOICE “A state-of-the-art collection that represents and celebrates the diversity of theoretical and disciplinary approaches marking this brave new field. A new must-have reference book for Internet studies.” Caroline Haythornthwaite, University of Illinois “This indispensable volume reflects the complexity of Internet studies – indeed, the Internet itself – by bringing together a diverse set of voices, geographies, disciplines, and arguments. It is not only an important resource for practitioners, but will also spark the curiosity of those on the edges of the field, including humanists, social scientists, and engineers alike.” Michael Zimmer, University of Wisconsin “A comprehensive and useful volume that will appeal to students, teachers, and researchers. I highly recommend it to those who have been following the field since its emergence in the 1990s as well as to those new to the field.” Steve Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago “This handbook is landmark, documenting that Internet studies have now come of age.” Niels Ole Finnemann, Aarhus University To fully understand the impact and significance of the Internet, it is essential to consider its historical, societal, and cultural contexts. This handbook presents a wide range of original essays by established scholars in the field of Internet studies exploring the role of the Internet in modern societies, and the continuing development of its academic study.
Download PDF for free from: http://martenscentre.eu/publications/members-european-parliament-online-use-social-media-political-marketing The appearance of political marketing and campaigning on social media is a relatively new phenomenon, whose major advantages are seen in the rapid transportation of information through the Internet and the possibilities for large numbers of people to connect. This is especially significant for politics on the EU level, which embraces an electoral body of 375 million citizens. Despite the fact that not everyone uses the Internet in Europe, the percentage of those who do is considered to be high enough for its application in politics. In the context of the European Parliament and the constant fall in voter turnout, but also the growing use of Internet in the society, especially electoral campaigns, the goal of this paper is to examine the connection between European politics, Members of the European Parliament and the use of social media, and to give suggestions on how the use of social media in political marketing could be further advanced.
Gender Matters in Global Politics is a comprehensive textbook for advanced undergraduates studying feminism & international relations, gender and global politics and similar courses. It provides students with an accessible but in-depth account of the most significant theories, methodologies, debates and issues. This textbook is written by an international line-up of established and emerging scholars from a range of theoretical perspectives, providing students with provocative and cutting-edge insights into the study and practices of (how) gender matters in global politics. Key features and benefits of the book: Introduces students to the wide variety of feminist and gender theory and explains the relevance to contemporary global politics. Explains the insights of feminist theory for a range of other disciplines including international relations, international political economy and security studies. Addresses a large number of key contemporary issues such as human rights, trafficking, rape as a tool of war, peacekeeping and state-building, terrorism and environmental politics. Features extensive pedagogy to facilitate learning – seminar exercises, text boxes, photographs, suggestions for further reading, web resources and a glossary of key terms. In this innovative and groundbreaking textbook gender is represented as a noun, a verb and a logic, allowing both students and lecturers to develop a sophisticated understanding of the crucial role that gender plays in the theories, policies and practices of global politics.
While we may talk back to the empire, we can’t talk to each other. Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is the great ocean continent. While it is common to understand the ocean as something that divides land, for those Indigenous to the Pacific or the Moana, it was traditionally a connector and an ancestor. Imperialism in the Moana, however, created false divides between islands and separated their peoples. In this BWB Text, Lana Lopesi argues that globalising technologies and the adaptability of Moana peoples are now turning the ocean back into the unifying continent that it once was.
Cultural Diversity and Global Media explores the relationship between the media and multiculturalism. Summarises and critically discusses current approaches to multiculturalism and the media from a global perspecive Explores both the theoretical debates and empirical findings on multiculturalism and the media Assumes the new perspective of mediation of cultural diversity, which critically combines elements of previous theories in order to gain a better understanding of the relationship between the media and cultural diversity Explores media ‘moments’ of production, representation and consumption, while incorporating arguments on their shifting roles and boundaries Examines separately the role of the internet, which is linked to many changes in patterns of media production, representation and to increased possibilities for diasporic and transnational communication Contains pedagogical features that enable readers to understand and critically engage with the material, and draws upon and reviews an extensive bibliography, providing a useful reference tool.
Digital Dilemmas is a groundbreaking ethnographic, mixed method approach to understanding dynamics of power and resistance as they are played out around the future of the internet. M. I. Franklin looks at the way that publics, governments, and multilateral institutions are being redefined and reinvented in digital settings that are ubiquitous and yet controlled by a relative few. Franklin does this through three original and wide-ranging case studies that get at the way that computer-mediated power relations play out "on the ground" through a mixture of overlapping online and offline activity, at personal, community, and transnational levels. Case studies include online activities around homelessness and street papers in the U.S. and around the world, digital and human rights activism carried out though the United Nations, and the ongoing battle between proprietary and free and open source software proponents. The result is a thought-provoking and seminal work on the way that the new paradigms of power and resistance forged online reshape localized and traditional power structures offline.