The Zapatista Effect: The Internet and the rise of an alternative political fabric
Harry Cleaver looks at the role of technology and the internet in spreading class struggle.
http://libcom.org/library/zapatista-effect-cleaver
The Zapatista Rebels “The Electronic Fabric of Struggle”
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~miturria/project/zapatistas.html
The Pacifica Counterrevolution Hits WBAI: Another Call for Action
Edward S. Herman
http://www.1worldcommunication.org/pacificacounterrevolution.htm
“Given the importance of the media in hegemonic processes, and in contesting those processes, what is happening to Pacifica, and now WBAI, should be first order business for the left. This was our only radio network, and it is being destroyed!”
Extra! Articles by Edward S. Herman
http://www.fair.org/extra/writers/herman.html
The Noam Chomsky Archive
“This archive is hosted by ZNet, the web site of It contains the
full text to many of Chomsky’s major works, the complete audio to several
important lectures, and numerous articles, interviews and speeches.”
Media Beat
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/
“Media Beat is the insightful weekly syndicated column on media and politics written by FAIR associate Norman Solomon. It runs in newspapers across the country.“
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting — FAIR
“FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints.
“As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.”
Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter, by ELLEN BARRY
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/europe/08moldova.html?_r=1&hp
The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, the social messaging network. The protesters created their own searchable tag on Twitter, rallying Moldovans to join and propelling events in this small former Soviet state onto a Twitter list of newly popular topics, so people around the world could keep track. By Tuesday night, the seat of government had been badly battered and scores of people had been injured. But riot police had regained control of the president’s offices and Parliament Wednesday.
Texting Toward Utopia Does the Internet spread democracy? by Evgeny Morozov
http://bostonreview.net/BR34.2/morozov.php
Labeling a Muslim Brotherhood blog as “undemocratic” suggests duplicity. Thus Western governments, caught up in the heady cyber–utopianism of the last two decades, face a dilemma. Without their investments in blogs, blog aggregators, and video blogs in far–away but geopolitically important places, the online voices of the West’s favorite secular and democratic forces would not carry much weight. Yet, investing in new media infrastructure might also embolden the conservatives, nationalists, and extremists, posing an even greater challenge to democratization. A brief look at the emerging cyber–nationalism in Russia and China provides a taste of things to come.
