Democracy is no panacea / Democracy doesn't necessarily mean stability

This is a really interesting opinion posted on Al Jazeera English about democracy and stability by Lev Grinberg, who is a professor of Political Economy and Sociology at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
Overthrowing dictators is a necessary step for starting democratization processes, but after that the road to democracy is still really difficult and challenging.
Check it out!
Democracy is no panacea - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Media and Politics / Wag the dog (1997)

just brilliant! check it out!

Comment on Steinboz Media 260: Bill Ayers and Activism

Steinboz Media 260: Bill Ayers and Activism: "Yesterday Bill Ayers came and spoke at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. His main point was that people should open their eyes and not igno..."

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Bill Ayers speech yesterday, but I have read a lot about him. Your question about how to apply non-violent direct action to face tanks is really interesting. I think that his main point is that the awareness of what is going on in the world is the starting point for being socially active. I agree that the only way to respond to injustice is non-violent direct action and activism, because it is the best way to build something really stable and based on true consensus.

I also think that we should distinguish among completely different circumstances: activism and non-violent direct actions are the voicing "tools" in democracies during normality periods. In Libya nothing seems to run normally, therefore I think that those "tools" should be adapted to the particular current circumstance.

Comment on Terri #media260: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Model

Terri #media260: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Model: "I have been thinking about this for a few years now and after watching the 'Control Room' in class today I was inspired to write about it - ..."

I do agree that there is not a clear answer to the Israeli - Palestinian conflict. Complex problems never have simple solutions. I firmly believe that "simplification" is the hardest need that media and politicians have to deal with. The media and politicians have to simplify their discourse in order to be clear and to reach the non-expert public's attention. What is the result of simplification? People start thinking that Operation Iraqi freedom can be compared to the Israeli - Palestinian conflict, that Palestinian nationalism is moved by religion, and that Iran and Iraq are almost the same country. These simplifications are dangerous because they over-emphasize the distance among factions, possibly creating nonexistent groups and conflicts. Just think about the myth of a conflict between two artificial and erroneous constructs, the "West" and the "Arab/Muslim" world (ex. of a typical simplification: two different entities wrongly associated one to another).
Do you think that media and politicians should also have the duty to somehow educate the public sphere? is "Objectivity" a mirage?

Comment on Middle East and N. Africa Media and Politics: Is Egypt Responsible for Bahrain?

Middle East and N. Africa Media and Politics: Is Egypt Responsible for Bahrain?: "Protesters stormed the streets of Manama, Bahrain yesterday, proving that the political rebellion in Egypt might only be the beginning of a..."

Tunisia was the first Middle Eastern country that started the snowball effect of protests. Even if is likely that some governmental powers of middle east area were about to collapse because of internal pressions, I agree that successful protests in other countries give trust and courage to all the dissatisfied populations of the area.

Question: Why were you thinking that Egypt could be in the process of becoming a terror-influenced society?

I think that chaos is the perfect environment where terror can rise and manipulate the lack of social justice to justify hate and violence. I personally didn't see chaos in Tunisia and Egypt events, on the contrary I have seen the rising awareness of populations about their civil rights. VOICE.

Turkish identities + media = Music in Istanbul

Turkish identities and media? There are many identities and many ways of expression, performance, reproduction and contestation. I think that a really interesting way of voicing is art, pure expression of life. Although my favourite art expression is cooking and linking food to ideas, I am also fascinated by music as social phenomenon, as affirmation of an identity and a culture.
Fatih Akin is a german film director of turkish origin. He directed a lot of films about Turks in Germany and in 2005 he filmed a documentary about the sound of Istanbul called "Crossing the bridge". It is really interesting to see how so many different identities are expressed by music and how intense is the final result. Check it out!

Creation of Identities. Let's start from Nationalism.

As Wikipedia states, Nationalism involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms. I think that the identification of a group of individuals could also be with religion, ideology and even football teams, but the point is always the same. Every kind of identification presupposes the exitance of something "other", something that permits a comparison and which could be fearful or just unknown. The "other" is the first necessary element for the creation of an identity. Once there is something to counteract, a bond among individuals can be created.

Nationalism doesn't differ from other kinds of identity creation: it was born with the idea of modern state or nation state after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. As the world started being organized in entities called states or nation states, nationalism had the basis to rise and to develop his course.

The rise of Nationalism as a phenomenon of mass identification and mobilization has really precise historical causes, as, for example, also the current organization of the world has. The present political world atlas is an historical/political product, that means that there are also many reason for the dominant eurocentric view of history, geography and so on.

For these reasons I think that we should always look at things from a critic point of view and nothing should be taken for granted, even if of course we need some kind of assumptions as starting points to begin an understanding process.

Question. Since history/ geography are strongly correlated with politics, is it likely to use them to "create" some kinds of identities? Definitely, yes.

Consumption. Identity. Politics.

I am what I consume. I consume what I like and what I like is on the Internet. Television, radio and newspapers can be found on the web and their digital forms offer multiple opportunities of non-traditional interaction. I can leave comments, chat instantly with a DJ, and check or suggest related links. This direct interaction with the media is part of a generative process, I am part of the media and I create something new every time I get involved in the process.

I think that my media habits reflect somehow my identity and my point of view about politics. I believe in transparency and participation, which are the two main characteristics of the Internet revolution. I also firmly believe that discussing and sharing ideas are core points of generative interaction, no matter if among people, citizens or web users.

What is a blog?

I think that a blog is the highest level of social interaction in the current media environment. Blogs allow a high grade of interaction among web users, more than any other social media. The blogger doesn't have number of characters restrictions and can post either full articles or just single "disconnected" ideas, every post can be related to others and demand for comments and feedbacks. The free stream of thoughts and ideas creates a proper window on the blogger idea of information, thought as a selection of elements provided to the users.
To leave comments and to refer to primary source documents is the step that makes it a real interaction experience, it is not just a showcase, it becomes a creative process that produces culture.
I think this is the most important aspect about blogs, high level of interaction mixed with no limits to potential access to information (ex. links to primary source documents / related articles / lists of similar blogs) create culture and more awareness of the new ways of socialization.