The combination of attention engineering and targeted disinformation is destroying the democratic public sphere. What is the solution? Net literacy, though essential, is not enough, argues Howard Rheingold. The monopoly power of the internet companies must be curbed.
The great social democratic achievements of the twentieth century were in institutional innovation. By engaging with the risks posed to democracy by Big Tech, social democracy can both revive this tradition and reimagine its role. But that means leaving the comfort zone of regulation and campaigning for radically different technological infrastructures.
Thinking about ‘what to do’ about disinformation means understanding information’s positive quality as a public good. Abandoning a purely reactive strategy will stand democracies in better stead. Contributions to the new Eurozine focal point ‘Information: A public good’ reflect this way of thinking.
Regulation of media platforms has become an increasingly popular response to the challenges posed by disinformation and hyper-partisanship. But does regulation set a new set of traps for free speech and media diversity? And is it even adequate to the problem?
‘My pain is deciphered and therefore human. She, on the other hand is a muted creature; easier to misinterpret and, finally, dehumanize.’ Ece Temelkuran describes her deep unease at being referred to as an ‘exile’ and how, despite that public role, she shares a fundamental experience with the unnamed refugee.
Information aggressors are not ‘reinventing the wheel’ but exploiting existing media mechanisms and political weaknesses. Journalists have a choice: ignore this fact or accept their role as key players in the security and information space.
Information sovereignty is invoked by autocrats in central Europe to justify media control. However, this should not obscure the concept’s democratic origins. In view of Russia’s ‘hybrid war’, information sovereignty needs to be understood as synonymous with a strong and independent media.
In the midst of a predictably partisan impeachment trial, Donald Trump said not a word about the ongoing process or his abuse of power that led to it. Democrats may not be able to capitalize on Republicans’ exposed lack of morals in this year’s elections, facing deep fragmentation themselves, chaos in their primary processes and a problematic bid for the presidential nomination from an upbeat billionaire.
Maidan set art free from the fight for the political agenda, since everything has become a part of the political agenda. On the other hand, the rapidly accelerating political and geopolitical changes brought several challenges for artists.
The illiberal backlash cannot be sanitized through conventional political morality: liberal democracy must redefine itself in order to win back credibility. Literature and literary debate are not necessarily where that process will start. But if they succumb to dogmatism, it is hard to see where else free thought will flourish.
Social media’s commercial colonization of the internet is clearly detrimental to the public interest. However, calls for an ‘information commons’ go too far: rather, those who own the new information channels must comply with rules set by democratic process.
After ’89, the ideology of ‘free’ markets prevailed not just in eastern Europe, but also in the West. The consequences were particularly evident in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the 2010 euro crisis. What effect did the economic restructuring have on the European project and what are the key issues facing Europe today?
In a politicized age, literary debate seems to be seeking consensus. But many still argue that the task of writers is to voice what would otherwise be seen as unacceptable. Today, the question is as much about how literature is talked about as what it talks about.
Danilo Kiš famously observed that the western bracketing of Balkan literature as narrowly ‘political’ rested on a set of mutually reinforcing stereotypes. Today, following Kiš, Balkan novelists are challenging received wisdom and integrating the political and the poetic in surprising new ways, writes Katarina Luketić.
New knowledge about the neurological effects of music coincides with revived musicological interest in the body. Does this mark a return to the Enlightenment view of music as a matter of the nervous system? A survey of modern musical aesthetics through the lens of medical history.
Speculation may not be the best approach in a trial, but it can be useful for making sense of seemingly nonsensical events happened the way they did. Our authors try their luck in explaining new authoritarianism, the loneliness of online socializing, and women’s advancement in politics.