Ephemeral media

A new research team at Nottingham is looking at 'ephemeral media' through a series of workshops starting next year. The fleeting, ephemeral nature of online media content has been a real problem for those of us studying how people make use of news because you can't always find the news people say they consumed. I spent 6 months in a library basement reading newspaper editorials during my PhD which was profoundly boring but at least the media content wasn't going to disappear. Today, even digital archives we think are reliable are subject to political interference and we cannot be sure what is missing from the original story, or what stories are missing. So this attempt to get a grip on our ephemeral media is timely.

Obama and the CNN effect

Speculation about the likely foreign policy agenda of Obama in the past week has touched at times on whether the US will be more likely to intervene in situations of genocide or ethnic cleansing, for example in Congo. This brings to mind debates about the 'CNN effect'. In the 1990s the emergence of satellite TV stations like CNN suddenly increased the scope for live broadcasts from zones of conflict and catastrophe, making audiences demand "something must be done" and politicians being pressured into intervening (or pulling out). Many politicians anecdotally suggest they did feel some pressure. When political leaders lack a clear policy, media could expose this, leading to policy on-the-hoof, without due consideration. But what we've seen in the last week is a different kind of media pressure. These commentaries may be preparing the US public, or other publics around the world, such that when Obama does command an intervention, nobody is too surprised. This is a more subtle and long-term media effect, as the parameters of the "thinkable" and "do-able" under an Obama presidency are sketched out.

PhD call for papers: Great Powers and Strategic Narratives

 

Call for Advanced PhD student participants:

Catalytic Research Workshop: Great Powers after the Bush Presidency: Interests, Strategies and Narratives

International Studies Association Annual Convention New York City, 14th February 2009

Application Details

We are looking for well qualified PhD students to present at an ISA catalytic research workshop on Great Powers after the Bush Presidency to be held in New York City on 14th February 2009.

We would welcome applications from advanced PhD students working in the areas of Russian foreign policy and/or on how major powers seek to influence international affairs. Scholars working in International Relations and Communication Studies are encouraged to apply.

Applications should include a one page outline detailing the scope of the proposed paper and a full curriculum vitae. Applications should reach us no later than the 12th December 2008. The ISA will provide financial support to the successful applicant to attend.

Please email applications to Dr Alister Miskimmon, Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London: alister.miskimmon@rhul.ac.uk

Further details here.

 

Online radicalisation: an explanatory fiction?

Earlier this year Nick Reilly, a young Muslim convert suffering Asperger’s syndrome and with a mental age of ten, tried to explode a nail bomb in a restaurant in Exeter. He did explode the bomb but in the restaurant toilet by mistake, harming only himself. Press coverage immediately described Reilly as a person radicalised ‘over the internet’, or ‘brainwashed online’ as The Times helpfully put it. What could this mean? For some years now security policymakers have been under pressure to find out how the online radicalisation process works, but little progress has been made. Yes, we know how Al-Qaeda and other groups use the internet for organisation and propaganda functions, but whether and how the internet is used for ‘brainwashing’ is a mystery. But this may because it is fundamentally unknowable. Why? First, it presumes that we can isolate the effects of online activity from the broad set of relationships any person encounters every day. But while certain combinations of offline meetings and online engagement may lead a person to become an advocate or practitioner of violence, it is unlikely to be the product of online activity alone. Second, and more importantly, it makes less and less sense to speak of ‘online’ or ‘offline’ behaviour in the first place. ‘Radicalising material’ may be sent by Bluetooth, consumed on a cellphone, and responded to by text messaging. Researchers found schoolchildren swapping images of Ken Bigley’s beheading in 2004 doing this on their phones. Where they being radicalised? No, and none of it was online anyway. Were security practitioners to try to trace ‘online radicalisation’ they would not be able to construct a complete explanation.

There appears a generation for whom an imaginary figure exists, the ‘sad loner’ sitting in his bedroom (never her bedroom) in the dark being radicalised, brainwashed, or programmed. This may be what the psychologist Burhuss Skinner called an explanatory fiction: something we need to visualise in order to make sense of a larger process. In psychology, that fiction was ‘the mind’, which doesn’t technically exist in any observable sense. So this is not like the Higgs Boson particle which is predicted in particle physics and which Cern’s large hadron collider may allow scientists to observe. It is a heuristic, a conceptual entity only. There are ‘vulnerable’ people like Nick Reilly at the start. And there are acts of violence at the end. Somewhere in between was presumed to be a process of online radicalisation. It is becoming increasingly clear this makes little sense.

Insignificant Text

For most, the tinkle of a text message arriving in their pocket will be a kindly note from a friend or lover, letting them know where the party’s at, or that you must remember to pick up some star anise for that Blumenthalian delicacy you promised you would prepare. However, you’ll be glad to hear, text messaging is also being put to use in far more novel ways, particularly in parts of the world with no access to the web.

Leapfrogging

The advantages of GSM (mobile phone) networks are clear for developing countries where no tradditonal telephony exists. Telecoms companies are able to ‘leapfrog’ the hard task of building physical networks over large areas, and concentrate their efforts on providing wireless coverage. So while we have a huge increase in services available online in developed countries, similar services are being made available to the in the developing world through text messages.

The Economist reported last week that the old example of ‘ an Indian fisherman calling different ports from his boat to get a better price for his catch’ no longer goes far enough, and provides details of payments and banking systems now in operation, conducted by SMS, in different parts of the developing world.

While of course many see the uses that SMS is being put to as an indicator of a possible explosion of services when more advanced mobile data systems become available to those who previously had no web access, it’s crucial to remember it is the very cheapness, availability and accessibility of this technology which is driving its popularity.

Oh, and if you’re wondering how exactly a fisherman can use his mobile so far away from a phone mast, take a look at these ’999 with Michael Burke’ style stories of SMS survival at sea and in the air.

New article: The 2008 Digital Campaign in the United States: The Real Lesson for British Parties

Nick Anstead and I have just published an article "The 2008 Digital Campaign in the United States: The Real Lesson for British Parties" in a special double issue of the journal Renewal. The issue is timed to coincide with the Labour Party conference, which takes place next week. It contains a range of interesting papers.

Here's an excerpt from our conclusion, followed by the editors' description of the volume.

"Our analysis leads to an important conclusion for British politicians seeking to harness the power of the internet.

While it is certainly the case that British parties and candidates can learn something from the United States, precisely how they should measure their success in so doing is far from straightforward. The challenge is as much one of institutional design as it is about the adoption of the latest technology: how do we reform British politics to set free the full democratic potential of the internet? This is a long term project, but it could lead to huge rewards. Many of the issues identified in this article as significant are now frequently debated in the UK: democratising party organisations, forging links between parties and broader citizen campaigns, reforming campaign finance laws, and entrenching a culture of constitutional pluralism, to name but a few. It is now imperative that the relationship between political institutions and technology is considered in these debates.

The real lesson of Obama 2008 is that British parties need to approach this issue from two complementary perspectives. They should design their online campaigns so that they mesh with the aspects of their organisational structures and Britain’s electoral environment that they value and wish to maintain. But they should consider simultaneously how they might democratise their organisational structures and the electoral environment in ways likely to catalyse internet-enabled civic engagement."


RENEWAL Vol 16 No 3/4

A special double issue for autumn 2008 offers essential reading on the present economic, political, environmental, social, and ideological crisis. And it points to the new ideas, initiatives and alliances that could contain the right's revival and renew progressive politics.

With contributions from ADAM LENT on the excesses of the City and the crisis of civility ... MATTHEW WATSON on Gordon Brown's choice of intellectual hero... GRAHAM TURNER on the credit crunch as the consequence of unequal globalisation ... JOHN HOUGHTON on the failure of the market to deliver affordable and sustainable housing ... WILL DAVIES on the limits of New Labour's expertise ... SUNDER KATWALA on the need for a new pluralism ... JON CRUDDAS on reclaiming aspiration ... ANDREW SIMMS on the prospects for a green New Deal ... ROBIN WILSON on social democratic solutions to today's global challenges ... DAVID LAMMY on what we can learn from the US elections ... NICK ANSTEAD AND ANDREW CHADWICK on online campaigning ... DEBORAH LITTMAN on building grassroots movements ... KARMA NABULSI on mobilising to reanimate political institutions ...

PLUS.

a major essay by STUART WHITE on the economic thought of Andrew Glyn...

Notebook: LEN DUVALL on Tory London; and GIDEON RACHMAN on McCain vs Obama...

...and reviews by COLIN CROUCH on 'bad capitalism'; PAUL SEGAL on the causes of global poverty; and BEN JACKSON on the return of American liberalism

RENEWAL 16.3/4 is being sent out to subscribers now and can be ordered online from http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals.html

--

RENEWAL
Email info@renewal.org.uk
Website http://www.renewal.org.uk

Great Powers after the Bush Presidency: workshop on geopolitical narratives

Ben O’Loughlin, Alister Miskimmon (RHUL), and Andreas Antoniades (Sussex) have been awarded a Catalytic Workshop Grant of $5,000 by the International Studies Association to hold a workshop on the theme, ‘Great Powers after the Bush Presidency: Interests, Strategies and Narratives’. The workshop will take place on 14 February 2009 in New York City prior to the ISA Annual Convention.

The workshop begins an investigation of how leading world powers pursue interests in the world through the use of narrative strategies. Great powers have always gained internal and external utility from the strategic projection of national narratives. But two trends warrant a renewed focus on such strategies. First, the long-term rise of emerging powers to challenge US pre-eminence will entail narrative ‘work’ on their part, both domestically and internationally, as they each adapt to new power balances. Second, a transformed communications environment means narrative strategies must account for an extended global media ‘menu’ of channels and the unpredictable presence of dispersed, participatory media which can undermine strategic narratives. By examining how major powers project their narratives around key events through the discussion of a series of case studies, this workshop offers the starting-point for an empirically-led re-assessment of theories and approaches to analyzing the intersection of interests, strategies and narratives, to explain the forces shaping Great Power politics at the beginning of the 21st century.

Agreed participants include David Dunn (Birmingham, UK), Andrei Tysgankov (San Francisco State), Geoffrey Roberts (Cork), Laura Roselle (Elon), Kathy Fitzpatrick (Quinnipiac), Vivien Schmidt (Boston), Philip Seib (Annenberg USC), Ted Hopf (Ohio State), Hongying Wang (Syracuse), and Adrian Hyde-Price (Bath). There is also funding for a Young Scholar, to be recruited through open competition later this year.