Billur Aslan: On the tactics used by the Turkish government to structure the Internet

Billur Aslan, PhD candidate at the NPCU, offers her diagnosis of efforts by the Turkish government to control media and, in effect, 'structure' the Internet for users in Turkey:

Various analyses have quickly developed since Turkey’s recent social media bans, viewing it as an attack on free-flow information but there were actually deeper reasons behind the online acts of the government. Considering these, I argue that it is an indication of efforts made by the Turkish government to structure the non-hierarchical order of the Internet by incorporating its own rules and standards. 

The censorship attempts of the Turkish government started with Twitter. Overnight on the 20th of March, all social media accounts that I signed into, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, were all swarmed with the single message “#twitterisbannedinTurkey and the storm of outrage raised by the Turkish Twitter users immediately got the attention of international society. This was the first time since the Gezi Parkı protests that Turkey has extensively occupied the international agenda. In reality, Turkey has been plagued by many political events over the past months. The audio recordings that asserted to implicate Turkey's prime minister in corruption have proliferated in social media since February. Moreover, the recent death of young Gezi victim Belkin Elvan enraged thousands of people in Turkey giving rise to new protests. Yet, none of these developments could manage to ruin the international reputation of the Prime Minister in the way the Twitter ban has. Read on...

Anna Longhini, Visiting PhD student from Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy

 

Anna Longhini, theorising the nature of networks in think tank culturesA new visitor to the NPCU is Anna Longhini, a PhD student in Political Science - specialization in Public Policy - at Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence office. The long-term focus of Anna's research is on foreign policy think tanks and experts' role and influence within European national contexts. Anna came across think tanks some years ago as an intern at a private think tank in Milan. Afterwards, she become more and more interested in understanding the connections between usable knowledge and policy-making. Previously, Anna worked as a business intelligence consultant and studied Public Administration at Bocconi University in Milan. 

Anna is now involved in the campaign for the administrative election to be held in May 2014 with a 'municipal list' in her town in Italy.

Anna published a brief article related to her research yesterday, available here.

Image Operations: Berlin, April 10-12

Ben O'Loughlin is an invited speaker at the conference Image Operations in Berlin organised by Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on 10-12 April 2014. Other speakers include W.T.J. Mitchell, Timothy Lenoir and Nicholas Mirzoeff. 

Below are details of Ben's paper. 

Images of the World, Images of Conflict

Abstract

In the short story Pascale's Sphere Borges wrote, “universal history is the history of a few metaphors.” The history of world politics certainly seems marked by a few recurring concepts and metaphors: the universal and the particular, the inside and the outside, the balance of power, and the ideal of symmetry and actuality of chaos. Across eras, these concepts have shaped the image of world politics held by leaders, citizens and scholars. Such concepts are abstract but become visualized through diplomacy, war and cartography and through the lived experience of world affairs. For critical scholars of International Relations, these concepts and the images they translate into are responsible for conflict, for they become concrete in the states, borders and security dilemmas that propel us from conflict to conflict. It follows that there is a relationship between “the image of world politics” and actual visual images of world politics; between abstract, conceptual understandings of the ontology and mechanics of International Relations and the horrific news and events we witness every day. Borges concludes his story, ‘Perhaps universal history is the history of the various intonations of a few metaphors.’ If so, we are doomed to variations on the same bleak events and the practice of international relations is ultimately tragic, as many of its founders believed. 

NPCU at #ISA2014: Roundtable on International Relations & Communication

 

The International Studies Association (ISA) 2014 Annual Convention takes place in Toronto on 26-29 March. Ben O'Loughlin from the New Political Communication Unit has been invited to participate in a roundtable, 'International Relations & Communication: Connecting Spaces and Places'.
 
Time: Friday March 28th, 10.30 - 12.15
  
A focus on “geopolitics in an era of globalization” underscores the importance of integrating political communication concepts into international relations. Each panelist on this roundtable will address how an analysis of communication and/or information technology contributes to a broader understanding of space and place in international relations. Below are the participants and the general topic area on which they will focus. All will share insights on broader theoretical themes.
 
Participants:
Alister Miskimmon – EU integration: Connecting spaces and places
Laura Roselle – Territory, conflict, and mediatization
Steven Livingston – Seeing geopolitical spaces with new technologies: the consequences of GIS mapping of urban slums and the monitoring of geo-space from outer space
Ben O’Loughlin – Times make space: International relations after connectivity

If you're at ISA we hope you can join us for the debate. 

 

James Dennis in openDemocracy: The myth of the keyboard warrior: public participation and 38 Degrees

NPCU PhD candidate James Dennis has published a new article in openDemocracy entitled 'The myth of the keyboard warrior: public participation and 38 Degrees'. Based on extensive ethnographic research with 38 Degrees over the past year, Dennis makes the case that they are a new kind of political organisation who use ICT to generate more agile and participatory forms of engagement that more traditional forms are currently achieving. 38 Degrees seem able to act as a conduit and vehicle: their 'soft leadership', digital and face-to-face platforms offer ongoing opportunities for ordinary people to step in and do something about an issue they care strongly about.

Dennis can be contacted at @dennisdcfc

2014-03-18 Thierry Giasson seminar: Open, Hybrid or Managed? Online political mobilization and electoral strategy in Québec

Department of Politics and IR Seminar

Tuesday 18 March 2014

5.15 pm in FW101

Open, Hybrid or Managed? Online political mobilization and electoral strategy in Québec

Thierry Giasson (Laval University)

Thierry Giasson is Associate Professor in the Information and Communication Department at Université Laval, in Québec City, Canada. He is the director of the Research lab on Political Communication at the same Institution and the Canadian Principal Investigator of the webinpolitics.com project, a comparative study of online electoral campaigns in France and Quebec. Thierry’s work on web campaigning, digital citizenship, the mediatisation of politics and political marketing has been published in a number of leading journals such as the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Public Affairs, the International Journal of Interactive Communication Systems and Technologies, and the Canadian Journal of Communication. Thierry is also co-editor of the new UBC Press series Communication, Strategy and Politics, where his upcoming edited volume entitled Meet the Press and Tweet the Rest will be published in the fall of 2014.

Welcome to Thierry Giasson - visiting scholar at the NPCU

Dr. Giasson is Associate Professor in the Information and Communication Department at Université Laval in Québec CityThierry Giasson, from Université Laval in Québec City, is visiting the New Political Communication Unit (NPCU) from February-April 2014. Dr. Giasson is currently working on two research projects investigating online political campaigns and digital citizenship.

The first project looks at how political parties in Québec and France campaigned online during their last legislative and presidential elections (respectively) in 2012. During his stay at the NPCU, Dr. Giasson will be working on an article addressing strategic objectives of online campaigns. He will give a lecture on this research in the Department of Politics and International Relations Seminar series on March 18th. This comparative project will end next year with the production of a book dedicated to these two campaigns.

Dr. Giasson’s second project investigates online citizenship in Canada. In the vein of other national large scale studies such as those carried by the Pew’s Center Internet and American Life Project, this SSRHC funded research will address how Canadians use online technologies to engage politically and experience their citizenship. The study will be carried over the next 4 years (2013-2017).  Initial results from the first wave survey currently in the field will be analyzed in April.  A paper highlighting the data (the first of its kind produced in Canada) will be also be presented at next year’s IPSA conference in Montréal.

Over the course of his stay at Royal Holloway College, Dr. Giasson will also be giving guest lectures at Bournemouth University, the Oxford Internet Institute, Lund University and the Université de Paris-Est.

Thierry Giasson is Principal Investigator for the Groupe de recherche en communication politique and Member of the Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship

Seminar tomorrow: ‘Witnessing political upheaval: media, protest and the Arab spring’ - Tim Markham

Department of Politics and IR Seminar

Tuesday 11 February 2014

5.15 pm in FW101

‘Witnessing political upheaval: media, protest and the Arab spring’

Tim Markham

(Birkbeck, University of London)

Tim Markham is Reader in Journalism and Media as well as Head of the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. He is a political sociologist whose work has focused on war reporting and issues of authority, authenticity and morality in journalism. His most recent book ‘The Politics of War Reporting: Authority, Authenticity and Morality’ (Manchester University Press, 2011) draws on interviews with war correspondents and the political phenomenology of Pierre Bourdieu to explore journalistic identity, experience and instinct. Other work of his appears in Celebrity Studies, Journalism Practice, Review of Contemporary Philosophy, and The British Journal of Sociology. Tim’s ongoing research questions the democratising potential of new media practices, asks what audiences are doing when they participate in media, and assesses emerging discourses of journalism in the Middle East.

New article by Pope: Public diplomacy, international news media and London 2012: cosmopolitanismTM

Courtesy of Wikimedia CommonsMark Pope, a PhD student at the New Political Communication Unit, has published a peer-reviewed journal article entitled Public diplomacy, international news media and London 2012: cosmopolitanismTM in Sport & Society. To download a copy click here.

Abstract:

This article investigates the nature of cosmopolitanism in the production and reception of public diplomacy discourse surrounding London 2012. It focuses on three actors: the UK Government, the International Olympic Committee and the international news media. It finds that UK public diplomacy actors and their partners were focused more on the promotion of a competitive identity, albeit a cosmopolitan one, than engagement. It argues that the cosmopolitanism evident in the discourse was a form of branded cosmopolitanism, and, ultimately, this limited the success of UK public diplomacy in achieving its aims. This style of communication – that was evident across the discourse surrounding London 2012 – was exclusionary of key actors to UK public diplomacy objectives. Applying a form of critical discourse analysis, the ideology surrounding the Olympic ideal is revealed as significant to maintaining uncritical acceptance of exclusions and conspicuous contradictions.

What happens on Twitter ... does not stay on Twitter - Cristian Vaccari talk: Tue 21 January

Department of Politics and IR Seminar

Tuesday 21 January 2014

5.15 pm in FW101

‘What happens on Twitter… does not stay on Twitter: the role of social media in online and offline political engagement’

Cristian Vaccari

(Royal Holloway, University of London)

Cristian Vaccari joined Royal Holloway’s Department of Politics and International Relations in 2013 as a Lecturer in Politics. Cristian’s research explores political communication in comparative perspective, with a particular focus on digital media. He has taught at the University of Bologna and at New York University Florence, and is presently Principal Investigator of a three-year project investigating the role of social media by citizens and politicians in Germany, Italy and Britain. His most recent book is Digital Politics in Western Democracies: A Comparative Study (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), and his work has also been published in journals such as Political Communication, Party Politics, New Media and Society, French Politics and the Journal of Information Technology and Politics.

All welcome!