The following book review of The Blogging Revolution appeared in the Melbourne Age on September 20: Antony Loewenstein’s journey through the blogging world brings some surprises, says Thuy On. In 2007, journalist Antony Loewenstein travelled to some of the world’s hot spots to meet up with bloggers, activists and dissidents whose cyber activities challenge the…
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New ways to make news matter
My following article is published today by the Melbourne Age: During the bruising Democratic Party tussle with Hillary Clinton in April, a citizen journalist recorded Obama saying that he understood why working-class voters in decrepit industrial towns were “bitter” and clung to “guns or religion”. Despite being a paid-up Obama supporter, writer Mayhill Fowler worked…
Yes, it’s a dictatorship
Don’t be under any illusion about China’s post Olympic Games attitude to human rights: While the start of this week marked the beginning of the month of Ramadan for Xinjiang’s Uighur Muslims, China’s Communist authorities are reportedly cracking down on Muslim religious activity. The Web site for the town of Yingmaili currently lists nine rules…
Beating the western drum
My following essay appears in the Guardian today: During the recent war between Georgia and Russia, bloggers on both sides of the conflict provided searing accounts of atrocities and manoeuvres unseen by western journalists. In a country such as Russia the space for alternative and critical views are rare. The war showed an authoritarian regime’s…
Don’t touch our boy Castro
With the release of my new book, The Blogging Revolution, I’ve been expecting certain elements of the Left to criticise my focus on so-called repressive regimes, rather than closely examining censorship far closer to home (ie. within the US.) It hasn’t taken long. Sydney University academic Tim Anderson – who wrote an article in 2007,…
The Media Report on blogging
I was interviewed on ABC Radio National’s Media Report today on The Blogging Revolution and the ways in which the internet is far more complex than simply being a supposedly democratising force: Antony Funnell: What do Iran, Cuba and Egypt all have in common? Well, they all have governments which suppress dissent and they all…
The Blogging Revolution lands
My following essay appears in today’s Weekend Australian newspaper: The young online tribe is more interested in discussing sex, drugs and rock’n’roll than political revolution, writes Antony Loewenstein Early last month, some Iranian members of parliament voted to debate a draft bill that aimed to “toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society” by adding…
Sports for the white man
The Olympic Games, from a Palestinian perspective: So let’s hope that in the next Games we’ll see contestants competing for a medal in events such as constructing a concrete wall, mixing cement, milking cows, cleaning stairs, and digging sewage ditches along the roads of the capital of the host country. And boycotting China? I’m not…
Let the patriot games begin
My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed: Before the Beijing Games launched spectacularly last weekend, the vast bulk of Australian media expressed general disdain for China, finding little positive to report. It was just the kind of coverage that played directly into the Communist regime’s hands; such is the widespread belief there that the…
Confusion through the Beijing smog
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China: Western critics of Beijing should be careful what they wish for during the Games, writes Antony Loewenstein Amnesty International’s latest report on China’s human rights record makes for depressing reading. “We’ve seen a deterioration in human rights because of…