The revolution appears to have arrived (so long as you don’t mind being a corporate whore): In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers or firefighters. Comparing…
Showing all posts tagged internet
Twittering in Baghdad
Jeremy Scahill wonders about the priorities of the Obama administration: The U.S. State Department has announced it is sponsoring a “New Media Technology” delegation to Iraq to “explore new opportunities to support Iraqi government and non-government stakeholders in Iraq’s emerging new media industry.” Of all of the areas in Iraq in desperate need of attention,…
Their Israel does not exist
Independent Australian Jewish Voices blogger Michael Brull beautifully skewers the parochialism and racism within the Australian Jewish News, a paper containing countless examples of paranoid, bigoted and clueless Jews. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. This is how Jews want to be viewed in the wider community? Some clearly do. Palestinians are…
It’s us and them, at best
Here’s a fascinating collection of Israeli bloggers talking about life as Jews in Israel. The message is depressing, namely that Arabs are virtually invisible and the occupation doesn’t exist. Example one: The truth is, a lot of people like me grew up in Israel, and never really mingled with Arabs. I grew up in Haifa,…
More media panic for the boys
Mondoweiss understands the point exactly in my latest column on why old media simply don’t understand the changing rules of the game: Smart piece by Antony Loewenstein down under saying that the mainstream media are going away not just because of a technological change but because they’re invested more in the establishment hierarchy than in…
We shouldn’t be grieving for the death of newspapers
My following article appears today in Online Opinion: As a journalist who spends the vast majority of my life online, the seemingly never-ending debates about the future of the media and newspapers can be exhausting and predictable. The same mantras are heard over and over again. Where will the news come from when newsprint dies?…
Is our information safe?
Yet another episode in the ongoing lesson; never trust a government to honestly and transparently protect its citizens from “threats”: Britain’s failure to protect its citizens from secret surveillance on the internet is to be investigated by the European Commission. The move will fuel claims that Britain is sliding towards a Big Brother state and…
The technology has a long way to go
Veteran China watcher Rebecca MacKinnon both acknowledges the power of the internet in the Communist nation but also its profound limitations: A new form of highly networked authoritarianism is emerging in China. Call it “Cybertarianism.” It’s not uniquely Chinese, but understanding how the Internet is mediating the relationship between state and society in China can…
Jews behaving badly
Let nobody say that religious Jews are any more virtuous than the rest of us: Apparently God did not make the commandment “Thou shall not commit adultery” clear enough. Hundreds of Jewish men and women who want to cheat on their spouses are flocking to a new Web site for ultra-Orthodox Jews seeking heretical hookups.…