How digital media are transforming Arab culture, literature, and politics In recent years, Arab activists have confronted authoritarian regimes both on the street and online, leaking videos and exposing atrocities, and demanding political rights. Tarek El-Ariss situates these critiques of power within a pervasive culture of scandal and leaks and shows how cultural production and political change in the contemporary Arab world are enabled by digital technology yet emerge from traditional cultural models. Focusing on a new generation of activists and authors from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, El-Ariss connects WikiLeaks to The Arabian Nights, Twitter to mystical revelation, cyberattacks to pre-Islamic tribal raids, and digital activism to the affective scene-making of Arab popular culture. He shifts the epistemological and historical frameworks from the postcolonial condition to the digital condition and shows how new media challenge the novel as the traditional vehicle for political consciousness and intellectual debate. Theorizing the rise of "the leaking subject" who reveals, contests, and writes through chaotic yet highly political means, El-Ariss investigates the digital consciousness, virality, and affective forms of knowledge that jolt and inform the public and that draw readers in to the unfolding fiction of scandal. Leaks, Hacks, and Scandals maps the changing landscape of Arab modernity, or Nahda, in the digital age and traces how concepts such as the nation, community, power, the intellectual, the author, and the novel are hacked and recoded through new modes of confrontation, circulation, and dissent.

Convinced that sexual immorality and unstable gender norms were endangering national recovery after World War One, German lawmakers drafted a constitution in 1919 legalizing the censorship of movies and pulp fiction, and prioritizing social rights over individual rights. These provisions enabled legislations to adopt two national censorship laws intended to regulate the movie industry and retail trade in pulp fiction. Both laws had their ideological origins in grass-roots anti-'trash' campaigns inspired by early encounters with commercial mass culture and Germany's federalist structure. Before the war, activists characterized censorship as a form of youth protection. Afterwards, they described it as a form of social welfare. Local activists and authorities enforcing the decisions of federal censors made censorship familiar and respectable even as these laws became a lightning rod for criticism of the young republic. Nazi leaders subsequently refashioned anti-'trash' rhetoric to justify the stringent censorship regime they imposed on Germany.

This is a study of Vietnam's socialist transition and state transformation, generally known as doi moi. It examines the drivers of socialist-regime change, the nature of the doi moi state, and the basis of regime legitimacy in Vietnam. The Element argues that despite its 'one-party rule' label, the party-state apparatus that channels said rule has become fragmented. State-building during the doi moi period involved negotiations and bargaining that redefine authority and power relations within the state apparatus. The party-state's accountability projects are designed to target the specific self-aggrandizing tendencies of the state apparatus, its policies, and abuse of state power. At the leadership level, patterns of resource allocation underlying the doi moi growth model as well as the VCP's cadre rotation approach have accommodated central and sub-national state elites across sectors and levels, helping shore up the legitimacy of the doi moi state in the eyes of the state elite. The combination of sustained economic growth, expansion of political space, accountability, and tolerance of small-scale public protests have been factors in strengthening regime-society legitimization.

How disputes over privacy and security have shaped the relationship between the European Union and the United States and what this means for the future We live in an interconnected world, where security problems like terrorism are spilling across borders, and globalized data networks and e-commerce platforms are reshaping the world economy. This means that states' jurisdictions and rule systems clash. How have they negotiated their differences over freedom and security? Of Privacy and Power investigates how the European Union and United States, the two major regulatory systems in world politics, have regulated privacy and security, and how their agreements and disputes have reshaped the transatlantic relationship. The transatlantic struggle over freedom and security has usually been depicted as a clash between a peace-loving European Union and a belligerent United States. Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman demonstrate how this misses the point. The real dispute was between two transnational coalitions-one favoring security, the other liberty-whose struggles have reshaped the politics of surveillance, e-commerce, and privacy rights. Looking at three large security debates in the period since 9/11, involving Passenger Name Record data, the SWIFT financial messaging controversy, and Edward Snowden's revelations, the authors examine how the powers of border-spanning coalitions have waxed and waned. Globalization has enabled new strategies of action, which security agencies, interior ministries, privacy NGOs, bureaucrats, and other actors exploit as circumstances dictate. The first serious study of how the politics of surveillance has been transformed, Of Privacy and Power offers a fresh view of the role of information and power in a world of economic interdependence.

The American founders did not endorse a citizen's right to know. More openness in government, more frankness in a doctor's communication with patients, more disclosure in a food manufacturer's package labeling, and more public notice of actions that might damage the environment emerged in our own time. As Michael Schudson shows in The Rise of the Right to Know, modern transparency dates to the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s-well before the Internet-as reform-oriented politicians, journalists, watchdog groups, and social movements won new leverage. At the same time, the rapid growth of higher education after 1945, together with its expansive ethos of inquiry and criticism, fostered both insight and oversight as public values. "One of the many strengths of The Rise of the Right To Know is its insistent emphasis on culture and its interaction with law...What Schudson shows is that enforceable access to official information creates a momentum towards a better use of what is disclosed and a refinement of how disclosure is best done." -George Brock, Times Literary Supplement "This book is a reminder that the right to know is not an automatic right. It was hard-won, and fought for by many unknown political soldiers." -Monica Horten, LSE Review of Books

Iconoclasm, Identity Politics and the Erasure of History surveys the origins, uses and manifestations of iconoclasm in history, art and public culture. It examines the various causes and uses of image/property defacement as a tool of political, national, religious and artistic process. This is one of the first books to examine the outbreak of iconoclasm in Europe and North America in the summer of 2020 in the context of previous outbreaks, and it examines the implications of iconoclasm as a form of control, censorship and expression.

Contrary to popular assumption, the development of stronger oversight mechanisms actually leads to greater secrecy rather than the reverse. When Should State Secrets Stay Secret? examines modern trends in intelligence oversight development by focusing on how American oversight mechanisms combine to bolster an internal security system and thus increase the secrecy of the intelligence enterprise. Genevieve Lester uniquely examines how these oversight mechanisms have developed within all three branches of government, how they interact, and what types of historical pivot points have driven change among them. She disaggregates the concept of accountability into a series of specified criteria in order to grapple with these pivot points. This book concludes with a discussion of a series of normative questions, suggesting ways to improve oversight mechanisms based on the analytical criteria laid out in the analysis. It also includes a chapter on the workings of the CIA to which a number of CIA officers contributed.

Vast changes in technologies and geopolitics have produced a wholesale shift in the way states and other powerful entities think about the production and retention of popular loyalties. Strategic communication has embraced these changes as stakes increase and the techniques of information management become more pervasive. These shifts in strategic communications impact free speech as major players, in a global context, rhetorically embrace a world of transparency, all the while increasing surveillance and modes of control, turning altered media technologies and traditional media doctrines to their advantage. Building on examples drawn from the Arab Spring, the shaping of the Internet in China, Iran's perception of foreign broadcasting, and Russia's media interventions, this book exposes the anxieties of loss of control, on the one hand, and the missed opportunities for greater freedom, on the other. New strategic communication arises from the vast torrents of information that cross borders and uproot old forms of regulation. Not only states but also corporations, nongovernmental organizations, religious institutions, and others have become part of this new constellation of speakers and audiences."

'Soros has become a standard bearer for liberal democracy' Financial Times George Soros - universally known for his philanthropy, progressive politics and investment success, and now under sustained attack from the far right, nationalists, and anti-Semites around the world - gives an impassioned defence of his core belief in open society. George Soros is among the world's most prominent public figures. He is one of the history's most successful investors and his philanthropy, led by the Open Society Foundations, has donated over $14 billion to promote democracy and human rights in more than 120 countries. But in recent years, Soros has become the focus of sustained right-wing attacks in the United States and around the world based on his commitment to open society, progressive politics and his Jewish background. In this brilliant and spirited book, Soros offers a compendium of his philosophy, a clarion call-to-arms for the ideals of an open society: freedom, democracy, rule of law, human rights, social justice, and social responsibility as a universal idea. In this age of nationalism, populism, anti-Semitism, and the spread of authoritarian governments, Soros's mission to support open societies is as urgent as it is important.

Rather than abstract philosophical discussion or yet another analysis of legal doctrine, Speech and Silence in American Law seeks to situate speech and silence, locating them in particular circumstances and contexts and asking how context matters in facilitating speech or demanding silence. To understand speech and silence we have to inquire into their social life and examine the occasions and practices that call them forth and that give them meaning. Among the questions addressed in this book are: who is authorized to speak? And what are the conditions that should be attached to the speaking subject? Are there occasions that call for speech and others that demand silence? What is the relationship between the speech act and the speaker? Taking these questions into account helps readers understand what compels speakers and what problems accompany speech without a known speaker, allowing us to assess how silence speaks and how speech renders the silent more knowable.

Sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), this book explores the complex construction of democratic public dialogue in developing countries. Case studies examine national environments defined not only by state censorship and commercial pressure, but also language differences, international influence, social divisions, and distinct value systems. With fresh portraits of new and traditional media throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia, authors delve into the essential role of the media in developing countries. Case studies illuminate the relationship between the State and the media in Russia, as well as the challenges faced by journalists working in Kurdistan. Further cases reveal bureaucratic censorship of books in Brazil, regulatory dilemmas in Australia, state policies in post-colonial Malawi, and the potential of oral culture for the strengthening of democratic conversation. Media, Development and Democracy brings the liberal democratic media model into new terrains where some of its core assumptions do not hold. In doing so, the authors' collective voices illuminate pressing issues facing our current global dialogue and our liberal and democratic expectations concerning communications and the media. This essential volume works as a magnifying glass for our current times, forcing us to question what kind of media we want today

Banning them, securing us? explores the proscribing - or banning - of terrorist organisations within the United Kingdom across a period of twenty years. The process of banning specific organisations, Jarvis and Legrand argue, is as much a ritualistic performance of liberal democracy as it is a technique for increasing national security from the threat posed by terrorism. Characterised by a repetitive script, an established cast of characters and a predictable outcome, this ritual provides an important contribution to the construction of Britain as a liberal, democratic, moderate space. It does so, paradoxically, through extending the reach of a power that has limited political or judicial oversight and considerable implications for rights, freedoms and political participation. Offering a discursive analysis of all British Parliamentary debates on the banning of terrorist organisations since the introduction of Britain's current proscription regime in 2000, this book provides the first sustained treatment of this counter-terrorism power in the United Kingdom and beyond. -- .

The Freedom of Information Law allows any person to request and obtain, without explanation or justification, existing, identifiable, and unpublished governmental records, including documents, data, and video. Signed into law in New York in 1974, FOIL remains a powerful public panacea in unlocking information and maintaining vital transparency in our state government. Databases detailing public employee compensation, online viewing of highway department agreements and school district superintendents contracts, and text message exchanges all disclosed and made public through FOIL requests are now common, as the last decade has ushered in an increased demand for public information. Orzechowski guides readers through the creation of the law and the concept of open government in the twenty-first century, offering a foundational understanding of how the legislation works, who is exempt, and how the law was created for every citizen of New York State. Dozens of perspectives from state senators to a Pulitzer Prize winner to watchdog organizations outline the impact of New York State's law. Orzechowski examines the drafting of current legislation to strengthen the existing law and offers perspectives from those who are confronted with the real challenges of accessing public information every day: journalists, attorneys, and citizens. This exploration of FOIL, including narrative, scholarly examination, and how-to guides, serves as a tour of a law that continues to impact residents across the state.

No figure stands taller in the world of First Amendment law than Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. This is the first anthology of Justice Holmes's writings, speeches and opinions concerning freedom of expression. The book contains eight original essays designed to situate Holmes's works in historical and biographical context. The volume is enriched by extensive commentaries concerning its many entries, which consist of letters, speeches, book excerpts, articles, state court opinions and U.S. Supreme Court opinions. The edited materials - spanning Holmes's 1861-1864 service in the Civil War to his 1931 radio address to the nation - offer a unique view of the thoughts of the father of the modern First Amendment. The book's epilogue, which includes a major discovery about Holmes's impact on American statutory law, explores Holmes's free speech legacy. In the process, the reader comes to know Holmes and his jurisprudence of free speech as never before.

Bearing Witness While Black tells the story of this century's most powerful Black social movement through the eyes of 15 activists who documented it. At the height of the Black Lives Matter uprisings, African Americans filmed and tweeted evidence of fatal police encounters in dozens of US cities-using little more than the device in their pockets. Their urgent dispatches from the frontlines spurred a global debate on excessive police force, which claimed the lives of African American men, women, and children at disproportionate rates. This groundbreaking book reveals how the perfect storm of smartphones, social media, and social justice empowered Black activists to create their own news outlets, which continued a centuries-long, African American tradition of using the news to challenge racism. Bearing Witness While Black is the first book of its kind to identify three overlapping eras of domestic terror against African American people-slavery, lynching, and police brutality-and explain how storytellers during each period documented its atrocities through journalism. What results is a stunning genealogy-of how the slave narratives of the 1700s inspired the Abolitionist movement; how the black newspapers of the 1800s galvanized the anti-lynching and Civil Rights movements; and how the smartphones of today have powered the anti-police brutality movement. This lineage of black witnessing, Allissa V. Richardson argues, is formidable and forever evolving. Richardson's own activism, as an award-winning pioneer of smartphone journalism, informs this text. Weaving in personal accounts of her teaching in the US and Africa, and of her own brushes with police brutality, Richardson shares how she has inspired black youth to use mobile devices, to speak up from the margins. It is from this vantage point, as participant-observer, that she urges us not to become numb to the tragic imagery that African Americans have documented. Instead, Bearing Witness While Black conveys a crucial need to protect our right to look into the forbidden space of violence against black bodies, and to continue to regard the smartphone as an instrument of moral suasion and social change.

Reviews: Ronald Eyerman, Professor of Sociology, Yale University and author of 'Myth, Meaning and Performance' - Fun to read... It makes a strong case for the democratic power of blogging and the internet, a form of empowerment for the voiceless. Norman Solomon, author of 'War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death' - Anyone eager to understand how cyberspace has changed our possibilities - and how it often remains trapped in grim social contexts - would do well to read Erik Ringmar's A Blogger's Manifesto.

This book addresses a major problem in contemporary American higher education: deprivations of free speech, due process, and other basic civil liberties in the name of favored political causes. Downs begins by analyzing the nature and evolution of the problem, and discusses how these betrayals of liberty have harmed the truth seeking mission of universities. Rather than promoting equal respect and tolerance of diversity, policies restricting academic freedom and civil liberty have proved divisive, and have compromised the robust exchange of ideas that is a necessary condition of a meaningful education. Drawing on personal experience as well as research, Downs presents four case studies that illustrate the difference that conscientious political resistance and mobilization of faculty and students can make. Such movements have brought about unexpected success in renewing the principles of free speech, academic freedom, and civil liberty at universities where they have been active.

Radio talking head Ziegler has been fired numerous times in his career for using language or terms deemed inappropriate. He talks about how this works in a free speech"" society.""

This book addresses a major problem in contemporary American higher education: deprivations of free speech, due process, and other basic civil liberties in the name of favored political causes. Downs begins by analyzing the nature and evolution of the problem, and discusses how these betrayals of liberty have harmed the truth seeking mission of universities. Rather than promoting equal respect and tolerance of diversity, policies restricting academic freedom and civil liberty have proved divisive, and have compromised the robust exchange of ideas that is a necessary condition of a meaningful education. Drawing on personal experience as well as research, Downs presents four case studies that illustrate the difference that conscientious political resistance and mobilization of faculty and students can make. Such movements have brought about unexpected success in renewing the principles of free speech, academic freedom, and civil liberty at universities where they have been active.

Whether free speech is defended as a fundamental right that inheres in each individual, or as a guarantee that all of society's members will have a voice in democratic decision-making, or as 'marketplace of ideas' that facilitates the emergence of truth by allowing vigorous competition among diverse points of view, the central role of expressive freedom in liberating the human spirit is undeniable. Enshrined in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution with a brevity that would belie its subsequent history of intricate judicial parsing, freedom of expression will, as the essays in this volume illuminate, encounter new and continuing controversies in the twenty-first century. Advances in digital technology raise pressing questions regarding freedom of speech and, with it, intellectual property and privacy rights. As the expansion of the Internet tests, and often confounds, legal statutes and precedents established in the era of the printing press, cyberspace looms as a relatively uncharted frontier for free speech and copyright law. Campaign finance reform limits the formerly sacrosanct category of 'political speech', while campus speech codes have spawned debates over '

It is often said that one person or society is 'freer' than another, or that people have a right to equal freedom, or that freedom should be increased or even maximized. Such quantitative claims about freedom are of great importance to us, forming an essential part of our political discourse and theorizing. Yet their meaning has been surprisingly neglected by political philosophers until now. Ian Carter provides the first systematic account of the nature and importance of our judgements about degrees of freedom. He begins with an analysis of the normative assumptions behind the claim that individuals are entitled to a measure of freedom, and then goes on to ask whether it is indeed conceptually possible to measure freedom. Adopting a coherentist approach, the author argues for a conception of freedom that not only reflects commonly held intuitions about who is freer than whom but is also compatible with a liberal or freedom-based theory of justice.

A deeply researched legal drama that documents this landmark First Amendment ruling-one that is more critical and controversial than ever. Actual Malice tells the full story of New York Times v. Sullivan, the dramatic case that grew out of segregationists' attempts to quash reporting on the civil rights movement. In its landmark 1964 decision, the Supreme Court held that a public official must prove "actual malice" or reckless disregard of the truth to win a libel lawsuit, providing critical protections for free speech and freedom of the press. Drawing on previously unexplored sources, including the archives of the New York Times Company and civil rights leaders, Samantha Barbas tracks the saga behind one of the most important First Amendment rulings in history. She situates the case within the turbulent 1960s and the history of the press, alongside striking portraits of the lawyers, officials, judges, activists, editors, and journalists who brought and defended the case. As the Sullivan doctrine faces growing controversy, Actual Malice reminds us of the stakes of the case that shaped American reporting and public discourse as we know it.

The Freedom of Information Act, developed at the height of the Cold War, highlighted the power struggles between Congress and the president in that tumultuous era. By drawing on previously unseen primary source material and exhaustive archival research, this book reveals the largely untold and fascinating narrative of the development of the FOIA, and demonstrates how this single policy issue transformed presidential behaviour. The author explores the policy's lasting influence on the politics surrounding contemporary debates on government secrecy, public records and the public's 'right to know', and examines the modern development and use of 'executive privilege'.