Transparency and accountability in the age of cyberpolitics

For more than a decade, the democratic potential of new media has been discussed extensively in relation to their capacity to empower citizens. They have been credited with enabling an information explosion and the creation of a more transparent political environment, the importance of which is heightened during conflict and war, as theories of International Relations have also underscored. The impact of transparency and publicity on human behaviour is hardly new with Kant being amongst the first to argue that the principles of human action could be ethical only if they were public (Kant 1963 in Brown 2005: 58). In the case of conflict and war and based on Kant’s observation that even if state leaders do not suffer personally, they suffer through the loss of office (Schultz 1999), an open political environment facilitates the unseating of a government that undertakes costly strategies (de Mesquita and Lalman 1992). According to Fearon (1994) and Schultz (2001) domestic political institutions in democratic states enable the disclosure of information about governmental incentives and preferences in a given crisis; and as governments become less likely to engage in bluffing behaviour, bargaining processes are more likely to result in peaceful solutions. In light of the notion of political transparency, this chapter seeks to offer insight into the role of new media in situations of conflict, examining the dissemination of news through the blogosphere and drawing upon the unique quality of blogs to enable citizens ‘to emerge from the spectating audience as a player and maker of meanings’ (Coleman 2005: 274). More specifically, this chapter demonstrates how the contribution of the news framing theory can provide a conceptual tool to unpick the subtle and unseen process through which blogs can form a more open political environment and create a news media system capable of facilitating conflict prevention. [Taken from chapter Introduction

Transparency and accountability in the age of cyberpolitics

For more than a decade, the democratic potential of new media has been discussed extensively in relation to their capacity to empower citizens. They have been credited with enabling an information explosion and the creation of a more transparent political environment, the importance of which is heightened during conflict and war, as theories of International Relations have also underscored. The impact of transparency and publicity on human behaviour is hardly new with Kant being amongst the first to argue that the principles of human action could be ethical only if they were public (Kant 1963 in Brown 2005: 58). In the case of conflict and war and based on Kant’s observation that even if state leaders do not suffer personally, they suffer through the loss of office (Schultz 1999), an open political environment facilitates the unseating of a government that undertakes costly strategies (de Mesquita and Lalman 1992). According to Fearon (1994) and Schultz (2001) domestic political institutions in democratic states enable the disclosure of information about governmental incentives and preferences in a given crisis; and as governments become less likely to engage in bluffing behaviour, bargaining processes are more likely to result in peaceful solutions. In light of the notion of political transparency, this chapter seeks to offer insight into the role of new media in situations of conflict, examining the dissemination of news through the blogosphere and drawing upon the unique quality of blogs to enable citizens ‘to emerge from the spectating audience as a player and maker of meanings’ (Coleman 2005: 274). More specifically, this chapter demonstrates how the contribution of the news framing theory can provide a conceptual tool to unpick the subtle and unseen process through which blogs can form a more open political environment and create a news media system capable of facilitating conflict prevention. [Taken from chapter Introduction

Development and Communication in trade relations: new synergies in theory and practice

This article examines trade relations in Alternative Food Networks as a space where communication practices can prove empowering for rural communities. Drawing on a theory of diverse economies, the article offers an alternative view of the global market, highlighting the social relations that underpin market transactions. These relations are then explored through a case study of a farming community in South India and their interactions with private enterprises in North America and Europe. The findings demonstrate how a dialogical communication process between the two groups can contribute to farmers’ well-being beyond economic growth, creating opportunities for more permanent social change

News blogs: strengthening democracy through conflict prevention

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer greater insight in the role of blogs in the creation of a more transparent news media system and a more democratic political reality. Design/methodology/approach – Framing theory is employed as a conceptual tool to re-interpret existing evidence of the performance of news blogs during situations of political conflict and war. A theoretical analysis is developed setting out the premises of the challenge that blogs can pose to the framing of conflict by mainstream media. The analysis incorporates empirical examples of reporting conflict and war in the blogosphere. Finally, with the aid of international relations theories, the role of blogs is evaluated in terms of the political transparency and accountability they could offer during conflict and war. Findings – The analysis demonstrated that by promoting alternative and progressive voices, blogs have the capacity to shift the power over framing away from the usual sources in the news reporting of political conflict and turn the media system into a greater constraining factor for governments than even before. Originality/value – The paper presents a novel approach to the interaction between blogs and mainstream media by combining theories from the disciplines of communications and international relations. The analysis generated a hypothesis that can be empirically assessed with the investigation of the framing output of influential news blogs and mainstream news media during political conflict and war

Deconstructing the role of ICTs in agricultural development using the Diverse Economies Framework

No description supplie

Deconstructing the role of ICTs in agricultural development using the Diverse Economies Framework

No description supplie

Representation, voice, and producer-consumer communication in fair trade movements: toward new empirical directions

Representation is integral in the remit of the fair trade movement for social justice, but fair trade’s communication is built on stereotypical portrayals that objectify Southern producers. Although such portrayals have received ample scholarly critique for upholding neo-colonial relations by reinforcing western consumers’ colonial fantasies, there is still a dearth of research into if and how a more truthful and dynamic representation can be built. The article moves the debate forward with a novel experiment that explores new possibilities for producer–consumer connections by ‘connecting’ an Indian farming community with a group of consumers in the UK through short videos and stories created by the farmers. The findings highlight the need to re-think the role of representation in fair trade since when farmers construct their representations on their own terms, they engage in reflexive and dialogic processes that prove empowering. Moreover, including the farmers’ voices in these representations has the capacity to challenge consumers’ colonial perceptions about the distant other. The experiment also sheds light on the challenges that are inherent in reframing fair trade’s discourses and creating more inclusive and interactive communication strategies

Domestic institutions and decision-making in foreign policy and conflict situations: the role of the news media and the Greek-Turkish paradigm

In the contemporary era, commonly described as the information age, it comes as no surprise that much attention has been paid to the public and informational dimensions of those domestic institutions that affect international relations and state interactions in situations of conflict. However, no systematic investigation of the role of the news media as a domestic institution has taken place so far. The paper addresses this deficit through a conceptual and empirical demonstration of the latent effects of the media logic and output on governmental decision-making. I suggest that with the use of game theory the news media can be systematically located in the decision-making process as a domestic contextual institution that induces apparently irrational strategic choices in the international domain. An investigation of the coverage that a Greek-Turkish territorial crisis received from the Greek press puts the theory into practice and highlights the significance of the news media in understanding international outcomes. [Taken from chapter introduction

News blogs vs mainstream media: measuring the gap through a frame analysis of Greek blogs

This article offers an empirical examination of the power of independent news blogs to expand the boundaries of public debates, through their capacity not only to hos t volumes of information, but also to frame it in unique packages. Despite the scholarly attention given to blogs as a counterforce to traditional news media, there are unanswered questions regarding the discrepancy in the qualitative characteristics of the debates promoted by these two realms. We aim to offer an empirical test of this potential gap with an innovative content analysis that draws on framing research and corpus linguistic techniques. This is performed in the context of Greece, where a rapid increase in the volume of blogging has created a new platform for political debate . Through a computer - assisted qualitative frame analysis of partisan newspapers and independent news blogs , we find differences in the breadth of certain frames that could prove significant for audiences’ understanding of current affairs