Interview with Ethan Zuchkerman

Tuesday November 13th 2007

Interview with Ethan Zuckerman

Antonio and I met Ethan Zuckerman of the Berkman Centre tonight and here’s a quick transcript of the interview:

The notion of new media as a tool for democratic and civic empowerment is still a very controversial issue that has not been settled. The Berkman centre is clearly biased in advocating that there’s a direct path between new technology and democracy. Mary Joyce for one is a real enthusiast.

I’m a bit of a contrarian: while there’s evidence of small movements using these tools to be heard, for the most part, it’s still old media that matters.

It’s still radio and TV that can get people out on the streets.

Look at the recent examples abroad: when Musharraf wants to clamp down, he begins by taking control of the TV station. Internet is not considered a real threat to his control of Pakistan.

There are few people who would actually suggest internet is disempowering. It’s just that for the most part, the technology is over-promising. Most of the world still do not have access to Internet.

China

Many members of the current US administration believed the introduction of Internet in China would bring democracy. That is clearly not the case: the Chinese regime has blocked the western sites and produced their own equivalents of Google and Flickr, etc. These provide a great deal of content to the Chinese but simply censure the topics that threaten the regime’s hold on the populace. The Chinese people seem satisfied with the tools; If anything internet has become a tool for the Chinese regime to placate its citizens.

The only other examples of spontaneous use by the Chinese of the internet have led to very populist, anti-Japanese, anti-American rallies. Not exactly a vector for democracy, as we imagined.

A further example of this (in China) is the difference in coverage of the issue of the Genocide Olympics.

The persons to contact on this issue are:
- Rebecca McKinnon at the Berkman Centre.
- Isaac Mao, a Chinese blogger ( I quote: “ Before we look for freedom of speech, we need freedom of thought”; He believes there’s no deep-seated desire to think alternatively in China.)

No hard state will ever abolish or cut off these technologies: it’s simply unsustainable. The expatriate populations of these countries are too large. They are choosing instead to apply soft censorship, as in the Chinese example.

Political Blogs

Blogs have changed the nature of journalism. I have been carving a space of para-academia for years.

But it will take time before it becomes a dominant media.

Political blogs, mostly right-wing ones are claiming new technology will put an end to all the foreign hard regimes. There is no empirical evidence defending this.
Internet remains an elite technology as opposed to the mainstream media.

It will still be a long time before it becomes mainstream and it does not appear to be killing broadcast media as fast and as surely as we thought.

Political blogs are also polarizing the public, making them more partisan. Cass Sustein defended this premise in Republic.com. Natalie Glance challenged that and tried to demonstrate that blogs also encourages cross-thinking, in her paper “Divided they blog”.

American Politics and New Media

Americans continue to think new technology in terms of old politics.

The example of Howard Dean’s internet fundraising is often cited. People forget to mention that most of that money goes to buying TV ad time!

TV is still the main media affecting American politics, by far.

People to contact:
Andrew Keene
Cass Sustein, Republic.com
Alex Jones, Shorenstein.

All other internet news phenomena, such as the Jena Six, George Allen & “Macaque”, the involvement of latino high-schools in the pro-immigration rallies, all of these only became news when they finally hit the mainstream media.

Russia

There are some more interesting examples of internet as a civic tool abroad.
In Russia, there was a massive internet movement against an anti-aging pill called Gravacol (turns out it was just sugar pills) that mobilized people and organized forms of industrial / commercial sabotage.

Person to contact: Evgeni Morozov from Byelorussia (and the example of LuTube).

Still in these hard regimes, no authority feels threatened by internet and internet communities. It has never led to any real massive demonstrations.

If anything, Americans are over-enthused by the internet as a tool for social change because it reflects the total absence of any real change in the American political system.

Africa

Other examples of internet impacting society.

The current Ethiopian regime is quite dictatorial, and they brutally repressed some student demonstrations. The blogosphere has become the sole dissident space, and there was one blogger in particular, a wife of an Italian diplomat, who recorded all of the regime’s abuses. Her pseudonym was Addis Ferrengi. She was eventually chased out of the country by the authorities.

Zimbabwe is another example where the authorities have denied traditional media access into the country. Net has become critical in getting information in and out of the country.

The authorities passed a communications interception bill, which routs all traffic.

Nonetheless, these are rare examples that present internet as a relevant civic tool, which is false. It is an elite tool that won’t mobilize massively.

Bahrain

Mohammed Youssef circulated air images of royal properties, showing the incredible disparities in that country. Google Maps was eventually closed, although the images that were circulating were on a pdf file.

Conclusion

If I had to frame the question differently, I’d say the issue is about storytelling. The internet offers the possibility to tell one’s story which will have a greater political impact than civic mobilization, in the long term.

Nevertheless, always keep in mind: although the commodity market has globalized, and human mobility has increased, and although the mobility of bytes may seem infinite, people are not interested in expanding their world.

No one here is really interested in the dissident movement in Somalia. People’s media consumption is parochial. We’re interested in local news and eventually news about our nearest neighbors or largest trading partners. And that’s about it.

It is difficult to transcend differences such as language and culture.

Even among dissident bloggers across the world, there is little solidarity among them. Each is focused on their local struggle.