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Category Archives: Foundations for Participation

Vote Suppression in a Digital Age

Essay by Tova Andrea Wang A version of this piece was published in the Miami Herald on October 19, 2008. It is based on a recently released report: “Deceptive Practices 2.0 Legal and Policy Responses” written by Common Cause, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law and the Century Foundation.* In the last several […]

Is the lack of web link and search engine accountability the elephant in the room of online reputation?

Essay by Chris Dellarocas. Continue the conversation on online reputation with Judith Donath The majority of debate on online reputation and free speech has focused on questions that relate to content authorship and hosting (see for example, this book and related discussion here, here and here). There has been far less discussion about the responsibilities […]

Is reputation obsolete?

Essay by Judith Donath. Continue the conversation on online reputation with Chris Dellarocas. In the past, most conversations were ephemeral: spoken words quickly slipped into the past, resurrected only if a listener later repeated them from memory. Today, many discussions and transactions live on indefinitely. Online conversations are often permanently archived and events in the […]

One Missed Call?

Refocusing our attention on the social mobile long tail Essay By Ken Banks, Founder, kiwanja.net In “The White Man’s Burden – Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good”, William Easterly’s frustration at large-scale, top-down, bureaucracy-ridden development projects runs to an impressive 384 pages. While Easterly […]

How I Learned to Stop Worrying about New Media Literacy and Love the Internet

Essay by Evgeny Morozov A response to Dan Gillmor’s Principles of a New Media Literacy Continue the conversation with Daisy Pignetti. While it offers a useful general perspective on the future of media literacy, Dan Gillmor’s essay doesn’t fully answer some of the most fundamental questions about the relationship between education, media, and democracy. Let […]

The Right to Communicate

Essay by Daithí Mac Síthigh, a response to Freedom of Listening, by Lewis Hyde Lewis Hyde’s thoughtful essay on network neutrality and the trials of 18th-century preachers-without-pulpits is a timely reminder that the issue of net neutrality is not one that should be the sole business of a small group of Internet activists and lobbyists. […]

Computers and Writing: Lessons in Literacy from the New Orleans Blogosphere and the Composition Classroom

Essay by Daisy Pignetti, a response to Principles of New Media Literacy, by Dan Gillmor Continue the conversation with Evgeny Morozov In 2006 I wrote a piece about the burgeoning New Orleans blogosphere for the launch of Placeblogger.com. The crux of that essay, and of the site itself, was to call attention to the value […]

Principles of a New Media Literacy

essay by Dan Gillmor with responses by Daisy Pignetti and Evgeny Morozov. The democratization of media is no longer in doubt. Digital media tools, increasingly cheap and ubiquitous, have spawned a massive amount of media creation at all levels, most notably from the edges of networks. These networks have provided vast access to what people […]

Of, By, For and Open to the People

essay by Ellen Miller I have always had a particular affinity for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who entered Harvard Law School at the tender age of 18, and then graduated in 1877 at the top of his class and with the highest marks of any student in the law school’s history . His nearly […]