MICHAEL KRONA

Lately I have went through a rather extensive amount of research and writings on right-wing movements in Europe, fascist political parties and how they during the last decade have not only entered several national parliaments, but etablished themselves in these parliaments (on both regional and national level). One of the latest example is the national election in Czech where the two right-wing populist parties ANO and Usvit were given increased support and influence in parliament.

 

This emerging trend, even if trend perhaps is the wrong term since it has been evident for several years, has often been approached through discussions on who is voting for these parties rather than understanding the mechanisms creating the political discourse that legimitize these parties and movements. Here I would like to emphasize two, in my opinion fundamental, dimensions in a potential explanatory model. And these are just two things (out of so many other) to remember when thinking about or discussing this topic.

 

1/ Right-wing extremist parties and movements early adopted Internet as a vital mean for gaining support.

The literature and research on this subject rather cohesively suggest that for the extreme right, Internet is perhaps the most important tool for gaining support. Seldom do for example left-wing movements, utopian communist agendas or Marxist ideologists share the same strategic use and widespread attention in relation to Internet. Of course it helps that Internet provides the opportunity for anonymity, making it easier to express opinions that is far more tabu in present democratic society than for example opinions supporting the ideas of Marx or Lenin (given present the political climate in Europe). It is not to far fetched to claim that several right-wing parties to a large extent has managed to reach support among demographic groups that they never would have been able to if it wasn’t for Internet and new media technologies. And one shoud remember that during the 1990’s, a time when the extreme right was starting to grow substantially, these organizations were often excluded from mainstream media and were forced to use alternative media to reach people. Hence, few arguments would suggest that it would be better to silence these voices.

 

2/ Contemporary media- and political discourse around Europe emphasizes conflict rather than consensus.

Even though mainstream media seem to have a problem with highlighting immigration policy in a balanced way (often it results in dichotomies of good vs bad), this dimension involves much more than media logic. When studying how news media frames certain questions it is easy to outline specific news values and structures that dominates. Conflict is for example much more interesting for an audience than consensus (and some news media can create conflicts in a report about an empty room). And since political parties need the mainstream media as much as the media need political parties, a discoursive cooperation evolves. In the same way as Richard Jackson argued for how our perception and talk around the war on terrorism were creted in an interplay between news media/journalists, politicians, legislators and ordinary citizens – we can assume that the way we think and talk about both immigration and multiculturalism as well as the right-wing movements themselves, is constituted by a similar interplay. The words we use, the concepts news media use, the angles and framing of these issues – all result in a specific way of thinking.

 

And when several factors in this demand a simplification of the world and of complex questions, our perception is also simplified and neglects important and rather basic moral dimensions of human behaviour, of humanity and acceptance. The spiral we are in, where we tend to observe an extremely rapid growth of right-wing parties and ideological ideals based on not seldom homophobia, racism, islamophobia and fear become an increasingly legimitized political discourse, must be challenged in a more profound way than what is happening. The responsibility is with politicians, with journalists and with strong opinion makers. And above all with ourselves.

 

Enlighten your children, work intensively in elementary education, scrutinize mainstream journalism and challenge what appear as natural. Never be afraid to raise a voice against this development. Not even if strange and unpleasant emails may appear in your inbox.

 

Never ignore the fact that Europe today is highly influenced by thoughts rooted in fascism and nazism.

 

I wish that last sentence sounded exaggerated.

 

As technology successively becomes more and more integrated with everyday life and our perception and fascination of its significance increases, it also encapsulates a current Zeitgeist of contemporary society in which technology constitute a fundamental part of democratic development. This can of course be a very good thing if the technology serves its purpose and its function is agreed on by involved actors. During the last few months, and last few days in particular involving Sweden in different ways, a lack of this agreement has become very visible.

As the events surrounding the computer specialist and former CIA-employee Edward Snowden continues to evolve, exposing NSA surveillance activities on a global scale, the intellectual debate on moral and ethics regarding government strategies for social control intensifies. The internet surveillance sector has become an industry in which sales of technologies to authoritarian regimes is out in the open. Western cooperations earn billions of dollars from sales of surveillance systems, hence supporting several governments to uphold their abuse of power and exercise social control of its citizens. Whether it is surveillance of internet communications or through CCTV cameras in public places, the Orwellian society has become a complex array of trajectories in which the governmental rhetorics of the necessity of surveillance to obtain security has started to be challenged in more sophisticated and coordinated ways than before. The recent example of NSA cooperation with the Swedish FRA is just one contemporary manifestation from which a growing distance between goverments and citizens occur and civic distrust increases. The national critique in Sweden has been rather homogenous and strong, emphasizing the close ties between NSA and FRA when it comes to obtain secret intelligence on Russia and its political elites. Considering Swedens complicated history with Russia, the criticism appear quite natural.

The point however is that the mechanisms of surveillance, the intrigued cooperations between agencies and governments that in both direct and latent ways affect everyday lives for citizens as well as perception of goverment rule, are becoming both more visible and more complex. At the same time the interest and take on it tend to shift towards a more pragmatic stand. In comparison to the case of Wikileaks a couple of years ago, the debate after released documents seems to have changed direction from a focus on leading figure/hero/traitor (Julian Assange) to the actual content and concequences. The initial interest for Snowden has rested and instead the revelations of NSA activities have made headlines all over the world (just compare it with the initial interest for US warfare and diplomatic relations that soon turned into a massive discussion about Assange himself). Without a doubt this is a sign of good health in the intellectual debate; a debate that is necessary to participate in and problematize due to the increasing pace in surveillance sectors regarding technological development, political relations and the marketization of a surveillance-industry. It is without a doubt reasonable to believe that there is more to come in this matter, not only involving Sweden.

 

This subject, but in terms of more general discussions and theorizing on surveillance and civic activism towards it, is of interest to me at the moment when writing an article on different ”veillances” of society (sur- and sous) – arguing for the need to discuss not only the one or the other, but rather take a more comprehensive approach on how these veillances correspond to each other. I will develop more specifically on this article in the blog during the next couple of days.

An article/blogpost that falsely claimed that the swedish politician Björn Fries had died spread online in early October. The text violated his personal integrity and accused Fries, who for decades has been engaged with the struggle against racism and right-wing movements, for being a druguser and that an overdose had supposedly killed him. It continues with several fabricated stories, blatant lies and violations of Fries, who in turn chose to report the matter. The other week we learned that the head prosecutor decided not to start a preliminary investigation but close down the case, based on an argument that nothing significant public or private interest are disregarded by not opening a preliminary investigation.

 

In an era of intense debate about people’s ethical and moral conduct in relation to Internet and free speech, this decision is not only surprising but utterly unreasonable. Free speech, our constitutionally protected freedom of speech, is not only abused by individuals but they are also offered to continue by the same system of law that is set to defend it.

 

Additionally, the safeguarding of personal integrity is neglected.

 

This case is basically a question on what the legal system, through the perspective of constitutional law and freedom of speech, is most willing to protect? In current legal texts concerning defamation it is stipulated that you must not disseminate information about a person at risk of subjecting that person to other people’s “disrespect” (swedish ”missaktning”, no matter the forum (internet or physical reality). Opinions on Internet are as protected under constitutional free speech as opinions expressed in any public place.

 

The problem with the legislation is that it has not (yet) taken into account the ”digital tail” following harassment through Internet, such as propagation rate, vulnerability and the difficulty of protecting the individual’s private sphere and integrity. Current legislation is not sufficient (which has been illustrated through several verdicts in similar cases during the last year).

 

It is obvious to agree on the importance of our freedom of expression both regarding the physical world and an Internet forum. But it is not acceptable that we have in 2013 have a legislation, in which we build our trust and state legitimacy on, that completely ignores aspects such as rate of spread and consequences for individual integrity and privacy that strategic abuse of free speech online may result in.

 

It is a frequent argument that new regulations and legislative measures takes a long time to implement and that technological development by its nature will always be ahead of proposed regulations around it. Perhaps that is true. But there is no end in itself that the system of law, ie. the state, should be the leading factor or the institution that should tame and stay ahead of technological development. The fact that our legislative institution must seriously begin working to update an admittedly noble but far too obstructive law around defamation online, does not mean that we are to put faith in that the state should tell citizens how technology and Internet may and should be used. It is still a matter of actual utterances and expressions of individuals, human action grounded in concepts like ethics and morality, however, in this case also the aftermath when located and spread online. We have a tendency to overlook this when we quickly become immersed in discussions about technology as either a tool or a barrier for democracy.

 

We live in a society where technological innovation is leading the way and where we have the freedom to use technology in ways that benefit society. But when that freedom is abused, as in the case above of the supposed death of the very living Fries, the legal system should and must be there for the individual and strongly protect what is the mainstay of our democratic society, namely the personal integrity.

 

The fact that the head prosecutor didn’t even consider the case worth trying makes it difficult to see how we can get anywhere on this issue. It is precisely through the effort of trying a case that we can challenge the prevailing system.

Later this week I will give lectures on contemporary philosophy and theories of science and knowledge. This steps away from the more media- and sociological centered theoretical arguments that my teaching often consists of. However I find it very vibrant to work through disciplines, transgressing boundaries of human and social sciences. The common foundation in scientific theory for both these paradigms/traditions can actually be traced back to ancient and later modern philosophy and ideas on the existence of truth, faith and knowledge. And as a matter of fact, about two years ago I started doing research and writings on this subject, mostly as a leisure acitivity, and my interest for it has sustained and hopefully helped me through different intellectual endeavors ever since. My purpose with these writings is to explain and suggest bridges between the philosohical arguments of especially the Enlightenment period, and our present experience of social phenomenon. In other words I try to provide illustrative answers to the question of what theory has to do with reality (something that many of us are struggling to comprehend).

 

One of the main dilemmas I am interested in, is the relation between religion and science. The conflict between the two holds an enormous historical heritage and is still one of the major dilemmas of human kind and our existence. The dimensions of this conflict include concepts of morality, ethics, knowing, truth, faith and knowledge (all central concepts of especially the Enlightenment period in western Europe). Dealing with these concepts are not easy, but certainly stimulating.

 

What is for example man’s true knowledge of things and the nature of the self? How does it correspond to what we think we know something about? Fascinating questions – both existential and concrete. There must of course be a point of reference to this form of philosophical input and to one of the ultimate dilemmas to science and theory of knowledge. It is within this dilemma that all directions and traditions in modern philosophy to some extent actually begins. The paradigm of nature sciences has by definition been interested in the conceptualization of the objects that constitute the world itself. The desire to describe these objects true being, as they really are, all under the superior patronage from the concept of objectivity, has in my opinion marked the history and shaped the modern way of thinking. And I can’t explain why, but it aggregates an interest; a keen interest to explore, elaborate and write about these issues. Especially the ever lasting question whether or not religion and science can be combined and nurture each other. I spend a great deal of time to read contributions of Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Newton, Hobbes and Pascal, and their respective handling of this dilemma. Maybe one could go so far to say that their way to deal with and handle this question, marks their heritage, their place in modern history. At least I choose to ascribe this question that type of significance.

 

Hopefully I can mediate my curiosity in the classroom as well, and not only in my own writings. Both current and future ones.

The other week I gave an online live-video lecture on our international master programme in Communication for Development, and within this a course on New Media, ICT and Development. I really enjoy taking part and teach in this programme, and the lecture I gave was titled ”Resistance Technologies and Civic Engagement – Digital Media and Political Activism in the MENA-region”. I thought it could be useful to both put out the link and also write an introduction to the subject, or a contextualization for the lecture. So feel free to read the next section and after this introduction you can watch the lecture through the link I will put in the end of the post. Here goes..

 

Given the expansion of political use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), the scholary debate within social sciences in general and media- and communication studies in particular, can be divided in three major catogories. First the empirical and theoretical contributions focusing on whether the use of ICT could embrace deliberative democracy through encouraging a fundamental digital model of democracy. This argument presumes that the normative full potential of the Internet has not yet fully been explored. Second, it is a matter of how citizens are enabled to obtain information on political issues, drawing on studies arguing for diversity and transparency of information. Finally a third category which focuses on participation and more engaging practices of citizens. The common frame of reference involves a notion of a new digital culture, based on late-modern values and central concepts like freedom of expression, social egalitarianism, secularism and interantionalism.

When integrating these theoretical notions on ICT with offline political participation and engagement, the concept of ’digital political participation’ emerges (DPP). This refers to the political activities carried out by citizens through ICT. The theoretical context for DPP is divided between those who argue that online engagement also constitutes an impact factor to offline participation, not least due to the capacity to mobilize and encourage a more passive civic sphere, and those who argue that Internet has no effect at all on offline political participation. The former seem to be the dominant paradigm in the intellectual discussions on the impact of ICT on social and political change and in either case the participatory culture of and through ICT that has emerged has marked the development and use of media technology, especially in relation to the rapid growth of social movements and NGO:s.

Several studies on political activism have connected to a rather complex field of social movements and their organizational use of new media. One of the first and most recognized examples is the Zapatistas, a peasant movement based in the city of Chiapas, Mexico, fighting for a more decentralized structure of society. The movement has since its formation in early 1990’s included an extensive use of ICT as a significant mean of political activism in order to spread their message and recruit more support in the struggle against the Mexican state. Even though political activism has been carried out through and with help of media platforms before, the digital activism as a tool for mobilization and organisation is due to the expanding ICT development during the 1990’s and onwards. While anti-nuclear movements, peace movements as well as feminist groups several decades were to use radio, television and magazines to promote causes in the middle of the last century, current media landscape provides completely different possibilities to engage and recruit through media technology.

It is important to consider the fact that the emergence and growth of early social movements in the 1950’s went in parallell with the expansion of mass media technology, especially television in US and Europe. Television played a significant part of the movement’s development in both national and trans-national sense. In this context, television also put emphasis on the ambivalence of universalism vs. particuralism in modern politics. On the one hand it provided a national mediated public sphere contributing to re-construct national identities, and on the other hand opened up to closed cultural horizons, de-mystifying foreign cultures. During the Vietnamn war, the US government could use television for national mobilization, and at the same time the anti-war movement could gain support through the televised images from the war that was being broadcasted to a mass audience in the news. Another example is the role of television in former Eastern Europe during the 1970’s and 1980’s. State ambitions to create a politically controlled cultural unit were mainly implemented through a strategic, censored and governed use of television. At the same time, as studies in the aftermath of the collapse of communism have showed, television and the contemporary boundarylessness in information and communication during the 1980’s undermined government social control of its population.

Since then the role of media technologies has been more associated with and discoursively focused on Internet and mobile communications. The earlier mentioned Zapatista movement’s use of ICT is here considered a corner stone in the discussion on media technology and political change. However, the more recent and still ongoing events and uprisings in the Arab World starting in late 2010 is not only an illustrative case for understanding the role of technology in relation to promoting social and political change, but also an example of how an often used celebration of technology (liberation tools) has backdrops that need to be included in the framework for grasping the current media landscape and patterns of communication. One of the key issues and starting points is adequate to emhasize already here; namely the complexity of dealing with an illuminative and blurry dimension of traditional politics and right-wing scales. Social movements, NGO:s, grassrot-movements and political activists targeting traditional politics extend former limitations of democracy and thereby constitute an important object of study, not least seen in the MENA countries (Middle Easterns and North Africa). The relation between online and offline mobilization of citizens struggling for freedom against authoritarian states and governments during the Arab Spring has though sometimes been approached through rather simplified arguments, especially in the news media, favouring the notion of media technology as the main trigger of these events. And it is the simplification on the role of technology that empowers a need to contextualize and consider explanatory models for the implications of a recurrent praising of technology during civil unrest and political upheaval. It is vital to acknowledge the field in which questions of how we view the role and significance of ICT in socio-political development and as potential link between online and offline political engagement, is placed. Considering the present media ecology as a network society one must pay attention to the mechanisms behind the perception and ideological understanding of the contemporary role of technology in this rapidly evolving digital media landscape.

 

You can watch my lecture HERE  (please fast-forward to about 12.30 in the clip)

Yesterday I participated in an event focusing on Internet and mobile technologies. My contribution was in a panel debate discussing impacts/effects on our daily life through an increased use of the mobile phone for social interaction, commerce and extended communication. It was a very interesting day and you can watch the debate (in swedish) here.

Thank you to the organisers and fellow discussants.

 

 

The role of the media in war and conflict has for a long time been an important part of media research, partly as a result of humanitarian consequences but also because of its inherent political and economic importance on a global level. The impact of radio World War I, television journalism mediating the Vietnam War and the role of social media during the recent uprisings in the Arab world, are all examples of how the media in different ways and to varying degrees, have played a vital part in discourses surrounding wars and conflicts. But how do the news reporting from conflicts correspond with reality, and with the way people perceive the world order?

The period after the Cold War ended, usually referred to as the time when Western liberal democratic ideals would go global and world peace would characterize the end of a tumultuous century. But what was overlooked in this optimism was the highly complex internal conditions in states and regions that failed to float with the tide of neo- liberalization and become part of the impending globalization processes. Instead, they were characterized by fierce internal strife, civil war and military conflicts based on ethnic or religious differences. During the the last decade of our former century, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, there were 57 major armed conflicts in the world, and only three of them were between states (Iraq/Kuwait, India/Pakistan and Eritrea/Ethiopia). The rest consisted of internal conflicts within countries (SIPRI 2002). And these conflicts are complicated to understand, both for us and for journalists. There are for example those with clear geo-strategic and economic interests (such as the Iraq war as a battle between oil interests), there are conflicts based on national and ethnic interests (such as the war on the Balkans in the late 1990s), and there are invisible conflicts (eg Sudan and Darfur) that are not visible on the international news agenda, which rather often is dominated by conflicts in which the U.S. is involved in the role of liberator and peacemaker. And it’s these invisible conflicts that I would like to discuss.

 

Distortions in the news coverage of conflict favouring Western interests are palpable, and there are several books on the subject. One of the most interesting I have encountered is Virgil Hawkins ‘ Stealth Conflicts ‘ (2008), a book which, incidentally, seems to have been overlooked in the academic field. Hawkins develops a clear and harsh criticism against the established media’s foreign coverage in general, and news coverage of conflicts in particular. He emphasizes how we often attribute the global information society (the amazing flow and amount of free information) in a purely positive sense, but in fact, the information often lacks diversity, variety or critical depth. Rather the information is redundant, especially journalistic news reporting. The latter is something that Jonathan Stray also noted in an intriguing article for the Nieman Journalism Lab where he studied 800 Web articles about the same event. It turned out that ALL but 121 were identical, 13 contained at least one personal/unique quote and only 7 were based on original journalistic work. The conclusion is that all the other articles are results of pure depreciation/rewrites of other journalists, without even having to leave the editorial office.

 

Hawkins book also points out the relationship between what we think/know about the world’s conflicts and what/how the media actually reports. Among other things he shows a chart that lists the major conflicts (in death tolls) in recent years. The ranking of the conflict really exhibits the difference from priorities in news value that most western media companies represent. For example: what do you think is the conflict from its inception in 1998 has had over five million dead, has had involvement of military forces from nine countries and played out in an area the size of Western Europe, but few in the West even noticed?

 

The answer is Congo-Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo) and in view of the huge number of dead, the conflict is one of the two largest since World War II.

(And the second of the two major conflicts since 1945? Many would answer Vietnam, perhaps considering the huge amount of pop-cultural references to the mythical Vietnam War, but no, it is actually the Korean War)

 

Countries and conflicts following the Congo Kinshasa in Hawkins study include Sudan, Angola, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq. And at the very last scene, which also emphasizes Hawkins argument, comes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This is the conflict that for long have had a privileged place in newspapers, tv-reports and opinion pages. I would argue that it is, with brief interruptions, by far the most commented war reporting in western media. And the symbolic power of journalism around conflicts is hard to argue against, especially when reading a 2003 study conducted among university students in Australia, where an overwhelming majority of respondents thought that Israel- Palestine was the world’s deadliest conflict.

According to Hawkins, the media has failed in its dual role: they act neither as a reliable mirror of reality or as a watchdog over stakeholders and powers. 88 percent of the world’s conflict-related deaths after World War II have occurred in Africa (6 percent in Asia, 4 percent in the Middle East) but the priorities of news media institutions seem almost the exact opposite.

 

There is thus a great need to discuss the news coverage that comes out of conflicts, but above all what is not visible in the mainstream war journalism.

As I sit down and try to conduct a literature overview on the performed research on the MENA-region and the political upheavals during the last two years, the word of a biological attack in Syria, killing perhaps over a thousand civilians, reaches me. The horrific images being broadcasted on for example Al-Jazeera crawls under your skin and a sense of hopelesness returns. This goes not only for the Syrian population, but combined with the situation in Libanon, Jordan and above all Egypt, the visionary and optimistic ideals and discourses of the Arab Spring is seriously starting to backdrop. In Syria the situation for activists, both online and offline, is still hard to comprehend in terms of the Assad-regime’s continuing abuse of power. On top of this comes the current biological attack (even if the facts are hard to confirm from the closed country).

On a macro-political level it is even more complicated. We know that China and Russia (as well as the US of course) are playing a vital part in the UN precaution towards the conflict. And I don’t see why Assad would be interested in UN inspections at this point, rather his regime will make even more efforts in trying to create divides between the opposition and the public. And the question reformulates itself from when this will end, to if it ever will?

Even if my research interest in the region relates to political activism and the use of media technology, I still have a keen interest in the wider socio-political conflicts. The mentioned current situation relates to a context that is needed to comprehend before making judgments on the western engagement and interventions, namely the proximity between western states and cooperations with regimes in the Middle East. The close connections between governments and states, through diplomatic, financial, political and military bonds, goes far back and certainly collide with moral public opinion, especially in times of crisis and human/civilian suffering. It would be fair to say that national interest often takes out humanitarian interest. For example, the US yearly support the Egyptian military with an annual 1,3 billion dollars and from countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait there are offers of even more financial support in line with their own agenda in removing the Muslim Brotherhood from power. The US interest in the region is not only influenced by factors such as the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, but also the right for its navy to pass through the Suez canal (which is strategically important for operations connected to the war on terrorism). Through this background it is easy to understand the political implications of abandoning and cut off Egypt.

The military in Egypt recently arrested, and through televised images, humiliated the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamad Badie. During the last week over a thousand people have been killed according to recent estimates, all after military attacks on islamist camps in Cairo and the following demonstrations. The country is in a deep polarized state in which former Mubarak allies have been reinstated on high political posts and the secular forces are cheering for the generals. So is it possible to redeem the democratic visions, not only in Egypt but in the region in total?

When I teach on the subject I sometimes bring up the example of Iraq and the US intervention a decade ago, all under a promising flag of bringing democracy to a state that hadn’t seen it. Clashes in the chaotic and extensive aftermath of the Saddam regime proved to be much harder to overcome than the Bush administration had set out to do. Ethnic, religious and civil groups of society, boundaries rooted through the entire past century, soon overthrew western attempts to place a model of democracy on top of a highly complicated state of social and political structures. The result instead was a devastating and everlasting conflict of Vietnam War proportions. The number of fractions and oppositional groups openly stating that democracy is not an option, are increasing and since they grow in support the situation becomes more complex than ever before. This development is valid for several countries in the MENA-region.

The same visionary, optimistic discourses that came with the liberation of Iraq also surrounded the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, however in a completely different context. The plan for internalizing democracy in Egypt seemed promising. But now we realize that the plan was badly executed and carried out way to fast. The Muslim Brotherhood had tremendous claims for power as well as an election apparatus at hand. But fundamental ingredients in a democratic system was lacking, referring to a free press and media, legislation promoting human rights as well as a rule of law in general. The lack of a free press became clearly illustrated to me when I discussed the Egyptian revolution with influential blogger and writer Sahar El-Nadi about a year ago (available to watch here), and she made several points on how citizens opposed the state censored media system, contributing to the extensive use of social media during the uprisings.

Another important aspect of the outcome is that several political actors on the highest level of power was connected to fractions which didn’t recognize their antagonist oppositional groups and their right to exist. Also, the military held a far to strong position and intrigued in order to retain its power.

But in order for Egypt (as well as other countries in the region) to manage a restructuring with democratic incentives, the relations to the west is crucial and this is important to acknowledge. It is just a matter of what type of relations. Military support, diplomacy behind closed doors etc is one thing, but Egypt and other countries need foreign investments from the west and especially a continuing tourism to lay a foundation for a new society.

In my opinion it is not possible to conduct election processes in Egypt now. First the country must obtain aid (political and financial) to build social institutions, agree on constitutional frameworks supporting human rights and embrace ideal of a free press. The pace (including the natural problems following) of “democratization” after the Mubarak-regime must not be repeated.

Time is not always of the essence.

At the moment I conduct the finishing touches of a text on Syria and the role of citizen-journalism and online-video broadcasting through mobile communications. Leaving the detailed description and analysis to the forthcoming publication, I am struggling to decide whether or not to enter, hence adding to the publication, a discussion on surveillance vs. sousveillance; the attempt for social control by governments vs. citizens use of same technology to observe and control its governments (from a grassroots perspective). The neologism of sousveillance was coined by Steve Mann, a pion­eer in wearable computing at the University of Toronto. In the 1990’s he rigged a head-mounted camera to broadcast images online and found that it was great for documenting everyday mal­feasance, like electrical-code violations. He also discovered that it made security guards uneasy. They’d ask him to remove the camera and when he refused they’d escort him away or simply tackle him.

The perhaps most famous example of this feature could be when Los Angeles resident Ge­orge Holliday videotaped police officers assaulting Rodney King in 1991, after being stopped for a traf­fic violation. From the voyeuristic images a debate on police brutality emerged and the officers were put on trial. The example manifests an unplanned sousveillance, opposite to in for example the Arab Spring abd Syria in which the strategic use of capturing regimes’ abuse of its populations. In this latter case the technology is primarily used by citizens through a conscious implementation in real time often with specific purposes.

 

But the purpo­ses aside, the current society being balanced between sur- and sousveillance technology is no longer a uto­pian vision but an implemented reality. Since the attempts from regimes in Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries to control the technology and integrate the same technology that has empowered citizens to resist and mobilize protests in their own operations, contemporary society must be conside­red technocratic in the sense that control and strategic use of technology during these circumstan­ces is extremely important feature for stakeholders on both sides. The struggle over informat­ion control has been going on for a long time but currently we are witnessing how contex­tual power balances have been evened out, much due to the technological design and innovation sup­porting democracy, citizens and free speech.

 

The implications of this feature is often described as liberating, fair and democratic. However when analytically proceeding towards the long-term macro sociological implications, the perspective becomes more troubling. The social control of surveillance by goverments over citizens, mainly illustrated in totalitarian regimes, has thoughout history resulted in a sense of fear. Jeremy Bentham’s (1838) historical consideration of the ‘panopticon’ and a social system where the monitoring and observation made people aware of the fact that they might be monitored, although didn’t know. This impact was found, according to Michel Foucault in writings from the 1980’s, to implicate that the mo­nitoring through both symbolic and pragmatic use of the panopticon within a specific social context (such as a prison) could influence people to think and act in a certain way based on the fear that they could be monitored, thus given rise to opportunities for social control. The panopticon was part of the industrial revolution that embraced a need for industrial monitoring where owners and other people in power could monitor public places just prisons and factories.

 

So given this sense of fear, isn’t it also natural to consider the risks/desperation/actions of governments when the situation is no longer one-, but two-way monitoring? It is this particular consequence I find highly interesting in this matter: what are the implications of governing when sousveillance features, the alteration of social control, spreads? To my knowledge this is by far a question that is largely unanswered. We are starting to see attempts from goverments to resume control, to resume former domination and legimitizing it through rhetorics of “safety” and “security”. But in order to grasp a deeper macro-perspective on this recent development, the stated question should be regarded in several intellectual levels/disciplines as well as in processes of engineering, production, distribution and use of technology.

And as I write this I realize that would be a case of double standards if not to emphasize this in my text. Hence, back to work.

 

If anyone know of vital references to this overall theme, feel free to share your thoughts with me at michael.krona@mah.se

The combination of using this blog for strictly professional writing with a more personal narrative, I sense can be useful for me. Besides, several people have asked me to write some posts about myself for a change.

Hence, some ramblings of unstructured thoughts….

The other day I discussed the matter of belonging and identity within the academy with a former colleague. The costs and benefits of being an academic when still very young and unexperienced. We worked together for a few years but have now ended up in separate directions of life. Either way, our discussion made me think about the professional self, the sacrifices and benefits that comes with working in research, writing and teaching – devoting most part of your life to this. I went into this profession after I finished my undergraduate studies in which my advisor and professor encouraged me to apply for a doctoral. My interest in writing, in science and social debates suited well in the context I was in at the time and I applied for a position and was offered it. At the age of 24.

First time I was set to teach at the university was at the sociology department, scheduled to give a lecture to an international master class in a subject far from my original interest and discipline. The nerv-wracking experience of entering a class-room full of students my age or older, I still recall. But I told myself that if I can do this, I will never have to be nervous about doing it again. And I managed. Trusted myself to jump out the cliff, interact with the students, discussing without a prepared script, take questions about a difficult subject hence forcing me to think fast and communicate answers. After three hours I had a true will of getting back into the lecture hall. Even got a round of applause afterwards since I honestly revealed that this was my first lecture (at the end, of course).

Since then over ten years have passed; ten years of teaching extensively on all levels. When thinking about it I realize that no semester during these years excluded teaching: it became an important contribution for me in order to develop line of thoughts, forcing me to reflect on issues I otherwise wouldn’t. It was a deliberate choice to teach continously during my time as a doctoral candidate since I found the experience useful in my own intellectual journey towards finishing the thesis.

I finished and received my PhD at the age of 29, after working over five years on it. The book itself perhaps wasn’t the most important contribution to the intellectual field, however I would lie if I said I wasn’t proud of what I achieved.

Life in general during these years was tough with sudden changes, pitfalls and some acts of desperation. I stayed by myself most of the time, focusing on work partly, or mainly, as a mean to discard other aspects of life. It soon formed people’s view of me as hard working and ambitious (since I often stayed at office until late hours). But this was more a result of my own insecurity rather than a natural gift of being good at what I do. I pushed several of my friends away in the sense that I sometimes feared social life. I felt more sure of myself as a professional rather than as an individual in the private life. And of course my choices in these matters formed my identity to others, even if I never really accepted the signifiers of their opinion of me.

The life within research and academy is in my opinion, hard but rewarding. It’s competative, prestigious and hierarchical but at the same time extremely fun, stimulating and exciting. It would be fair to say that my interest in my work, my eager to learn and develop as a professional and individual, often has saved me during the last ten years of my life. But the price has been high. I have made mistakes and these days I do my best to correct, learn and look forward. Cause I know that some day, all the hard work, the nights of no sleep, the lack of true vacation for over four years, will pay off. And when I recently applied for and was offered a firm position as a senior lecturer at my university, it felt like a first step towards feeling proud of myself again. But I still have a long way to go before there is balance between the way I see myself as a professional and the way I consider my personal self.

Constant battle.