Cyberpolitics

1. What are the implications of the emergence of internet citizen media to the development of democracy of a society? please elaborate your answer with an example.

- credits would be given to those who address the different between internet citizen media and mass media, the distinctive character of internet citizen media.

- when discussing about democracy, credits would be given to those who specify what kind of what aspect of democracy they are talking about, such as voting in formal democracy, public sphere in deliberative democracy. discussion about social movement and civil society would also be taken into account.

- example can be a website or an event.

2. What is the meaning of “free” in free culture? How do Lawrence Lessig and Richard Stallmans’ understandings of knowledge affect their opinios in copyright?

- free means freedom, free exchange in a market, as defined by Lawrence Lessig.

- Both Lawrence Lessig and Richard Stallman see knowledge as accumulative, common goods, copying of previous knowledge, etc. Both against the monopoly of knowledge and see the need for a balance between commons and property.

- Lawrence copyright model based on Law, architecture / technology and norms.

- Lawrence Lessig promotes creative commons, while Richard Stallmans promotes copyleft and GNU. Special credits would be given to those who talk about their background: Lessig as a lawyer and Stallmans as a programmer.

3. “Internet Media is an extension and transgression of the Self.” What are the theoretical debates around this statement? and to what extent do you agree with the statement?

- can discuss the issues with any one of the following theoretical trajectories. the point is to discuss about the relation between individual and virtual space.

- Castell’s discussion about convergent and divergent, liberation as ideology

- Barlow’s declaration of independence of cyberspace and cyberfeminism – Clay Shirky’s power law, etc.

- Baudrillard, Virilio’s critique of cyberspace, Marcuse’s discussion about technology

- Discussion concerning cyberpower

4. How does internet complicate the debate on censorship? How do you evaluate the censorship practice in Mainland China?

- nature of the internet, its development as a non-governed space (history of ICANN), its technical characters, e.g web 2.0 features, etc.

- you are expect to specify the censorship practice in china before you evaluate it. Which government body is in responsible? How?

- evaluation can be in terms of the struggle for free space and the effectiveness, or it can be comments on its impact to the freedom of speech, etc. anything that makes sense.