I was at a university workshop today called “Media Suppression: Life and Livelihood”. The purpose of this workshop was to debate on topics such as “digital rights contracts, libel chill, the Internet in totalitarian states, and legal recourse for the torture, kidnapping, and murder of journalists.
While there was many intellectual people debating and explaining their field of work and study, there was some signs of ‘career-centrism’, whereas a professional journalist got straight-out upset over someone asking about the possibility of the social media (blogs, twitter, etc) contributing to widening the public knowledge. The way that I understood the question he was referring to the way hackers and members operating on the inside of certain organization, can contribute information without going through the traditional media channels. While completely ignoring the question the receiver of the question uttered “are you serious?”, in a tasteless and loathsome manner. In other words, Media Suppression workshop, for the loss.
But as a academic refresher, there is someone who does actively engage in public debates and lectures, with a profoundly open mind, that I admire. The man (or should I say Man) is Noam Chomsky. Here’s a lecture he called “The Unipolar Moment and the Culture of Imperialism”.
Chomsky also has a wide online database of articles and interviews, and it is great how all his talks and texts are so available online. You can check out a wide range of his stuff here:
