Digital media and democracy

Today, the “sociable web” (sometimes known as Web 2.0, groupware, or the participatory web) – epitomized by blogs, viral videos, and YouTube – creates new pathways for truths to emerge and makes possible new tactics for media activism. In “Digital Media and Democracy”, leading scholars in media and communication studies, media activists, journalists, and artists explore the contradiction at the heart of the relationship between truth and power today: the fact that the radical democratization of knowledge and multiplication of sources and voices made possible by digital media coexists with the blatant falsification of information by political and corporate powers.The book maps a new digital media landscape that features citizen journalism, “The Daily Show”, blogging, and alternative media. The contributors discuss broad questions of media and politics, offer nuanced analyses of change in journalism, and undertake detailed examinations of the use of web-based media in shaping political and social movements.