Quadriga
The cell phone and the internet have become cornerstones of the modern world. They have revolutionized people's everyday lives and social interaction. These new means of communication enable individuals to become part of ever-greater social networks while processing information at a breathtaking pace. The activities of bloggers and tweeters may have once been dismissed as mere chatter, but their influence on politics and society is growing. An inexorable movement of free expression is underway - first and foremost in the Arab world.
The despots of this world despise the internet, Facebook and bloggers because these voices and media threaten their regimes. Young Arabs have seized the opportunity to resist their authoritarian regimes by organizing networks online and mobilizing masses of people. The Net knows no borders. The spirit of revolution is gripping one nation after another. It has already deposed the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt. Other dictatorships are stopping at nothing to cling to power against their own people. In Libya the international community has even had to intervene to protect the population from the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
For the despots the internet is the seed of calamity. The Egyptian government blocked access to social networks and partially shut down mobile phone services in a bid to stop the Facebook revolution. The whole country was practically cut off, but the fight had long since moved, inexorably, from the virtual world to the streets.
What do you think? Human Rights - The Social Media Revolution
Email us at: Quadriga@dw-world.de
Our guests:
Guido Baumhauer - After studying history and economics in Cologne and Washington and training at Deutsche Welle, he became a television correspondent in 1996 at DW's Brussels studio. There he worked as an administrative and technical manager of EU projects and pioneered work in Internet TV. He teaches at the University of Applied Sciences for Media and Communication and has been conducting seminars on the media for more than 10 years. As editor-in-chief, he made DW's internet presence one of the most diverse on the Net. Since January 1, 2006 he has been Director of Distribution for Strategy, Sales and Marketing at DW. Specialist journal "Cable & Satellite recently included him among the to 50 experts worldwide for broadband and pay TV. Baumhauer has also been appointed to the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on the future of the media.
Markus Beckedahl - Since 2002, Beckedahl has been blogging about politics in a digital society at netzpolitik.org, an award-winning blog widely read across the German-speaking parts of the world. He is also co-founder of "newthinking communications", a Berlin-based agency specializing in open-source strategies and digital culture. Beckedahl has been organizing re:publica's conferences on blogs, social media and digital society since 2007. He serves as an expert to the German parliament's Enquete Commission on Internet and Digital Society and is a member of the media council for the Berlin-Brandenburg Media Broadcasting Authority. Beckedahl also teaches as a college lecturer on digital media topics.
Nora Lafi - is a French historian of Algerian origin, born near Marseilles. She is currently a researcher with the "Zentrum Moderner Orient" (ZMO) in Berlin. Lafi is a specialist on the history of the Ottman Empire, specifically of Arab settlements in North Africa and the Middle-East during the Ottoman period. She chairs, with Ulrike Freitag, the research field "Cities compared: cosmopolitanism in the Mediterranean and beyond," part of the EUME programme at the "Wissenschaftskolleg" Berlin think tank. She is co-founder and editor of "H-Mediterranean" (H-Net, Michigan State University). Nora Lafi is a significant expert in the following fields: History of the Ottoman Empire History of Libya, Tunisia and Algeria.