Media

Kyrgyzstan’s Eternal Flame Ignites Media’s Mockery

by Matthew Kupfer
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Economic problems and energy shortages in Kyrgyzstan usually don’t pique the interest of the American press. As the saying goes, “if it bleeds, it leads”—and poor Kyrgyzstanis shivering in austere Soviet-era apartments after the heat is shut off don’t hold the audience’s interest for long. But yesterday something “extraordinary” happened in Bishkek: Kyrgyzstan’s eternal flame, [...]

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The Denver Post’s Astounding Coverage of the Mukhtarov Case

by Joshua Foust
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The Denver Post has been following the saga of Uzbek refugee turned terror suspect Jamshid Muhtorov, since he settled in the U.S. in Aurora, a city next to Denver, Colorado (when I was doing my undergrad in Boulder, I would teach classes for the Princeton review in Aurora and Columbine, if you can believe it). [...]

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Why Did Uzbekistan Ban Wikipedia?

by Sarah Kendzior
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Uzbekistan’s ban on Wikipedia is censorship as performance art. The ban, enacted late last month, blocks all articles written in Uzbek while leaving articles in other languages accessible. Unlike earlier acts of online censorship, the ban on Uzbek Wikipedia articles does not prevent citizens from accessing political information. On the contrary, it blocks a prime [...]

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Will Astana Become the New Tripoli? No.

by Joshua Foust
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Earlier today, I wondered why Central Asia isn’t revolting against its leadership. It makes for some contextual thinking for Viktoria Panfilova’s December 19 article in Nezavisimaya gazeta (English translation here). She quotes a Russian analyst who has a startling thesis: [Th]is view is shared by Yury Solozobov, director of international projects at Russia’s National Strategy [...]

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How Twitter’s New Policy Rewards Elite Activism

by Sarah Kendzior

On Thursday, Twitter announced that it would begin to selectively block tweets on a country by country basis. The decision prompted an immediate outcry from free speech advocates as well as a more measured response from scholars of social media, several of whom praised Twitter’s relative transparency while noting that it has no choice but [...]

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The Reverse Orientalism of the Arab Spring

by Sarah Kendzior

In 1978, Edward Said defined orientalism as “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” The Muslim world, he argued, is rarely seen as significant and complex in its own right, but derives its significance from its relationship with the West: a comparative framework that guarantees a delusory bias. The Orient [...]

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The “Wild West” of Kazakhstan: a Crisis of Aspirations and Expectations

by Alima Bissenova

The outbreak of violence in Zhanaozen, a small oil town in Western Kazakhstan, has caused people to sit up and notice that Kazakhstan, despite its carefully cultivated reputation as a stable modernizing state, is not immune to social upheaval (if it has ever been) and that some internal discontent is brewing within the country. However, [...]

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Central Asia: An Exception to the “Cute Cats” Theory of Internet Revolution

by Sarah Kendzior

Last month Ethan Zuckerman, a senior researcher at the Berkman Center of Internet and Society, gave a lecture on how his “cute cats” theory of the internet applies to the Arab Spring. For those of you unfamiliar with the theory, Cory Doctorow sums it up in an rapturous review of the talk in the Guardian: [...]

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Critical Journalism and Janaozen

by Michael Hancock-Parmer

Prologue   Criticism and Critique are often confused. This might be partly because their adjectival forms are usually written the same way. Is a critical report critical in the sense of important? I think that definition is the least confusing from context. But what about other meanings? Is the report critical because it judges the [...]

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The Bell Pottinger Freakout

by Joshua Foust

The public revulsion to Bell Pottinger’s lobbying activities is continuing, as the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports new stories about a PR firm acting like a PR firm. But while everyone shakes their head at the idea that public relations actually requires manipulating public opinion, it’s worthwhile to take a few steps back and see [...]

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