This article discusses the socio-political implications of user-generated applications and platforms through the

The Arab Uprisings of 2011 can be seen as a turning point for media and information studies scholars, many of whom newly discovered the region as a site for theories of digital media and social transformation. This work has argued that digital media technologies fuel or transform political change through new networked publics, new forms of connective action cultivating liberal democratic values. These works have, surprisingly, little to say about the United States and other Western colonial powers’ legacy of occupation, ongoing violence and strategic interests in the region. It is as if the Arab Spring was a vindication for the universal appeal of Western liberal democracy delivered through the gift of the Internet, social media as manifestation of the ‘technologies of freedom’ long promised by Cold War. We propose an alternate trajectory in terms of reorienting discussions of media and information infrastructures as embedded within the resurgence of idealized liberal democratic norms in the wake of the end of the Cold War. We look at the demise of the media and empire debates and ‘the rise of the BRICS’ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) as modes of intra-imperial competition that complicate earlier Eurocentric narratives media and empire. We then outline the individual contributions for the special collection of essays.

Abstract:During particular historical junctures, characterised by crisis, deepening exploitation and popular revolt, hegemonic hierarchies are simultaneously challenged and reinvented, and in the process of their reconfiguration in due course subtly reproduced. It is towards such 'sneaky moments' in which the ongoing divide between those engaged in struggles of social justice and those struggling for just technologies have been reshaped that we want to lend our attention. The paradoxical consequences of the divide between these communities in the context of the Internet have been baffling: (radical) activists organise and sustain themselves using 'free' technical services provided by Fortune 500 companies. While alternative technology practices, like those used among the Free Software Community, are designed, maintained, and actively used by a select few. We argue that even when there is a great issue 26: Entanglements -Activism and Technology

A political assessment related to the internet portrays how Palestinian political agency transcends into virtual reality. This article offers an insight into the increasing role of the internet for Palestinians in the diaspora and studies the effects of these practices within the context of occupation and exile. Online political activism fills an important gap for what is absent offline. Through multi-sited fieldwork (Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan) this research demonstrates how the internet gave birth to a Palestine in cyberspace and has altered the traditional tactics of activists. Online communication has strengthened social and political agency. It clearly evoked a new type of media activism an giving the permission to narrate: an important development considering the stereotyped portrayals of Palestinians trapped in either terrorists or victims. Fieldwork research conducted between 2001 and 2005 uncovered the dialectic impact of internet access/usage on the politics of resistance, specifically related to local/global political mobilization. The contradiction between online and offline political participation is tackled in this article with regards to a new amalgam of media activism which I term cyber intifada. Much attention is paid on the everyday manifestations of this agency, whether organizing a street candle vigil or lighting a virtual candle online; with these recollections this article therefore illustrates a view from within.

By unpacking the way in which the concept of ‘white privilege’ is taking over as a shortcut in the analysis of racism, this article assesses its use in anti-racist movements. Using the author’s experiences as both an academic and an activist of colour in the Netherlands, it focuses on two schisms that are emerging in social movements. The first schism pits class-based against race-based analyses. The second schism is a questioning of solidarity politics, also marked by the rise of political articulations in terms of personalised and skin-colour based positions, with terminologies such as ‘non-black-people-of-colour’ (NBPoC), leading to implied hierarchies of oppression. Drawing on the conceptual legacies of radical black thinkers and activists, from W. E. B. Du Bois, and A. Sivanandan to Assata Shakur and Angela Davis, the article asks how to recover and meaningfully engage with radical universalist principles as a means of overcoming such ‘shortcuts’ whilst fighting racism. The piece builds on an understanding of ‘radical kinship’ and proposes internationalism as a way to recreate a dynamic anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement at a time when racism is on the rise.