Information Society Watch

May 2, 2007, BBC News Service

Attempts to gag the blogosphere from publishing details of a DVD crack on a portal have led to a user revolt. The entire case revolves around a blogger who posted details regarding a DVD crack and a letter from the organisation which that oversees the digital rights management technology on high-definition DVDs, warning the portal to prevent the details of that crack from appearing on it.

January 2004, Anita Gurumurthy, Women in Action

This paper was presented during the panel on globalised media and ICT systems and structures and their interrelationship with fundamentalism and militarism organised by Isis International-Manila during the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India in January 2004. The author contends that the global economy supported by ICTs stands upon the intersection of the crumbling proletariat of the North and the off-shore proletariat of the South, as seen in issues of labour, media and militarism.

April 2005, Linda Leung, Ashgate Publishing

In this book, the author makes a pioneering exploration of ethnic minority presence in cyberspace. She finds that despite the apparent white, Western, male, middle class profile of cyberspace, there is significant ethnic minority activity.

2001, Sally Wyatt, Flis Henwood, Nod Miller and Peter Senker, Routledge

This piece explores the diverse implications of the new information and communication technologies through case studies of their applications in three main areas - media, education and training, and work. Questions of access to, and control over, crucial resources such as information, knowledge, skills and income are addressed, drawing upon insights from science and technology studies, innovation theory, sociological and cultural studies.

2004, Rebecca Holmes, Women's Net

Women’s Net hosted a regional workshop which was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, February 23-25 2004, with the support of the Dimitra Project of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). This background paper explores how ICTs have been incorporated into the pursuit of rural women’s empowerment in Africa, specifically in terms of their access to human rights and good governance.

2006, Anita Gurumurthy, Parminder Jeet Singh, Anu Mundkur and Mridula Swamy, UNDP: Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme

This selection of papers comes from a seminar organized by an Indian NGO, IT for Change, in April 2005. The collection offers valuable literature on areas which have largely gone unnoticed in ICT and development discourse.

November 12, 2006, Richard Siklos

Google's steady foray into video and radio has media giants sceptical of its intentions. The recent spate of purchases by Google of YouTube and dMarch Broadcasting, and its intentions to put Internet advertisements into newspapers, has people questioning if Google is a media company.

December 2003, Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change

The author of this piece contends that the use of ICTs in realising human development goals is constrained by the larger socio-economic context, which itself is rooted in neo-liberal policies. At WSIS, negotiations between governments, as over anything that implicates global justice, will result in the adoption of the lowest common denominator.

September 26, 2006, Spannerworks

This e-book provides a short summary of the phenomenon called social media. It gives a brief overview of the subject and acts as a reference guide.

Lawrence Liang, Alternative Law Forum

This piece examines the impact of low cost media production on the ability of media empires to control the spatial flows of media commodities.