64 – Does criticism in digital spaces matter to journalism?

With the power of digitalization, criticisms toward journalism now often are aired in digital spaces, such as social networks and blogs. But does criticism in digital spaces matter to journalism, and how do journalists handle this? These are questions asked by David Cheruiyot in his doctoral thesis in Media and Communication Studies. Through in-depth interviews with journalists, media critics, and media accountability agents, David’s research gives us an understanding of how journalistic practice in Kenya and South Africa is affected by new forms for mainstream media criticism. Prior to the digital era, journalists could deal with criticism in controlled spaces, such as letters to editors. Today, they may need to grapple with open hashtag campaigns built up by many different stakeholders of journalism. As David explains in our interview, this has profound effects on journalists and journalistic practice.

26 – The crossroads of mediatization, activism and surveillance

We rely more and more on networked media technologies and online communication channels but are we aware that the digital traces we leave behind turn into data pieces about us – that others can use?

Ilkin Mehrabov has focused on this this type of surveillance in his thesis “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace”. In this podcast he tells us about his interest to learn more about the intersection of the processes of increased global surveillance with the practices of transnational activism – and the role of the mediatization metaprocess within both.

Follow us on our journey in which Ilkin explains how he tried to entangle the complex relationships built by public state agencies with a number of local and global private information, entertainment and telecommunications companies in different countries.

We will also learn more about how various social movements and individual activists in Azerbaijan and Turkey are affected by this merger of public political and private economic surveillance practices.