Dr. Alison Powell on Internet Freedom
Channel: Internet Freedom
Date: 2013-11-13

"Internet freedom."

What does that even mean? Its a rallying cry for activists, a policy approach for lawmakers, and a question to debate for journalists.

Progressive activists want an internet that is free of censorship and government surveillance and that corporations can't dominate. Politicians say they want it both ways, an internet that is good for democratic dialogue and good for business. How can the same term be used by these two groups that don't agree on much anything?

Internet freedom has been in the news alot in the last few years. The term has been associated with activists who led the internet blackout to stop SOPA. It is used in association with wistleblowin and Wikileaks, the Chinese firewall, Arab dictators who shut down the internet; and the imprisonment of hackers.

Internet freedom is tied to debates on open source publishing, network
neutrality, mashup culture, conglomerated media corporations, file
sharing, bittorrents, intellectual property rights and the Pirate Bay.

According to information activists, the right to internet freedom is violated when Facebook suddenly changes its privacy settings and when Silicon Valley collaborates with the US NSA in acts of surveillance.

So what is internet freedom? What is the internet? What is freedom?

Is there a single global internet? Can there be a single principle for all of the internet in every country? Are we talking about libertarian laissez faire free market freedom to buy and sell or progressive freedom of speech and freedom of association in a democracy?

To answer these questions we travelled to London to ask leading scholars in media studies one question: What is internet freedom? Interviewees include: Dr. Natalie Fenton, Dr. Des Freedman, Dr. Arne Hintz, Dr. Thomas Streeter, Vibodh Parthasarathi, Dr. Marianne Franklin, Dr. Henry Jenkins, Akintunde Akanni, Dr. Alison Powell, Dr. Veronica Barassi, Dr. Nick Couldry, Dr. Rasha Abdulla, Dr. Andrew Clement, Dr. Damian Tambini

Interviewed by Dr. Adam Fish and Wiktoria Przybylska

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