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Yesterday I went to my first protest in London. What I saw there shocked me, and not because of the violence that the press is so hyper to write about, where the focus of attention …

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Last day at work – last seminar – last postlude at the Carousel!  Wishing you all now good luck on the essay crunch and I will see you all on the other side.  Do let …

Knowledge works in mysterious ways. So just to give you Carouselians an idea of what is going on, here is a recent conference proposal I will probably submit for the IAMCR conference in Braga, Portugal this summer (together with a friend of mine). The abstract below:

Should the media be an influence on the public? How democratic can that be?

Or perhaps, we should word it the other way around, make the issue more “free market.” Should the public let the media influence them? One argument is that journalists are supposed to be experts in their respective beats and so, should be able to inform our decision-making.

But there is a thin line between informing and shaping.

A bomb, is among best media devices. A boogey-man always playing a light and shadow game. It lets you imagine the other with all its brutal contours. It also gives you opportunity to consume and produce passionate arguments. Imagine “we” as me and my neighbor. A kind of loose tribal allegiance.

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As some of you may recall a few months back when we set up the website, I said that at least a familiarity of new social media such as Twitter should be mandatory for all …

The world’s coolest statistician, Hans Roesling, speak out again: “beware the media hype!’” A rather eye-opening statistical analysis of our just passed swine flu panic. Do check out the YouTube video.

I quite find the panic that is going around with the current Swine Flu amusing. Especially the way the British media handle it make the free London papers sometimes worth the gag: “Tens of thousands of Londoners will die!” etc. Sheyma called it ‘retro-mass hysteria?’, which I think is a rather apt name for the contemporary fascination of constantly imagining our death by one disaster after another. Just don’t worry about climate change and enviromental pollution, economic collapse through financial mismanagement, corrupt politics and war; no, it will be an invisible bug that will get you. It will be your loved ones, or that strange looking coughing neighbor, that will transfer it to you and … and … and. Do check out the following retro-mass hysteric video from 33 years ago. The end of the world is coming and we are all going to die … again?

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**DRUMROLL**: After about a month of active work behind the scenes, Project: Carousel! is now ready for its public beta launch (as they say in web development talk).  That is, while we have been “alive” …

The assault on Gaza exposed not only Israel’s callous disregard for international law but the gutlessness of the American press. There were no major newspapers, television networks or radio stations that challenged Israel’s fabricated version of events that led to the Gaza attack or the daily lies Israel used to justify the unjustifiable. Nearly all reporters were, as during the buildup to the Iraq war, pliant stenographers and echo chambers. If we as journalists have a product to sell, it is credibility. Take that credibility away and we become little more than propagandists and advertisers. By refusing to expose lies we destroy, in the end, ourselves.