TechnoPolitics and Elections in the Middle East.

~~ The NYT's Thomas Friedman today puts forth that there is a real TechnoPolitical change going on in the Middle Eastern Body Politic. Internet and Cell Texting are fueling the pro-western the reform movements there.~~ posted from blackberry by technopolitical~~




http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=376648&f=76


By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: June 14, 2009

mobile.nytimes.com

"Twenty years ago, I wrote a book about the Middle East, and recently I was thinking of updating it with a new introduction. It was going to be very simple - just one page, indeed just one line: "Nothing has changed."
".....something is going on in the Middle East today that is very new. Pull up a chair; this is going to be interesting."

" What we saw in the Lebanese elections,........., and what we saw in the provincial elections in Iraq, .........is the product of four historical forces that have come together to crack open this ossified region".

**"First is the diffusion of technology. The Internet, blogs, YouTube and text messaging via cellphones, particularly among the young - 70 percent of Iranians are under 30 - is giving Middle Easterners cheap tools to communicate horizontally, to mobilize politically and to criticize their leaders acerbically, outside of state control. It is also enabling them to monitor vote-rigging by posting observers with cellphone cameras. I knew something had changed when I sat down for coffee on Hamra Street in Beirut last week with my 80-year-old friend and mentor, Kemal Salibi, one of Lebanon's greatest historians, and he told me about his Facebook group!"***

Cyber-Politics (or Cyberpolitics)

Cyber-Politics (or Cyberpolitics).

Cyber-Politics covers the realm of the Internet as an issue lobbying, electoral campaigning or political fundraising tool, making it a sub-discipline of Techno-Politics.

From major corporations to local community groups and from left-wing anti-globalization anarchists to right wing neo-nazis, the Internet is being used as a part of an overall organizing and information dissemination strategy. A Cyber-citizen (or Netizen /Net-izen) is anyone who goes online.

A Cyber-Activist (or e-activist / net-activist [i]) is someone who takes political action via the Internet either through cyber-lobbying or cyber-electioneering.[ii]
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[i] See note 4 on why I choose "cyber".



[ii] There is also commonly used; e-advocate, e-activist and e-lobbying but as noted before endnote 4, I believe cyber to be more accurate when talking about purely Internet activity.

[iv] Some would argue E-Electioneering or E-lobbying. I believe “Cyber” to be more accurate than “e” / “electronic” in talking about Internet activity. Telephones and fax machines are also electronic. Cyber-Space is the Internet. A Cyber-Activist may never use any other medium.