Armenia, Democracy & the Internet

With the Internet noticeably playing a greater role in the pre-election and post-election period, I’ve already given one interview to Danish radio on the subject to mark today’s Reporters Sans Frontieres protest against censorship on the web. I’ll also be presenting an overview of the same at the Global Voices Summit in Budapest, Hungary, at the end of June.

Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008
“Citizenhood & Citizen Media”
Budapest, Hungary
June 27-28, 2008

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Session 2: “The Wired Electorate in Emerging Democracies”

SPEAKERS: Representatives from Mzalendo (Kenya), Daudi Were (Kenya), Onnik Krikorian (Armenia), Mary Joyce (USA), Hamid Tehrani (Iran), Hyejin Kim (S. Korea)

The rise of blogging, social networking and micro-blogging services like Facebook and Twitter, video- and photo-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr and the spread of mobile technology have given ordinary citizens the means, at least potentially, to participate more fully in the democratic process. This session looks at the impact these tools have had on recent elections in Kenya, Armenia and Iran and poses the question: is citizen media having an actual impact on democracies in transition?