Lecture 8 - Political Possibilities (by Stephen Stockwell)

There was a strike this week so there wasn't actually a lecture, however lecture notes were put online which I will be summarising from.

This weeks lecture basically would have looked at cyber-politics and the work of hackers. The lecture would have looked at the Internets role in modern politics (Epolitics) and how it has helped shape and change democracy. It also would have looked at the medias role in democracy and what influence that has over such forms. This of course leads into a censorship debate which I discussed in my last blog, before discussing the role of hackers in democracy. It is suggested that hackers play a vital role in democracy through the assertion of information that regular citizens do not have access to. This is an interesting point. Often hackers are perceived with negative connotations, however when it is looked at from a different angle, you can see that sometimes hackers are quite important to maintaining transparency in governments. I think was perhaps the most important idea in this potential lecture.