It was at that moment that I realized the potency of the active silencing of dissent, and how distorted myths of journalistic objectivity could be used to justify something as devastating as the bombing of a nation and its people. p. 2

Fact checking websites p. 2

I felt a familiar anger—the anger at the number of politically powerful people who have adopted a revisionist story of their views on Bush’s preemptive invasion. p. 2

In one sense Jodi Dean’s chapter throws down the gauntlet: “How does one make sense of the phenomenon that, in the face of power, no amount of ‘facts,’ arguments, or rational counterpoints impact decisions being made by ‘elected’ officials?”9 p. 3

One cannot miss the irony of the “most trusted name in fake news” making the call for responsible journalism. p. 5

Our research reveals how digital dissent (political blogs, viral videos, online discussion of Jon Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire, MoveOn.org’s Bush in 30 Seconds Contest) expresses simultaneously a demand for truthfulness, alongside a contradictory “postmodern” sensibility that “all the world’s a fiction” (Boler 2006a; Boler 2006b). Figure 0.3 Antiwar protest, New York City, February 15, 2003. Photo by Sara Bethell A p. 5

I will use the term social Web to refer most generally to the diverse uses addressed in this book, and Web 2.0 when I refer more specifically to the corporate resonance of the technology and its users p. 6

there are no public archives of broadcast news, so previously (e.g., during the Persian Gulf War in 1991) one could not “evidence” the deceptions of television news spin very easily. Now however, because much footage is accessible in digital form (whether through official news sites or individuals posting footage), we have a new way of “constructing” accounts to assuage our sense of having been lied to but having few ways to “prove” it. p. 6

Also voice indexing - searching. Good: enables checking what was said, mashups. Bad: Soundbytes can be distorted. Everything on record p. 6

The use of these digital dissent media suggest a double-edged contradiction of an awareness that all truths are constructed, alongside an affective desire for truth and an urgent political need for accuracy and responsible reporting. p. 8

Alarmed by how public relations is working so directly to challenge science through political purchase of press spin of “scientific facts,” Latour questions whether his entire lifetime of scholarship, which sought to question how facts are constructed, has backfired: p. 9

Wikileaks etc p. 14

blatant and outrageous instances of falsified national intelligence shielded from scrutiny (“National Press Falls into Lockstep with Bush Administration over Falsified Facts about WMD!!”). p. 14

Internet access, smartphones in dev'l world, everyone has a camera p. 16

It’s a revolution. It’s a revolution because for the first time an average human walking down the streets of Jakarta, New York, or Khartoum, or Darfur, can actually pick up the phone and dial a number and report what they see p. 16

Raising the petition barrier on Whitehouse.gov p. 20

Jodi Dean argues that: p. 20

Today, the circulation of content in the dense, intensive networks of global communications relieves top-level actors (corporate, institutional, and governmental) from the obligation to respond p. 20

The proliferation, distribution, acceleration, and intensification of communicative access and opportunity, far from enhancing democratic governance or resistance, results in precisely the opposite, the postpolitical formation of communicative capitalism. (Jodi Dean, chap. 3, this volume, emphasis added) p. 20

Robert McChesney p. 21

Self government is impossible without a viable press, and this is not a controversial idea, this is a foundation of the democratic theory, and it’s foundational to progressive, liberal, mainstream, it’s just right there, it’s unavoidable. And it’s also foundational to anti-democratic theory that you need a press system that manipulates people, keeps them in their place. p. 21

Moeller p. 22

Despite their at times crucial failures, there is still no group better equipped than traditional journalists—whatever their journalistic platform—to ask the tough questions: of politicians and scientists, of corporate executives and social workers, of the military and of doctors, of academics and of children. p. 22

The Daily Show p. 23

A second reason perhaps for the currency of political satire is because the fair-use shield of parody allows these court jesters to report on politician’s lies and corruption, as well as launch major critiques of media and press failures to hold politicians accountable.30 p. 24

Current issue: Idle no more. Also Quebec student strikes and how they were reported in our media p. 24

Maybe the simplest way for me to explain the difference between media reform and media justice is with an analogy I have heard made to the environmental movement. You can look at “Save the Trees,” “Save the Air,” and “Save the Whales,” as part of an environmental call that is critically important. We need that. But then particular communities, especially communities of color, began to say, but what about our communities? We are living in the path of polluting industries. Isn’t that an environmental issue? And it changed from environmentalism to environmental justice. And I think that in some ways the analogy works for the media reform movement. Saying that, yes, the media right now is not serving our communities. But the media reform movement harkens back to some golden age of the media that we need to take back. And for many of our communities, that did not exist. When was that time? When was there a truly participatory media? p. 37

Tactical Media (TM) In general, TM are expressions of dissent that rely on artistic practices and do-it-yourself (DIY) media created from readily available, relatively cheap technology and means of communication (e.g., radio, video, and the Internet). They are described by Patricia Aufderheide as “projects that people do opportunistically—seizing temporarily available or unclaimed resources” (Aufderheide in VCB 2002). p. 38