(Freedom House) Writing on the revolutions of Central Europe in the New York Review of Books two decades ago, scholar Timothy Garton Ash made the observation that “the crucial medium was television. In Europe, at the end of the twentieth century all revolutions are telerevolutions.” Today, one could argue that all revolutions, at least in their nascent stages, are social media revolutions. However, this does not mean that television has been tossed onto the ash heap of history. In fact, in settings where the state retains dominance over television, it is in many ways functioning as a counterrevolutionary medium. The current situation in Russia—which Freedom House has given poor marks on political rights and civil liberties, democratic development, and media freedom, but middling scores on internet freedom in particular—is a case in point. S
ee the full article at the Freedom House Blog
