Have we found a blueprint for democratic participation online? The SOPA/PIPA debate provides the first example of how the Networked Public Sphere was able to shift the debate, and the outcome, on a piece of critical legislation, supported by some of the most powerful lobbies in Washington and starting out with broad bipartisan support. Combining network analysis, text analysis, human coding, and interviews, new research offers a unique insight into the dynamics of what the future of democratic participation could become. Yochai Benkler, co-director, Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society"
Bio
Yochai Benkler
Yochai Benkler is the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Before joining the faculty at Harvard Law School, he was Joseph M. Field '55 Professor of Law at Yale. He writes about the Internet and the emergence of networked economy and society, as well as the organization of infrastructure, such as wireless communications.
Influential newspaper published in London and Manchester, Eng., considered one of Britain's best papers. Founded in 1821 as the weekly Manchester Guardian, it became a daily in 1855; 100 years later Manchester was dropped from the name, as it had become a national daily with an international reputation. In 1936 one of the newspapers most influential editors, C.P. Scott, created the Scott Trust as a means of assuring independent ownership for the newspaper. Still owned by the trust, the paper takes an independent liberal stance in its editorials while maintaining great breadth and depth of news coverage.