The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov New York: Public Affairs, 2011 409 pages $16.99 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In January 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a highly touted speech on Internet freedom in which she stated, "The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate. Once you're on the Internet, you don't need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society." Evgeny Morozov, in his book The Net Delusion, takes great issue with the implication, however, that the so-called "Arab Spring" and "Twitter Revolution" were caused by unfettered access to the Internet. Instead, Morozov, a research academic, provides a cautionary tale about what he argues is any attempt to establish a monocausal relationship to meaningful political change (especially when that single focus is information technology). The book opens with a discussion of cyber-utopianism and Internet-centrism--mind-sets that focus on the positive "emancipatory" aspects of Internet communication while ignoring the downsides. The argument throughout centers on nation-state policy, or lack thereof, that attacks the "wicked" problem of authoritarianism by, as a colleague of mine has dubbed it, "wiring the world." Morozov, expectantly, but importantly, cites the hedonistic world portrayed by Huxley and the "Big Brother" world of Orwell to consider both the proactive and reactive approaches to Internet freedom by authoritarian regimes. Interestingly, he notes that there is often a mix of both. Such regimes certainly use the anonymity and openness of the Internet to spy on their people and shutdown undesirable sites. But there is also a subtle approach that belies the jackboot on the keyboard methodology. While China may be known more for suppressing the Internet and for employing the masses to counter antiregime rhetoric, Russia imposes no formal Internet censorship. It relies on entertainment (porn is specifically cited) to soothe the masses, assuming that given options for political discourse and anything else, most opt for "anything else." Hitler would understand. And in nations where freedom is not widely understood from a western perspective, any bit of additional mindless diversion may be viewed as liberty by the populace. Perhaps most importantly, Morozov rails against social media determinism as driving the end of authoritarianism, labeling it "an intellectually impoverished, lazy way to study the past, understand the present, and predict the future." He does not dismiss the value of Facebook and Twitter to quickly mobilize like-minded individuals. He notes as well that the development of that very like-mindedness is complex and potentially can be manipulated by authoritarian governments using the same Internet freedom. …

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

The hybrid media system: Politics and power

This special brings together innovative and multidisciplinary research (sociology, economics, and social work) using data from across Europe and the US to examine the potential flexible working has on the gender division of labour and workers’ work–life balance. Despite numerous studies on the gendered outcomes of flexible working, it is limited in that the majority is based on qualitative studies based in the US. The papers of this special issue overcome some of the limitations by examining the importance of context, namely, family, organisational and country context, examining the intersection between gender and class, and finally examining the outcomes for different types of flexible working arrangements. The introduction to this special issue provides a review of the existing literature on the gendered outcomes of flexible working on work life balance and other work and family outcomes, before presenting the key findings of the articles of this special issue. The results of the studies show that gender matters in understanding the outcomes of flexible working, but also it matters differently in different contexts. The introduction further provides policy implications drawn from the conclusions of the studies and some thoughts for future studies to consider.

/pdf/flexible-working-work-life-balance-and-gender-equality-1qldhm2urz.pdf

Flexible Working, Work–Life Balance, and Gender Equality: Introduction

Recent statistics suggest that fertility in Europe shows signs of recovery after decades of year-on-year drops. This report updates a study on low fertility from 2004 and explores the extent, causes and consequences of the recent recovery.

/pdf/low-fertility-in-europe-is-there-still-reason-to-worry-hxuklrsxlz.pdf

Low fertility in Europe: Is there still reason to worry?

Parents at work: Men and women participating in the labour force

This report analyses key societal challenges for the EU until 2030 by exploring the evidence base and uncertainties underpinning global trends — in areas such as migration, employment, inequality or empowerment — and their impact on the EU.

Europe's Societal Challenges: An analysis of global societal trends to 2030 and their impact on the EU

More than ten years ago, in March 2002, a meeting of the European Council in Barcelona established a set of targets known as the ‘Barcelona targets’. Member States adopted targets to improve the rate of employment of parents of young children and, in particular, women in an effort to achieve greater gender equality in the workforce. This initiative and the material in this report can also be seen in the context of the EU’s social inclusion objective, as parental employment, and particularly maternal employment, has been shown to be the main safeguard against child poverty (Lichter & Eggebeen 1994).

Use of childcare services in the EU Member States and progress towards the Barcelona targets

in this work. This electronic representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for non-commercial use only. Unauthorized posting of RAND PDFs to a non-RAND Web site is prohibited. RAND PDFs are protected under copyright law. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of our research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please see RAND Permissions. Limited Electronic Distribution Rights This PDF document was made available from www.rand.org as a public service of the RAND Corporation.

Addressing the Uncertain Future of Preserving the Past: Towards a Robust Strategy for Digital Archiving and Preservation. Technical Report.

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