Arthere in Istanbul’s Kadiköy is an independent art space taken in Istanbul, Turkey on December 12, 2016 by Derya Yücel/SyriaUntold
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WikiLeaks once claimed to stand for the people against the shadowy, truth-occluding governments of the world (primarily, the United States). But the last couple years saw the organization swerve into questionable territory as an Associated Press repo…J.Nathan Matias takes a clear-eyed look at The Real Name Fallacy, the belief that forcing users to communicate using real names will improve online conduct. In my experience, the biggest problems come on platforms like Twitter where it’s a mix of real and pseudonymous users.
After the U.S. government published a report on Russia’s cyber attacks against the U.S. election system, and included a list of computers that were allegedly used by Russian hackers, I became curious if any of these hackers had visited my personal blog. The U.S. report, which boasted of including “technical details regarding the tools and infrastructure used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services,” came with a list of 876 suspicious IP addresses used by the hackers, and these addresses were the clues I needed to, in the end, understand a gaping weakness in the report.
“These aren’t the statements of someone who’s interested in getting to the bottom of this.”
As promised, the US intelligence community has released the public version of its report connecting the Russian government to election-oriented hacks… and it isn’t pulling any punches. The findings directly accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin o…Two weeks ago I published an analysis of the images of Syria used by the British FCO on Twitter. My analysis found that the FCO employs images that resonate with iconic moments from British history. In addition, I found that these images are an integral part of the British narrative of events in Syria.
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Revealing nom de guerre and Isis propensity to use Turkic-speaking groups point towards potential background of Club Reina attacker
Turkish officials’ claims that the prime suspect for the New Year’s Eve attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul is a Uighur – a member of the largely Muslim, Turkic-speaking, group – deserves to be taken seriously.
Turkish nightclub attack raises more issues of mistaken identity and social media
UPDATE: This article has been updated to blur the faces of the men featured in the images below
In the two days following the act of terrorism that claimed the lives of 39 people at Istanbul’s prestigious Reina nightclub, pictures of two men began circulating on social media, Both were accused of opening fire on the packed nightclub in the early hours of January 1st. Shortly after the images were shared, both men came forward to say they were not connected with the attack in any way.
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#Turkey's 3 dailies close to govt blames "US, NATO, some EU countries" for orchestrating Istanbul night club attack w/ the same article http://pic.twitter.com/zRSynmrMqX
— Fercan Yalinkilic (@FercanY) January 2, 2017
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By: Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar
In 2016 the movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions for their involvement in the illegal occupation of Palestine both gathered significant steam and faced a huge roadblock. In the United States, the country that largely underwrites and funds the Israeli occupation, the call to boycott initiated in 2004 by Palestinian civil rights organizations movement has had some impressive successes, with eight associations endorsing it thus far, notably in academic fields that challenge Eurocentrism.[1]
I sometimes like to joke that anthropologists looking for the strangest and most exotic society on earth should do fieldwork in the United States. As if to prove my point, along comes Pizzagate.
Publisher Thames & Hudson writes: Our belief in some form of magic runs throughout human history. In fact, in an increasingly rational and scientific world, the idea that occult or arcane knowledge can give us access to another, hidden reality is as strong and widespread as ever.
Savage Minds welcomes guest blogger Coltan Scrivner for the month of January. Coltan will be writing a series of posts on personhood from different disciplinary perspectives.
A common Indian folk tale tells the story of a forest-dwelling hermit who had neither possessions nor troubles, except that a mouse was nibbling away at his loincloth. He bought a cat to keep the mouse away, then a cow to provide milk for the cat. He then hired a man to collect fodder for the cow. Feeling lonely, the man brought his family to live in the forest with him. The process continued until one day the hermit found himself married and living in a house. The hermit’s singular attachment to his loincloth led to a cascade of other attachments and desires that brought with them a roller coaster of emotional highs and lows.
Here’s a fascinating story about advances in forensic anthropology based around a creepy case of an archaeologist who had several open coffins full of human remains in his home. He said they were all legally taken from ancient Guatemalan sites, but new forensics methods showed that some of the bones were pretty new and of different races than the archaeologist claimed.
In this second of two recent articles on migration I examine the writings of three anthropologists— Nicholas P. De Genova, Andrew Kipnis, and Luis F.B. Plascencia—concerning usage of the phrase “illegal immigrant”. The problem of labelling migrant workers is not one that anthropologists invented, but it certainly is one they take seriously, as they should. If there is one thing that anthropologists understand best, it is the power of symbolism and the deployment of labels to mark group boundaries, to signify who/what belongs and who/what is out of place, and all of the meanings and consequences that being “out of place” entails. The labelling issue is always prominent in the US when debating immigration policy, especially because the labels stake out key positions in political debates.
Study makes new claims about world’s oldest human civilization
Some ancient relics never cease to pique the interest of modern societies.
Editor’s Note: This is the second of two reviews of this book, with a rather different perspective. For the first review by Ellen Messer, link here
What’s So Controversial about Genetically-Modified Foods? John Lang. Reaktion Publishers. 2016
Robyn Flipse (Nutrition Communication Services)
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source: @dokuz8haber
Bosphorus closed, flights cancelled, schools closed, traffic density %90 last evening…
Number of foreign tourists visiting Istanbul plunges for first time in 16 years
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An American Expatriate on Why She’s Not Leaving Istanbul Hansen, on a terrace in her Istanbul neighborhood. The author arrived in 2007, and the city was in a liberated, optimistic, even raucous mood
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It is the end of a more than a year project. We are presenting our findings and hopefully our stuff will be published next year. Here is the program schedule
Hopefully there will be updates during the conference at the Twitter hashtag: #CambAJ2017
Conference Concept
This final conference brings together original research by two separate academic teams, one based in Morocco and the other in Turkey, who are engaged in the University of Cambridge-Al-Jazeera Media Project. Launched in 2013, the project’s first research programme, entitled “Media in Political Transition in the Southern Mediterranean”, focused its initial year of research on media in Tunisia after the Arab Uprisings. In 2014, the project was extended significantly as a result of the generosity of Al-Jazeera Media Corporation, enabling two teams of scholars to conduct similar research on media in political transition in Morocco and Turkey. The mid-study workshop brought their work together for the first time. The purpose of extending this research to Turkey and Morocco is to enable a comparative study of media systems along the breadth of the Mediterranean littoral, based on the same research definitions employed in Tunisia and following many of the same themes: internet freedom and surveillance, political narrative, social media use, gender issues on television and within the larger public sphere, the professionalism and partisanship of the sector, the rise of Islamic media, and the internal competition of political elites to utilise the media for particularist purposes. By looking at Turkey and Morocco, a more complete picture is emerging of how government-media relations in the region have responded to new political tensions and shifts in popular narrative in response to the events of 2011 and 2013. Indeed, the strength of this project lies in the ability it offers to investigate change in three very different forms of state organisation – Turkey’s fast transitioning semi-democracy, Morocco’s monarchy, and Tunisia’s pluralistic post-revolutionary experiment after severe dictatorship as well as their interpretation of media as an instrument of state power and mechanism of social expression. This will provide original comparative analysis on the subject of the political-media nexus in these Mediterranean states, something that has not been conducted previously in any depth. Additionally, analysis of media as a reflection and tool of power (whether utilised by government, military, secret service, private sector or civic groups), sheds light on the structures and drivers of these states’ politics and modernisation processes from an important new angle.
Having the conference in Doha will add a unique dynamic to the project’s final period before realising the publication of a monograph in early 2017. The invitation of scholars, journalists and other relevant stakeholders based in the media/education hub of Doha, who will also give feedback on the respective papers, will contribute to building an outstanding network of media scholarship in the MENA region.
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All academics kicked from the universities by this decree law were part of Academics for Peace. All just asked peace in Turkey. https://t.co/n3R7PNsdLn
— Ahmet A. Sabancı (@ahmetasabanci) January 6, 2017
Three short years ago, Mardin Artuklu was a rising star, a beacon with a stunning roster of faculty. Today, nothing remains of it. https://t.co/XWzrZmR4lN
— yahya m. madra (@ymadra) January 6, 2017
Nearly a month after the government began a new round of major internet crackdowns, human rights monitors say that the anonymity network Tor remains blocked in Turkey. The ban appears permanent, they say. The blocks began in early December,
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Fake news.
We’ve used this phrase so many times in the past two months that it’s almost lost meaning — partly because it can mean so many different things. Depending on who you talk to, “fake news” may refer to satirical news, hoaxes, news that’s clumsily framed or outright wrong, propaganda, lies destined for viral clicks and advertising dollars, politically motivated half-truths, and more.
Foundations and the foundation of a new way of funding journalism
Last August, The Wall Street Journal set a push alert about a story about how alcohol companies are responding to new research that shows consumption of adult beverages might increase the risk of cancer.
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