Kristina Klinkforth's blog

Debate about how the current information-abundant communication environment is impacting global politics has long entered the circles of communication practitioners and academics. However, findings remain mixed. Optimists argue that new information and communication technologies (ICTs) – mobile phones, commercially available satellite imagery, and, of course, the Internet – have fundamentally changed the power relationship between state and non-state actors such as NGOs, transnational advocacy networks, and citizens. Information is now available to various political actors at low cost, thus breaking the information monopoly of the nation-state. In turn, non-state actors gain in narrative power, understood as the capacity to generate, manage, and distribute information to the public.