Index on Censorship looks at machismo as a political category. Resisting the suffocation of dissent in the era of the internet means standing up ‘for the principles of freedom and democracy all the time, not just when they affect you’, comments editor-in-chief Rachael Jolley.
Dual Xi
China’s head of state Xi Jinping is an ambiguous leader, combining a cosmopolitan image with the strongman’s traits, writes Jeffrey Wasserstrom. There is ‘Statesman Xi’, a leader of refined literary taste who stands for social harmony; and there is ‘Chairman Xi’, the head of the communist party, a ‘muscular nationalist who is a lot like members of today’s global crop of strongman leaders’. How can the statesman and the chairman coexist? As the success of leaders such as Viktor Orbán attests, today ‘one can be both an intellectual of sorts and intensely anti-intellectual’.
Censorship
‘Tricky as the art of contemporary censorship may seem, plenty of modern despots with no apparent technical inclination are doing it brilliantly’, writes Rob Sears in his ironic ‘how-to’ of censorship. Taming the internet, creating a troll army, buying up the media and delegitimizing journalists is the way to go. Not even books, ‘those conveniently flammable things’, should be spared: ‘Just don’t forget to torch the Kindle versions as well’.
Italian media
When sowing public distrust of journalism, Matteo Salvini ‘has been pushing at an open door’, writes Alessio Perrone. Fabricated quotes, clickbait headlines and hasty verification are widespread bad practices in the Italian media. While higher journalistic standards would not eliminate hostility towards the media, they would at least ‘make it harder for the media to be such an easy target for populists’.
More articles from Index on Censorship in Eurozine; Index on Censorships’s website
This article is part of the 1/2020 Eurozine review. Click here to subscribe to our reviews, and you also can subscribe to our newsletter and get the bi-weekly updates about the latest publications and news on partner journals.
Published 15 January 2020
Original in English
First published by Eurozine
© Eurozine
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