Google, the Media Patron – How the Digital Giant Ensnares Journalism

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Google, the Media Patron – How the Digital Giant Ensnares Journalism OBS-Arbeitsheft 103 Alexander Fanta/Ingo Dachwitz Fanta/Dachwitz – Google, the media patron the media – Google, Fanta/Dachwitz OBS-Arbeitsheft 103 OBS-Arbeitsheft 103 OBS-Arbeitsheft Google, the media patron How the digital giant ensnares journalism Google, the media patron How the digital giant ensnares journalism A project of the Otto Brenner Foundation (OBS) www.otto-brenner-stiftung.de Frankfurt am Main 2020 OBS-Arbeitsheft 103 Aktuelle Ergebnisse der Forschungsförderung ISSN-Print: 1863-6934 Die Otto Brenner Stiftung … in der Reihe „OBS-Arbeitshefte“ ISSN-Online: 2365-2314 ... ist die gemeinnützige Wissen- ... veröffentlicht die Ergebnisse schaftsstiftung der IG Metall. Sie ihrer Forschungsförderung in der hat ihren Sitz in Frankfurt am Reihe „OBS-Arbeitshefte“ oder OBS-Arbeitsheft 103 Publisher: Main. Als Forum für gesellschaft- als Arbeitspapiere (nur online). Ingo Dachwitz, Alexander Fanta liche Diskurse und Einrichtung Otto Brenner Foundation (OBS) Die Arbeitshefte werden, wie auch Medienmäzen Google der Forschungsförderung ist sie alle anderen Publikationen der Wie der Datenkonzern den Journalismus umgarnt Jupp Legrand dem Ziel der sozialen Gerechtig- OBS, kostenlos abgegeben. Über keit verpflichtet. Besonderes Au- die Homepage der Stiftung kön- Wilhelm-Leuschner-Straße 79 genmerk gilt dabei dem Ausgleich OBS-Arbeitsheft 102* nen sie auch elektronisch bestellt Wolfgang Schroeder, Samuel Greef u.a. D-60329 Frankfurt am Main zwischen Ost und West. werden. Vergriffene Hefte halten Bedrängte Zivilgesellschaft von rechts Tel.: 069-6693-2810 ... initiiert den gesellschaftli- wir als PDF zum Download bereit. Interventionsversuche und Reaktionsmuster Fax: 069-6693-2786 chen Dialog durch Veranstaltun- gen, Workshops und Koopera- ... freut sich über jede ideelle Un- OBS-Arbeitsheft 101* E-Mail: [email protected] tionsveranstaltungen (z. B. im terstützung ihrer Arbeit. Aber wir Leif Kramp, Stephan Weichert Herbst die OBS-Jahrestagungen), sind auch sehr dankbar, wenn die Nachrichten mit Perspektive www.otto-brenner-stiftung.de organisiert Konferenzen, lobt Arbeit der OBS materiell gefördert Lösungsorientierter und konstruktiver Journalismus jährlich den „Brenner-Preis für wird. in Deutschland kritischen Journalismus“ aus, In cooperation with the fördert wissenschaftliche Unter- ... ist zuletzt durch Bescheid des OBS-Arbeitsheft 100* German Trade Union Confederation suchungen zu sozialen, arbeits- Finanzamtes Frankfurt am Main V Tim Engartner markt- und gesellschaftspoliti- (-Höchst) vom 29. Mai 2018 als Wie DAX-Unternehmen Schule machen (DGB). schen Themen, vergibt Kurzstudi- ausschließlich und unmittelbar Lehr- und Lernmaterial als Türöffner für Lobbyismus en und legt aktuelle Analysen vor. gemeinnützig anerkannt worden. Aufgrund der Gemeinnützigkeit OBS-Arbeitsheft 99* Authors: ... informiert regelmäßig mit ei- der Otto Brenner Stiftung sind Tobias Gostomzyk, Daniel Moßbrucker nem Newsletter über Projekte, Spenden steuerlich absetzbar „Wenn Sie das schreiben, verklage ich Sie!“ Alexander Fanta Publikationen, Termine und Ver- Studie zu präventiven Anwaltsstrategien c/o netzpolitik.org anstaltungen. bzw. begünstigt. gegenüber Medien Schönhauser Allee 6/7 OBS-Arbeitsheft 98* D-10119 Berlin Unterstützen Sie unsere Arbeit, Lutz Frühbrodt, Annette Floren E-Mail: [email protected] Unboxing YouTube z. B. durch eine zweckgebundene Spende Im Netzwerk der Profis und Profiteure Spenden erfolgen nicht in den Vermögensstock der Stiftung, sie werden OBS-Arbeitsheft 97* Ingo Dachwitz ausschließlich und zeitnah für die Durchführung der Projekte entsprechend dem Verwendungszweck genutzt. Wolfgang Schroeder, Stefan Fuchs c/o netzpolitik.org Neue Mitglieder für die Gewerkschaften Schönhauser Allee 6/7 Bitte nutzen Sie folgende Spendenkonten: Mitgliederpolitik als neues Politikfeld der IG Metall Für Spenden mit zweckgebundenem Verwendungszweck zur Förderung von D-10119 Berlin Wissenschaft und Forschung zum Schwerpunkt: OBS-Arbeitsheft 96* E-Mail: [email protected] • Förderung der internationalen Gesinnung und Rainer Faus, Simon Storks des Völkerverständigungsgedankens Im vereinten Deutschland geboren – Both authors contributed equally to this study. in den Einstellungen gespalten? Bank: HELABA Frankfurt/Main OBS-Studie zur ersten Nachwendegeneration IBAN: DE11 5005 0000 0090 5460 03 BIC: HELA DE FF OBS-Arbeitsheft 95* Editing and Project Management: Bernd Gäbler Benedikt Linden (OBS) AfD und Medien Für Spenden mit zweckgebundenem Verwendungszweck zur Förderung von Erfahrungen und Lehren für die Praxis Pauline Frankenberger (OBS) Terms of use: Wissenschaft und Forschung zu den Schwerpunkten: Marion Knappe (DGB) This publication may only be passed on – as well as made • Angleichung der Arbeits- und Lebensverhältnisse in Ost- und OBS-Arbeitsheft 94* publicly available – by third parties for non-commercial Westdeutschland (einschließlich des Umweltschutzes) Olaf Hoffjahn, Oliver Haidukiewicz • Entwicklung demokratischer Arbeitsbeziehungen in Mittel- und Deutschlands Blogger Design: thinkandact-mainz.de purposes in the field of scientific research and advice. This Osteuropa Die unterschätzten Journalisten may be done exclusively in the version published by the • Verfolgung des Zieles der sozialen Gerechtigkeit OBS-Arbeitsheft 93* Otto Brenner Foundation and the DGB. Michael Haller Translation: lingolinx.de Bank: HELABA Frankfurt/Main IBAN: DE86 5005 0000 0090 5460 11 Die „Flüchtlingskrise“ in den Medien BIC: HELA DE FF Tagesaktueller Journalismus zwischen Cover: Kwennie Cheng The “OBS-Arbeitshefte” document the results of the Otto Meinung und Information Brenner Foundation’s research funding and make them Geben Sie bitte Ihre vollständige Adresse auf dem Überweisungsträger an, Editorial deadline: 28 July 2020 available to the public. The authors are responsible for damit wir Ihnen nach Eingang der Spende eine Spendenbescheinigung zu- * Printfassung leider vergriffen; Download weiterhin möglich. senden können. Oder bitten Sie in einem kurzen Schreiben an die Stiftung the content. unter Angabe der Zahlungsmodalitäten um eine Spendenbescheinigung. We would like to thank the Hans Böckler Foundation Verwaltungsrat und Geschäftsführung der Otto Brenner Stiftung danken für die finanzielle Unterstützung und versichern, dass die Spenden ausschließ- Diese und weitere Publikationen der OBS finden Sie unter www.otto-brenner-stiftung.de for the Support in publishing “OBS-Arbeitsheft 103”. lich für den gewünschten Verwendungszweck genutzt werden. Otto Brenner Stiftung | Wilhelm-Leuschner-Straße 79 | D-60329 Frankfurt/Main Contents Contents 1 Introduction: an unprecedented charm offensive ...................................................... 3 2 The newspaper crisis and its consequences ............................................................. 6 2.1 Press independence in the market economy ....................................................................6 2.2 Google in good company: the new patrons of the media ..................................................9 2.3 Platforms and publishers: competition or cooperation? ................................................. 12 2.4 A challenge to independence .........................................................................................15 2.5 Interim summary: three dimensions of press independence ........................................... 18 3 Study design ..........................................................................................................19 3.1 Research questions ...................................................................................................... 19 3.2 Standardised survey on product relationships ..............................................................20 3.3 Digital News Innovation Fund data analysis ................................................................... 21 3.4 Guided interviews with digital journalists and managers ............................................... 23 3.5 Interview with Google managers ...................................................................................26 4 History and structure of Google’s news initiatives ...................................................27 4.1 A political backdrop ......................................................................................................28 4.2 Google’s European funding operations: the Digital News Initiative (DNI) ........................ 31 4.3 Worldwide funding: the Google News Initiative (GNI) ..................................................... 33 4.4 Philanthropy and self-interest ...................................................................................... 35 4.5 Interim summary: funding programmes under political auspices ................................... 37 5 Media funding with the Digital News Innovation Fund ............................................. 39 5.1 Results of the DNI Fund data analysis ............................................................................39 5.2 How DNI projects work in practice ..................................................................................51 5.3 Impact on independence ............................................................................................... 56 5.4 Interim summary: Google’s millions for the media industry are not without consequence ........................................................................................ 63 1 Google, the media patron 6 Conferences, training, fellowships ........................................................................
Recommended publications
  • Recaptcha: Human-Based Character Recognition Via Web Security
    REPORTS on September 12, 2008 and blogs. For example, CAPTCHAs prevent www.sciencemag.org reCAPTCHA: Human-Based Character ticket scalpers from using computer programs to buy large numbers of concert tickets, only to re Recognition via Web Security Measures sell them at an inflated price. Sites such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail use CAPTCHAs to stop spam Luis von Ahn,* Benjamin Maurer, Colin McMillen, David Abraham, Manuel Blum mers from obtaining millions of free e mail accounts, which they would use to send spam CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) are e mail. Downloaded from widespread security measures on the World Wide Web that prevent automated programs from According to our estimates, humans around abusing online services. They do so by asking humans to perform a task that computers cannot yet the world type more than 100 million CAPTCHAs perform, such as deciphering distorted characters. Our research explored whether such human every day (see supporting online text), in each case effort can be channeled into a useful purpose: helping to digitize old printed material by asking spending a few seconds typing the distorted char users to decipher scanned words from books that computerized optical character recognition failed acters. In aggregate, this amounts to hundreds of to recognize. We showed that this method can transcribe text with a word accuracy exceeding 99%, thousands of human hours per day. We report on matching the guarantee of professional human transcribers. Our apparatus is deployed in more an experiment that attempts to make positive use than 40,000 Web sites and has transcribed over 440 million words.
    [Show full text]
  • Newspaper Licensing Agency - NLA
    Newspaper Licensing Agency - NLA Publisher/RRO Title Title code Ad Sales Newquay Voice NV Ad Sales St Austell Voice SAV Ad Sales www.newquayvoice.co.uk WEBNV Ad Sales www.staustellvoice.co.uk WEBSAV Advanced Media Solutions WWW.OILPRICE.COM WEBADMSOILP AJ Bell Media Limited www.sharesmagazine.co.uk WEBAJBSHAR Alliance News Alliance News Corporate ALLNANC Alpha Newspapers Antrim Guardian AG Alpha Newspapers Ballycastle Chronicle BCH Alpha Newspapers Ballymoney Chronicle BLCH Alpha Newspapers Ballymena Guardian BLGU Alpha Newspapers Coleraine Chronicle CCH Alpha Newspapers Coleraine Northern Constitution CNC Alpha Newspapers Countydown Outlook CO Alpha Newspapers Limavady Chronicle LIC Alpha Newspapers Limavady Northern Constitution LNC Alpha Newspapers Magherafelt Northern Constitution MNC Alpha Newspapers Newry Democrat ND Alpha Newspapers Strabane Weekly News SWN Alpha Newspapers Tyrone Constitution TYC Alpha Newspapers Tyrone Courier TYCO Alpha Newspapers Ulster Gazette ULG Alpha Newspapers www.antrimguardian.co.uk WEBAG Alpha Newspapers ballycastle.thechronicle.uk.com WEBBCH Alpha Newspapers ballymoney.thechronicle.uk.com WEBBLCH Alpha Newspapers www.ballymenaguardian.co.uk WEBBLGU Alpha Newspapers coleraine.thechronicle.uk.com WEBCCHR Alpha Newspapers coleraine.northernconstitution.co.uk WEBCNC Alpha Newspapers limavady.thechronicle.uk.com WEBLIC Alpha Newspapers limavady.northernconstitution.co.uk WEBLNC Alpha Newspapers www.newrydemocrat.com WEBND Alpha Newspapers www.outlooknews.co.uk WEBON Alpha Newspapers www.strabaneweekly.co.uk
    [Show full text]
  • Local Commercial Radio Content
    Local commercial radio content Qualitative Research Report Prepared for Ofcom by Kantar Media 1 Contents Contents ................................................................................................................................................. 2 1 Executive summary .................................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Background .............................................................................................................................. 5 1.2 Summary of key findings .......................................................................................................... 5 2 Background and objectives ..................................................................................................... 10 2.1 Background ............................................................................................................................ 10 2.2 Research objectives ............................................................................................................... 10 2.3 Research approach and sample ............................................................................................ 11 2.3.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................. 11 2.3.2 Workshop groups: approach and sample ........................................................................... 11 2.3.3 Research flow summary ....................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Terms and Conditions Apply to All Users of This Website
    Version date: 5 November 2020 This website is provided by Archant Community Media Limited whose registered office address is Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich, Norfolk NR1 1RE and whose company number is 19300 and VAT number is 362050531. Terms & Conditions These terms and conditions apply to all users of this website. If you do not accept these terms then you should immediately stop using this website. Your use of the website confirms your acceptance of these terms. We will not be liable to you for any interruption or delay that you experience in accessing the website, whatever the cause. Please ensure that you also read, understood, and agreed to our Privacy Policy prior to using this site. No metatags, hyperlinks, or other forms of linkage whatsoever to any other website may be imposed on the website unless express prior permission has been given. Access to particular areas of the website may be subject to additional terms to which you confirm your acceptance of by entering the particular areas. If you do not accept those terms then you should immediately stop using those pages. Archant does not warrant that functions contained in the website content will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected or that the Content or the Server(s) are available free of viruses or bugs. This website is made available on the basis that there are excluded, to the extent permitted by law, any terms implied by statute or otherwise and all liability for any loss or damage however it arises out of the use of this website or reliance on its content.
    [Show full text]
  • From Notice-And-Takedown to Notice-And-Delist: Implementing Google Spain
    FINAL KUCZERAWY AND AUSLOOS 4.5.16 (DO NOT DELETE) 5/9/16 11:51 AM FROM NOTICE-AND-TAKEDOWN TO NOTICE-AND-DELIST: IMPLEMENTING GOOGLE SPAIN ALEKSANDRA KUCZERAWY AND JEF AUSLOOS* INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 220 A. Media Storm ........................................................................... 220 B. Internet Law Crossroads ........................................................ 221 I. HOW DID WE GET HERE? .............................................................. 223 A. Google Spain .......................................................................... 223 1. Facts of the Case ............................................................... 223 2. Scope ............................................................................... 224 3. Right to be Delisted .......................................................... 224 4. Balancing .......................................................................... 225 B. Implementation of Google Spain ............................................ 226 1. Online Form ...................................................................... 226 2. Advisory Council .............................................................. 227 3. Article 29 Working Party ................................................. 228 4. Emerging Body of Case Law ........................................... 228 II. HAVE WE MET BEFORE? ............................................................... 229 A. Dazed and Confused: Criticism of Google
    [Show full text]
  • I Am Not a Robot: an Overview on Google's Captcha
    I AM NOT A ROBOT: - AN OVERVIEW ON GOOGLE’S CAPTCHA A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science In Computer Science By Uday Prabhala 2016 SIGNATURE PAGE THESIS: I AM NOT A ROBOT: - AN OVERVIEW ON GOOGLE’S CAPTCHA AUTHOR: Uday Prabhala DATE SUBMITTED: Summer 2016 Computer Science Department. Dr. Gilbert Young ___________________________________________ Thesis Committee Chair Computer Science Dr. Fang D. Tang ___________________________________________ Computer Science Dr. Yu Sun ___________________________________________ Computer Science ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family members, Yashoda, Lucky, and Diskey, as well as my girlfriend Siri, who helped make this endeavor possible. Their limitless support, assistance, and encouragement during the times when I was close to giving up were greatly helpful, and I wouldn’t have been able to overcome the obstacles without them. I would also like to send my appreciation and gratitude to the Professors who were part of my thesis committee. Most notably, I would like to thank Professor Gilbert Young, chair of the committee, for his support, patience, guidance, and sharing of knowledge throughout the program. I would also like to thank Professor Tang and Professor Yusun for reviewing my paper and attending my presentation. The above three Professors not only helped me to complete my program, but also served as an excellent example by exercising professionalism, versatility, and commitment to the developing engineering students at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. iii ABSTRACT I am not a Robot Overview on Google’s Captcha Uday Kiran Prabhala Computers are one of the greatest inventions done by humans; these devices not only made our work easy, but could also be misused in various ways.
    [Show full text]
  • Modern Password Security for System Designers What to Consider When Building a Password-Based Authentication System
    Modern password security for system designers What to consider when building a password-based authentication system By Ian Maddox and Kyle Moschetto, Google Cloud Solutions Architects This whitepaper describes and models modern password guidance and recommendations for the designers and engineers who create secure online applications. A related whitepaper, Password security ​ for users, offers guidance for end users. This whitepaper covers the wide range of options to consider ​ when building a password-based authentication system. It also establishes a set of user-focused recommendations for password policies and storage, including the balance of password strength and usability. The technology world has been trying to improve on the password since the early days of computing. Shared-knowledge authentication is problematic because information can fall into the wrong hands or be forgotten. The problem is magnified by systems that don't support real-world secure use cases and by the frequent decision of users to take shortcuts. According to a 2019 Yubico/Ponemon study, 69 percent of respondents admit to sharing passwords with ​ ​ their colleagues to access accounts. More than half of respondents (51 percent) reuse an average of five passwords across their business and personal accounts. Furthermore, two-factor authentication is not widely used, even though it adds protection beyond a username and password. Of the respondents, 67 percent don’t use any form of two-factor authentication in their personal life, and 55 percent don’t use it at work. Password systems often allow, or even encourage, users to use insecure passwords. Systems that allow only single-factor credentials and that implement ineffective security policies add to the problem.
    [Show full text]
  • Check Point Threat Intelligence Bulletin
    December 31, 2018 – January 6, 2019 VS. CISCO IRON PORT YOUR CHECK POINT THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORT TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES Highly-sensitive personal data of more than 100 German politicians, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been leaked in a recent attack. While the identity of the attackers and the method used are still unknown, the leaked data appears to have been collected from their personal smartphones. The popular browser-based game ‘Town of Salem’ has suffered a major data breach, exposing account data of more than 7.6 million players. The breached database contained players’ email addresses, hashed passwords, IP addresses and some payment information. The Ryuk ransomware has hit the cloud hosting provider “Dataresolution.net”, after the attackers used a hacked login account. The Ryuk campaign was studied last August by Check Point’s research team, who associated it with the notorious North Korean APT Lazarus Group. Check Point SandBlast and Anti-Bot blades provide protection against this threat (Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Ryuk) A new campaign targeting Chromecast adapters has been launched in order to promote the popular YouTube channel “PewDiePie”. The hackers utilized the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) feature in Chromecasts that allows routers to forward public Internet ports to internal adapters and used it to connect to the device and display YouTube content. A data leak has affected over 2.4 million users of Blur, the password manager application. The leak potentially exposed users’ email addresses, password hashes, IP addresses and, in some cases, full names and password hints. The official website of Dublin’s tram system, the Luas, has been hacked and defaced.
    [Show full text]
  • When in Rome, Beijing Or Brussels
    When in Rome, Beijing or Brussels: Cultural Considerations of International Business Communication By Colin Gunn-Graffy A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Department of Communication Boston College May, 2007 Copyright, Colin Gunn-Graffy © 2007 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements To my family, for their continued support, no matter what continent I’m on TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER ONE: Introduction 1 CHAPTER TWO: Things Go Worse for Coke: The Coca-Cola 12 Contamination Crisis in Belgium CHAPTER THREE: The Magic’s Gone: The Marketing Mistake 31 of Euro Disney in France CHAPTER FOUR: Looking Ahead: The Digital Age 55 and the Rising Markets of the East CHAPTER FIVE: Conclusion 69 REFERENCES 74 1 CHAPTER ONE: Introduction Globalization and the Rise of Multinational Corporations Even before the Dutch sailed to the East Indies or Marco Polo traveled to China, people have been interacting with other cultures in numerous ways, many of them for economic reasons. One would imagine it was quite difficult initially for these people to communicate and do business with each other, but even today obstacles in international business still exist. Although our world has certainly become much smaller in the last several centuries, cultural and geographical contexts still play a large part in shaping different societies and their methods of interaction with others. The term “globalization” is one heard of quite often in today’s world, particularly in economic terms, referring to the expansion of free market capitalism. There are many other aspects that fit into the globalization process, ranging from political to social to technological, that are a part of this increasing interconnectivity of people around the world.
    [Show full text]
  • An Object Detection Based Solver for Google's Image Recaptcha V2
    An Object Detection based Solver for Google’s Image reCAPTCHA v2 Md Imran Hossen∗ Yazhou Tu∗ Md Fazle Rabby∗ Md Nazmul Islam∗ Hui Cao† Xiali Hei∗ ∗University of Louisiana at Lafayette †Xi’an Jiaotong University Abstract have emerged as a superior alternative to text ones as they are considered more robust to automated attacks. Previous work showed that reCAPTCHA v2’s image chal- lenges could be solved by automated programs armed with reCAPTCHA v2, a dominant image CAPTCHA service Deep Neural Network (DNN) image classifiers and vision released by Google in 2014, asks users to perform an im- APIs provided by off-the-shelf image recognition services. age recognition task to verify that they are humans and not In response to emerging threats, Google has made signifi- bots. However, in recent years, deep learning (DL) algorithms cant updates to its image reCAPTCHA v2 challenges that have achieved impressive successes in several complex image can render the prior approaches ineffective to a great extent. recognition tasks, often matching or even outperforming the In this paper, we investigate the robustness of the latest ver- cognitive ability of humans [30]. Consequently, successful sion of reCAPTCHA v2 against advanced object detection attacks against reCAPTCHA v2 that leverage Deep Neural based solvers. We propose a fully automated object detection Network (DNN) image classifier and off-the-shelf (OTS) im- based system that breaks the most advanced challenges of age recognition services have been proposed [44, 50]. reCAPTCHA v2 with an online success rate of 83.25%, the The prior work advanced our understanding of the security highest success rate to date, and it takes only 19.93 seconds issues of image CAPTCHAs and led to better CAPTCHA (including network delays) on average to crack a challenge.
    [Show full text]
  • Mashing-Up Maps Google Geo Services and the Geography Of
    Mashing-up Maps Google Geo Services and the Geography of Ubiquity Craig M. Dalton A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy in the Department of Geography. Chapel Hill 2012 Approved by: Dr. Scott Kirsch Dr. Banu Gokariksel Dr. Kenneth Hillis Dr. John Pickles Dr. Sarah Sharma © 2012 Craig M. Dalton ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii Abstract CRAIG DALTON: Mashing-up Maps: Google Geo Services and the Geography of Ubiquity (Under the direction of Scott Kirsch) How are Google geo services such as Google Maps and Google Earth shaping ways of seeing the world? These geographic ways of seeing are part of an influential and problematic geographic discourse. This discourse reaches hundreds of millions of people, though not all have equal standing. It empowers many people to make maps on the geoweb, but within the limits of Google’s business strategy. These qualities, set against the state-centeredness of mapmaking over the last six hundred years, mark the Google geo discourse as something noteworthy, a consumer-centered mapping in a popular geographic discourse. This dissertation examines the Google geo discourse through its social and technological history, Google’s role in producing and limiting the discourse, and the subjects who make and use these maps. iii Acknowledgements This dissertation was only possible with the help of a large number of people. I owe each a debt of gratitude. Chief among them is a fantastic advisor, Scott Kirsch. His patience, grace, and good criticism saw me through the trials of graduate school.
    [Show full text]
  • Has the Afd Changed German Politics?
    2/2017 2/2017 Has the AfD changed German politics? Klaus Ziemer Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw Abstract The entry of the AfD to the Bundestag marks a new stage in German politics. This article traces the origins of this right-wing populist party against the background of extreme right- wing parties in post-war Germany. It analyses the main precepts of the party’s programme and its activity in parliaments on the regional (Länder) level. A look at where AfD-voters are coming from reveals a long-term trend of a weakening alignment between voters and parties and a growing fragmentation of the German party system. Key words AfD, origins, party programme, AfD electorate, parliamentary activity he political scene in Germany is in a state of flux. The elections Tto the Bundestag in 2017 have, in a most remarkable way, con- tinued the long-term change of the German party system. The entry of the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) reflects the changes in the political cleavages in Germany after the immigration crisis of 2015 and has brought about the end of unam- biguous coalition alternatives on the federal level. The loss of votes by most of the established parties (the SPD got its worst result in Bundestag elections ever) and the number of parliamentary groups: six, which the Bundestag had last seen in 1953 – has made it clear that the Federal Republic is entering a new stage in its history. This was confirmed by the fact that the formation of a new government took half a year – an un- precedented long period of time in the history of the Federal Republic.
    [Show full text]