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Bio

livingroom_100x113.jpgIn 2006, I founded ZapBoom Consulting,  which specializes in the analysis of how digital tools like cell phones and the Internet can be used in social change campaigns in developing countries.  I have researched and written reports on topics ranging from online citizen journalism to blog advocacy and internet censorship.  I have also performed in-country Internet monitoring and international conference organizing. 

You can contact me at MaryCJoyce AT gmail DOT com.

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Current CV

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Posts about "democracy" in other sites

An Internet & Democracy Framework: Information > Deliberation > Participation

Posted by Mary on 14/01/2008 at 2:18

One of our tasks at the Internet and Democracy Project is to develop an intellectual framework which will aid us in studying the effect of the Internet on democracy. We are beginning by doing a lot of background research on the scholarship of democracy: Juan Linz, Seymour Martin Lipset, Terry Lynn Karl, Joseph Schumpeter, Robert Dahl, Larry Diamond. This has been very useful in placing our own research within the context of previous democracy research. Our next step is to do an overview of previous theories of democracy and the Internet, which fellow Corinna di

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Morocco's Sad Sad Election

Posted by Mary on 18/09/2007 at 17:38

Moroccan democracy is a cause that is near and dear to my heart. I spent the academic year of 2004-2005 in Rabat as a Fulbright scholar studying democratization. Pretty early on, I realized that Moroccan democratization was a fraud, but I was really inspired by the passionate work of Moroccan grassroots activists, which led to my current passion for digital activism.


nice Al-Jazeera English analysis of the election

Unfortunately, the recent parliamentary elections on September 7th were pretty sad. I don't say that they were "disappointing" because it was really a surprise that the respected Islamist PJD party came in

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Political Equals

Posted by Mary on 10/09/2007 at 23:55

Today was my first day of class at the Kennedy School and, not surprisingly, one of my readings for tomorrow has inspired me.  (Part of the reasons I was looking forward to starting grad school was to have more blogging fodder.)

For my class in comparative politics, I was assigned a piece of Robert A. Dahl's 1971 book Polyarchy:Participation and Opposition, specifically, a section on democratization.  One throw-away comment that Dahl makes that I really like is that citizens in a democracy are "political equals."  I really like this formulation of equality and I think it  clarifies the impact

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An Introduction to Semiotic Democracy

Posted by Mary on 30/08/2007 at 9:46

Note: The idea of semiotic democracy - the collaborative public definition of cultural signs (semeîon in Greek) - is gaining popularity, particularly as it applies the the Internet. Here's a passage on semiotic democracy from my case study on the citizen journalism web site OhmyNews. Please feel free to correct my interpretations.

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Citizen reporters take part in the semiotic process of creating meaning within a culture. They cease to be a passive audience for the culture products which reflect the priorities of others and instead create their own cultural products which reflect their own priorities. Given wide enough

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OhmyNews Case Study: The Super-Short Version

Posted by Mary on 28/08/2007 at 12:16

Note: In June I was hired by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society to write a case study about the effect that the Korean citizen journalism site OhmyNews has had on democracy in that country. I finished the first draft of the report last week. This is the executive summary.


Ever since Tom Paine wrote "Common Sense" in 1776, citizen journalism has been strengthening democracy. By providing an alternative to mainstream media in both content and perspective, citizen journalism keeps people better informed about public issues, allowing them to more intelligently form opinions about public policy and select

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Taking Back the Internet

Posted by Mary on 17/08/2007 at 13:06

Most of the Internet is like a village square where the rich come to sell you something and the powerful come to remind you who is boss.   The rich don't expect you to interact with them and they don't want you to interact with them unless it will somehow encourage you to buy more.   The powerful  don't expect you to interact with them and they don't want you to interact with you unless it will somehow encourage you to be more obedient.

We have accepted that we can't talk back to the rich and powerful.  But that is a lie. 

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Q: Who is your Congressman working for?

Posted by Mary on 09/07/2007 at 17:08

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A: Your Congressman is working for special interests and elections are the reason.

We Americans are pretty proud of our democracy. While we didn't exactly invent the thing (that would the ancient Greeks and then the French philosophes), we are the first country in the modern world with an elected executive. We are so proud of our democracy that we've even tried to spread it to other countries, usually with mixed results. Still, a lot of what makes Americans patriotic about their country is their democracy, and we don't tend to be too critical of it.

Last Saturday I saw

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Rayt - The Power of the Comment

Posted by Mary on 07/07/2007 at 10:45


Wouldn't you love to leave a comment on this site?

Where We Are Today

Skewed as it is towards the western, wealthy, and white, the internet is the best proxy we have for the world in which we live. Every government has a website, every large corporation, every international clothing store or fast food chain, every nation-wide newspaper, every major NGO, every pharmaceutical company. These organizations - through commerce, charity, or force - govern our world. They govern us. Shouldn't we have the right to publicly comment on them?

In many countries, we do have the right to publicly comment,

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Larry Lessig goes into Politics

Posted by Mary on 26/06/2007 at 10:02

 

When considering my career, I've often thought of who I'd like to be like, which public figure I'd like to emulate. The person I come up with most often is Larry Lessig. He's a public intellectual and also an activist. He's no Che Guevara (and neither am I), but he's used his intellectual prowess and energy to change the world in the domain of intellectual property rights. Creative Commons, his "some rights reserved" program, has introduced alternatives to copyright in dozens of nations around the world (including Bligoo). He is a well-respected author. He travels around giving talks.

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I'm depressed about the Nigerian election

Posted by Mary on 23/04/2007 at 20:17

I guess it doesn't surprise anyone when an African country with a history of military coups and rampant corruption pulls off an election that is rife with fraud, violence, and disenfranchisement. Still, the shamelessness of the abuse of power made it rather shocking. Here's a taste from the report I am writing on the elections for the OpenNet Initiative (ONI):

The local elections of April 14, as well as the presidential election on April 21 were marred by blatant and widespread violence, fraud, and disenfranchisement. The anecdotes were both shocking and disheartening. In the northern village of Dandume, not a (Read more)

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"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

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What is Digital Activism?

Digital activism means grassroots activists using digital technologies like cell phones and the internet to increase their impact, thus subverting traditional power hierarchies and changing the world.

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