[icernet] Analysis: The Net not conducive to propaganda

[Arul Selvan]

In the age of the Internet, it is much easier for people to get news from
different viewpoints than even as recently as the 1991 Gulf War -- and
therefore, it's much harder for governments to make propaganda work, writes
Owen Gibson in MediaGuardian. Web users have not limited themselves to
checking out news TV like CNN or BBC in the aftermath of the September 11
terrorist attacks. Netizens have been able to get information and views on
the war against terror, the Iraq controversy and everything that surrounds
them from a multitude of online sources. Noting the huge increase in
popularity of sites such as Afghanistan Online, Islamic Gateway, Stopwar and
Amnesty International, Gibson writes that, "interested parties were able to
flick from the French press to the U.S. tabloids and back again to see how
differing views on the war were taking shape." Plus, it has become harder
for governments to mislead people, as proven when it was discovered that the
Iraq dossier presented by the British government contained parts from a
student thesis written three years ago, ready to download from the Net.
"After all, when you can see opposing views at the click of a mouse,
controlling the nation's perception of a conflict becomes a lot more
difficult," Gibson writes.

Source:
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,896874,00.html