Yahoo! Fellow Discusses Internet and Politics
Technology has the ability to impact political power across the globe. That was the message presented at an event April 3 celebrating the research and scholarship made possible by a $1 million gift from Yahoo! Inc. at Georgetown University.
One year after receiving the gift to establish a Yahoo! International Values, Communications, Technology and Global Internet Fellowship Fund, Georgetown’s Yahoo! Fellow Irene Wu and Yahoo! co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang spoke at Riggs Library to an audience of students, faculty, business leaders and policy-makers.
“It is a critical component of Georgetown’s mission to ensure that the young women and men who come to us are educated about the moral challenges we face as a global community and are fully prepared to participate in a global economy increasingly marked by challenges to human rights and human dignity,” said Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia in his introduction of Wu and Yang. “This is why we are so proud to have the opportunity to partner with Yahoo!”
John Kline, director of the Master of Science in Foreign Service program and professor of international business diplomacy in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, noted that the gift enhances Georgetown’s ability to address critical global issues, support research and inform business leaders and policy-makers.
At the event, Wu presented her research project, “Information, Identity and Institutions: How Technology Transforms Political Power in the World.” She discussed the ways technology can transform both the people and institutions who use the Internet.
Wu cited examples such as the early use of the telegraph in Brazil in order to communicate an invasion of the capital, and a TV program's impact on Hindu nationalism in India. She also highlighted a more recent event when a homegrown blog became one of the key sources of news and information about the tsunami tragedy in 2004. Wu argued that technology and the Internet has an impact on politics and international affairs across the globe.
“It is clear that governments understand that the production and distribution of information is linked to political power,” Wu commented.
The Yahoo! gift supports two Junior Yahoo! Fellows who study the link between international values and Internet and communication technologies. The fund, which will support annual Yahoo! Fellows housed at the School of Foreign Service’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD) over the next eight years, builds upon the School’s mission to foster academic-practitioner collaborations around key foreign-policy issues.
“The desire to stimulate scholarship through the Yahoo! Fellowship Fund is deeply ingrained in my company’s corporate culture. Yahoo! is a company that was founded on openness, the exchange of information and trust. These values are essential to what Yahoo! does and represents around the world,” Yang said at the event.
By capitalizing on the insights provided by scholars like Irene, the strides made by activists around the world, and the collective efforts of industry and government, I believe we can use technology to improve people’s lives and make the world a better place,” he said. “I look forward to our continued collaboration with Georgetown University and to ensuring that the goals that inspired the Yahoo! Fellowship are fulfilled.”
The Yahoo! Fellow in Residence is a professional selected from the corporate, government or academic sectors whose interests relate to the interaction of communications technologies and national systems and practices with an emphasis on countries rapidly expanding in the global marketplace such as China, India, Russia and Brazil. Junior Yahoo! Fellows will be selected among graduate students in the Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) program. In addition to their research activities, Yahoo! Fellows will collaborate with faculty in the MSFS program to enhance curricular activities by contributing to guest lectures, special seminars, case studies and course modules.
Source: Office of Communications
April 4, 2008
