Nobody has thought more about the intersection of media, technology, and politics than Zeynep Tufekci. Her new book Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, is about the incredible promise and the real weaknesses of these new social media movements that have been central to the news cycle and the way news is made over the last five to ten years.

Although Tufekci dates that back much further. In this interview, recorded live in front of an audience of BuzzFeed reporters, she talks about her roots and what she sees as these movements' roots in the Zapatista revolution in the 1990s in Mexico. And with the explosion of social movements around the world on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms, there's been backlash and crackdowns that a lot of people, other than Tufekci, did not see coming.

Find more of Tufekci's work at technosociology.org.

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11: Zeynep Tufekci

BuzzFeed Editor In Chief Ben Smith hosts conversations on the intersection of politics, media, and technology — and all of 2017's insanity.

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Stephen Miller, who writes under the name @redsteeze and isn't to be confused with the White House adviser of the same name, is among the most effective of the self-appointed public editors who harry journalists on Twitter. (He also got some attention recently for attending a women-only showing of Wonder Woman.) He comes from the right and has a belief that most media sins can be tracked to an attempt to push a progressive agenda. But in a universe increasingly dominated by bad faith trolls whose explicit goal is to destroy the traditional media, Miller — despite his vitriol — is usually in good faith.

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13: @redsteeze

A conversation with Ivan Kolpakov, editor in chief of the Russian news site Meduza, and Inga Springe, a founder of the non-profit investigative journalism site Re:Baltica, about reporting on Russia from just across the border in Latvia, what it's like to live inside Russia's media bubble, and why journalists over there aren't particularly interested in the story of Russia's meddling in the U.S. election.

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12: Journalism In Russia's Shadow

What a student of executive power and friend of James Comey makes of Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller's investigation, and the first 147 days of Trump's presidency.

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10: Benjamin Wittes

Ben interviews New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on stage at the Northside Festival in Brooklyn. They talk about de Blasio's relationship with the press — and its parallels with Donald Trump's approach to dealing with the media — recent subway breakdowns, and his very particular gym routine at the Park Slope YMCA.

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11: Zeynep Tufekci

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