Rogers Brubaker argues that “digital hyperconnectivity has changed just about everything.” He is a distinguished professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles and the author of numerous books, including his latest, “Hyperconnectivity and Its Discontents.” He joined Riada Asimovic Akyol on the Wider Angle podcast for a conversation about the various transformations brought about by this hyperconnectivity. 

For Brubaker, the “hyper” in “hyperconnectivity” means that “everyone and everything is connected to everyone and everything else everywhere and all the time.” While digital connectivity has a much longer history, he argues that hyperconnectivity dates to the end of the last decade, pointing to the start of nearly universal use of smartphones and social media in advanced societies.

Brubaker argues that despite the disappointment with the political and economic consequences of hyperconnectivity, there is still a vibrant enthusiasm about digital culture. But he thinks that we need to look critically at the excitement about the abundance of digital culture, including its democratizing effects on society. 

Listen to the conversation to hear the wider angle of what our digital future might look like, as Brubaker shares his ideas about what a genuine democratization of cultural creativity and politics could look like, how hyperconnectivity has transformed how we learn politically relevant knowledge, and the emergence of a new social infrastructure, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic that has made these ideas only more important. 

The program is available wherever you listen to podcasts or on New Lines Magazine's YouTube channel.

Wider Angle is produced and hosted by Riada Asimovic Akyol.

While traditional autocrats and their “fear dictatorship” model, prevalent in the 20th century, have not disappeared, some scholars argue that a new type of tyrant arose toward the end of the last millennium. Among them is Daniel Treisman, a political scientist and author of several books, including the latest one “Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century,” which he co-authored with Sergei Guriev. Treisman joined Riada Asimovic Akyol in a conversation about this new kind of dictator, who in contrast to ruthlessly repressive tyrants of the 20th century who “boasted about their violence in public,” have evolved. Treisman summarizes their mode of operating: “by manipulating information, by co-opting the media, presenting a distorted version of reality. …  So, instead of terrorizing people into submission, they fool them.”

Treisman and Guriev argue that what holds back the would-be spin dictators, at least in more developed, highly educated societies, is the resistance of the so-called “informed” part of the population. 

“We see a highly educated, internationally connected, sophisticated society as the crucial defense,” Treisman explains in the podcast. “That means journalists, lawyers, civic activists, civil servants, academics and many others who have the skills to communicate and organize to resist the would-be dictator.” Hence, this group of people “with that kind of human capital and resources” represents one of the main challenges for the spin dictators who target “the informed” in order to prevent them from mobilizing the public and the opposition.

There are specific contexts and political conjunctures that can make a spin dictator switch (back) to a fear dictator. Treisman explains Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia in that context and more specifically how various changes in that regime’s internal composition impacted Putin’s shift to very undisguised repression.

Listen to the conversation to hear the wider angle of new challenges to liberal democracies, the suggested policy approach of “adversarial engagement” toward spin dictators and how to make sure that Western democracies don’t “sink into spin.” It is also available on YouTube.

“When I did become a pilot, I realized that I was having an experience of the cities that was unlike any that I could have ever imagined … it’s a very evocative view of civilization,” says Mark Vanhoenacker, a commercial airline pilot, a writer and the author of three books, including his latest, “Imagine a City.” He joined Riada Asimovic Akyol in a conversation about modern travel and “the kind of unique way a pilot might start to organize the world’s cities when we’ve gone to so many that it can sometimes be hard to keep track.”

More than half of us live in cities, Vanhoenacker explains, and by 2050, two thirds of the world’s population will. He has still been to only around a quarter of the 548 largest cities on the U.N.’s list, but the breadth of such traveling allowed him to notice the enormous changes in various cities throughout his 20 years as a commercial pilot. He cites, for example, the speed of change of the Gulf cities’ skylines and the transformation of accessibility in Delhi thanks to the expansion of the subway network for the city’s metropolitan region. 

Listen to the conversation to hear the wider angle of “connections between different parts of the world,” the nuances of traveling as an ordinary traveler or as a pilot or writer, and the effect such a job has on the perception of home. “Airplanes that actually allow us to physically be somewhere else have really changed our sense of the planet … that can’t be undone, and we should focus on the good things it does for us,” says Vanhoenacker.

 This episode was produced and hosted by Riada Asimovic Akyol. 

Two massive consecutive earthquakes — of 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude — hit southeastern Turkey, along with neighboring regions in Syria, on Feb. 6, causing one of the deadliest natural disasters in the region in the past hundred years. The death toll has passed 47,000. 

Soli Ozel — an academic at Kadir Has University in Istanbul and a frequent commentator of Turkish politics — joined Riada Asimovic Akyol on the Wider Angle podcast to explain the sorrow, anguish and anger within a grieving nation.

Ozel described why the citizens in most quake-stricken provinces said that the state assistance did not arrive in a timely manner and how big volunteer campaigns and civilian endeavors have continued despite the miserable collective morale in Turkey. Given the high level of political polarization in the country, Ozel emphasized “first immense empathy, support, solidarity and perhaps much more importantly the ability of the society to actually organize and mobilize and come to the aid of those in need at the moment when they needed it.”  

But there is a lot of concern, sadness, shock and anger in the country, Ozel adds, “because things should have been and could have been handled much better.” The latest earthquakes also reignited existing fears about the situation in Istanbul and the state of preparation for the massive, long-awaited earthquake that according to seismologists will hit the city by 2030.

Listen to the conversation to understand the wider angle of accumulated traumas and multitude of future challenges in Turkey, which marks its centennial as a modern nation this coming October. Ozel shares his thoughts about the importance of nourishing memory and remembrance for the sake of reckoning and healing pain from the present and the past. It is available wherever you listen to your podcasts and on New Lines magazine's YouTube channel.

“I really want the impossible to actually be set up as a contrast to what is possible in this city, and the idea really is that these odds are really against us, and so much has been stacked up that is not in our favor.” That’s how Karen Cheung, a writer and journalist from Hong Kong, and the author of “The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir,” explains the title of her book. 

Her book documents the period from 1997 to 2021, which Cheung describes as “the space when so much felt possible,” and she addresses the devastating repercussions of silencing dissent while pointing also to different manifestations of resistance and creativity against that oppression. But the descriptions of the Umbrella Movement of 2014 and the fallout of China’s crackdowns on political freedoms in Hong Kong are just one portion of Cheung’s broader portrait of a “place always on the verge of mutilation.” Her descriptions of personal struggle and reports about the broader mental health crisis are part of this love letter to her city. 

In this podcast episode, she elucidates, for example, how capitalism and gentrification affect Hong Kong’s daily life. She clarifies classist and racist stereotypes of the traditionally Chinese and South-Southeast Asian enclaves as well as the perceptions of the label “local.” She also offers what it means to write for a local audience or for a readership outside Hong Kong. In describing media coverage by some foreign journalists, Cheung writes in her book that “these foreign correspondents come with pre-existing ideas of the story they want and ask journalists here to interview locals until they get the story. Publications continue to act like the only time Hong Kongers deserve their own stories is when it’s a narrative about our death.”

Cheung dedicated the book to her “Hong Kong friends.” Listen to the conversation to learn the wider angle of solidarity and hope across borders while understanding in more detail the politics, culture and belonging in contemporary Hong Kong. It is also available on New Lines' YouTube channel.

“Wider Angle” is produced and hosted by Riada Asimovic Akyol. 

“Nothing is wrong with you” or “Could it be that you don’t want to get better?” were frequent responses that Elissa Bassist would get from medical doctors. From 2016 to 2018, she averaged two or three weekly visits to doctors, seeking help for undiagnosed chronic pain. Bassist is an American essayist, humor writer and author of the memoir “Hysterical,” in which she blends personal and scholarly research in a powerful social commentary on a culture that dismissively labels women as such. She joined Riada Asimovic Akyol to talk about misogyny in the medical system and big tech, (mis)representation of women in the media and “the many facets of what women endure in our lives in terms of silencing.” 

Bassist starts the conversation by explaining why today there is a greater risk of misdiagnosis and improper treatment for women in health-related situations. Most medications are not tested on women, and those that are do not for example account for the four phases of the menstrual cycle. Inappropriate medication dosages can result from man-size tests that are deemed “human” and “universal,” and adverse drug reactions on women can ensue because of possible overmedication. The research shows that about 70 percent of patients with medically unexplained symptoms today are women.

As Bassist argues, hysteria has throughout history been deemed “a medical condition, a mental condition, an emotional condition, a spiritual condition.” There is a centuries-old history behind “hysteria,” which served as a “wide-ranging diagnosis” for women. Bassist explains how the Greeks thought that having a uterus was “the origin of all disease” and cause of abnormal demeanor; the Egyptians were the first to use the term; in medieval times a woman would be labeled “diseased” for what Bassist points as “emotional outbursts” and “an unidentifiable illness.” During the Renaissance, women would be labeled a “witch,” and by the 19th century, the term evolved into a “nervous hysteric.” In the 20th and 21st centuries, it has emerged as a discrediting characterization for all sorts of women’s (re)actions. While the meaning has changed throughout the years, Bassist asserts that the expression has served the same purpose of demonizing “women's pain and suffering, and their thoughts and feelings.” The American Psychiatric Association removed “hysteria” from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders only in 1980. 

Listen to the conversation to hear the wider angle of the scientifically proven physical pain from silencing women and their self-silencing, the femicides ensuing from related “rejection violence” and a culture that still nonchalantly disqualifies women’s opinions or their human emotions. Bassist clarifies that her opposition is not to all men but to patriarchy as “long-held beliefs that privilege one group’s perspective over everyone else’s perspective.” She highlights the power of individual and collective reckoning with repressed fears — sharing examples like expressive writing or saying “no” more, as a matter of self-advocacy. It is available wherever you listen to podcasts or on New Lines magazine's YouTube channel.

“Wider Angle” is produced and hosted by Riada Asimovic Akyol. 

Nigerian writer Dipo Faloyin has grown up seeing the Western coverage of Africa from a “bird’s-eye perspective,” as many diverse communities were stereotyped and the huge continent oversimplified as a monolith. “They treat Africans and African countries as if they are sort of these strange species, unnoble people, unnoble communities that exist in a way that is so different and so far away from, you know … the rest of the world. And that obviously isn’t true.” Faloyin joined Riada Asimovic Akyol on the Wider Angle podcast to talk about his work and recently published book “Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent.”

He explains that the coverage depicting communities so simplistically and incorrectly “has been done deliberately, to subjugate people, to eradicate people and to ensure that their humanity is stripped away. And that makes it easier to exploit them often.” But Faloyin doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the challenges that many countries on the continent face, pointing to Western governments’ interventions and the violence, corruption and tyranny that have marked many countries’ histories. He emphasizes both the current facts, such as that “less than 10% of the continent is under authoritarian rule” as well as the context of modern Africa’s formation, including the history of European powers’ colonialism and the fabricated myths of Africans as uncivilized savages who “needed colonial powers to save them from themselves.” 

The continent is today made up of 54 countries, with a significant number of national  borders as straight lines. Faloyin argues in the podcast that “they are all largely manmade nations that make very little sense in reality. They were designed by colonialists who were very little interested in the realities of people on the ground.” Among major consequences of such artificial borders, Faloyin speaks of “chaos, violence and fundamental, foundational instability.” Yet, despite colossal efforts to build or rebuild nations, he describes how little acknowledgement has been given for the work that these countries put in after gaining independence in the 20th century.

For the lack of mutual understanding between Africa and many Black diaspora communities “who are looking to rebuild or even build connections with the continent and their lost heritages,” Faloyin points to the absence of “realistic portraits of the region” in the mainstream.

Listen to the conversation to hear the wider angle of harmful projections, lazy thinking and incuriosity about Africa. Faloyin welcomes new engagement with the continent, one that focuses on multilayered stories and realistic portrayals of characters beyond typical representations. This conversation is also available on New Lines' YouTube channel.

The Proud Boys call themselves a patriotic drinking club of Western chauvinists. But Andy Campbell, the guest in this episode of the Wider Angle podcast, argues that we need to look at the facts and data instead, and points to the acts of frightful political violence behind this anti-immigrant, ultranationalist, anti-LGBTQ, misogynistic extremist group. Campbell is a senior editor and reporter at HuffPost and the author of “We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism.” 

Campbell shares his observations about the group, founded by Gavin McInnes in 2016,  the year Campbell visited and reported from several political rallies in support of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. He witnessed many examples of what at the time seemed “off” and “bewildering” behavior by the Proud Boys. While most of the other groups preferred anonymity, from the start the Proud Boys “were concerning because they wanted to talk to the press, they had nicknames for each other lionizing their violence, they wanted to be celebrated as the guys fighting in the street for Trump.” They would emerge not only as the leaders of the street gangs but would also reach the mainstream audiences acting as “patriotic freedom fighters.” On the way, they gained esteem among the GOP political circles and were endorsed by some politicians. Campbell argues that what sets the Proud Boys apart as an explicit threat is that “ability to [form a] coalition” — with the media, law enforcement and various GOP members — as well as their knack for fast mobilization of “extremists from all factions under their banner.” 

Because of “the crisis now of normalized political violence as some justified option in politics,” Campbell warns that it is dangerous to think of groups like the Proud Boys as “an outlier” or a fleeting moment in modern U.S. history. In fact, he points out, they are mobilizing faster than ever in acting upon right-wing grievances and believes that “the spirit of the Proud Boys won’t go away even if they happen to change their name or dissolve tomorrow.” In this framework, Campbell doesn’t shy away from calling out the right-wing pundits or conservative media for downplaying or misrepresenting the threat. But he also points to the responsibility of the broader press “reporting on modern extremism” in general. When downplaying the available data, Campbell says, either out of “ignorance or negligence,” such coverage of right-wing extremism can become a means of their propaganda instead. 

Five members of the Proud Boys, including ex-leader Enrique Tarrio, are on trial for their role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Still, Campbell worries that “January 6 has not so far had a chilling effect on that violence.”

Campbell praises the importance of local community resistance, antifascist resistance and citizen efforts like those in Portland, Oregon, which has been the site of massive clashes.

Listen to the conversation to hear the wider angle about the urgency of recognizing the damage that has already been done by far-right groups like the Proud Boys in normalizing violence in American politics. Campbell emphasizes their ongoing danger and “the extremist playbook” they created for the digital age. The video of this conversation is available on New Lines' YouTube channel.

“Wider Angle” is produced and hosted by Riada Asimovic Akyol.