A well articulated op-ed by Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina and a fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, on the strengths and pitfalls of social media in modern day revolutions.

"Protests like this one, fueled by social media and erupting into spectacular mass events, look like powerful statements of opposition against a regime. And whether these take place in Turkey, Egypt or Ukraine, pundits often speculate that the days of a ruling party or government, or at least its unpopular policies, must be numbered. Yet often these huge mobilizations of citizens inexplicably wither away without the impact on policy you might expect from their scale."

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Back in 2005, we launched Television Across Europe, a study that examined the state of broadcast regulation in 20 countries, mostly in Eastern Europe, in an attempt to nail down problems in the way broadcast media was regulated and to recommend ways to improve the regulatory environment in which journalists and media operated.

The findings were rather grim. Pressures on journalists from mighty owners, ailing public service broadcasters, and politicized regulators were making the work of journalists in this region a painful enterprise.

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