Episode Forty One: Alan Rosenblatt

October 25, 2005 - 4:07pm

Hosts: Tim Jones, Joshua Shimkin

Series: U.S. Politics, Media


Alan Rosenblatt writes,

About a year or so after I finished my dissertation on Presidential use of TV to move public opinion in 1992 I was introduced to Mosaic by a housemate. I was familiar with the Internet from my work at American U. I was on a team that prepared the University for becoming an Internet node in 1988.

When I saw Mosaic, I realized the potential impact on politics. I was already teaching at George Mason U. and started talking about the Internet with my colleagues over lunch. From those discussions, Bob Dudley and I decided to teach a course called The Politics of Cyberspace: The Luddite vs. the Technofreak. He played the luddite, I played the freak. We were each a little of both.

Today, Alan continues to teach at American University and heads up The Internet Advocacy Center. Friday afternoon, Joshua and Tim sat down with him to talk about how he's seen the relationship between politics and the internet change in the past 20 years.


echoradio.41.mp3 (7.68 MB)