Conference papers online

Papers and proceedings from the 21st annual meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE) are now available online. The papers cover a wide range of social, political and economic topics.

Two of special interest to this group are Ted Henken's A Bloggers' Polemic: Debating Independent Cuban Blogger Projects in a Polarized Political Context and my paper The Past, Present and Future of the Internet in Cuba.

This is an interesting, rigorous conference. The theme of next year's conference is "Where is Cuba Going?" and the call for papers is available on the ASCE Web site.

Round-table forum on the Cuban Internet and blogs

Ted Henken, professor of Sociology and Latin American Studies at Baruch College, CUNY, and I spoke on Cuba 1.5? The State of the Internet and Uses of Social Media in a Changing Cuba at the Inter-American Dialog in Washington DC. I talked about the past, present and future of the Cuban Internet and Ted reported on his recent interviews with Cuban bloggers. Robert Guerra, director of the Internet Freedom project at Freedom House, provided commentary.

You can read a summary of the round table here and see a video of the presentations and subsequent discussion here.