Marta Cooper
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I am a British/Italian freelance writer and blogger interested in the intersection of media and politics, with particular reference to issues of censorship, civil society and social and political reform. I am fascinated by the future of journalism and press freedom in the digital age and the pace of change in emerging markets.
I am currently an editorial assistant at Index on Censorship in London. Since October 2009 I have written about Brazil and China for Global Voices Online, where I sit on the Board of Directors.
From 2009 to 2011 I lived in Shanghai, China, where I studied Mandarin and contributed to Shanghaiist, Shanghai Daily, The China Beat and the China Economic Review. I have also written for openDemocracy.
I have an MSc (Merit) from the London School of Economics in Global Media and Communications, and a 1st Class Honours degree in History from the School of Oriental and African Studies. I speak Italian, Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese.
Twitter: @martaruco.
Latest posts by Marta Cooper
9 August 2011
United Kingdom: Making Sense of the London Riots
London woke up to a wave of destruction on Tuesday morning, following another night of anarchic rioting and looting. As communities clear the damage and brace themselves for more unrest, the country is trying to make sense of the events, which have highlighted deep tensions in the relationship between political leaders, the police and the communities they aim to serve.
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14 May 2011
China
China Media Project has translated an editorial from liberal newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily commemorating the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The piece, which featured references to detained artist Ai Weiwei, who had attempted to investigate the deaths of children and collapse of school buildings in the disaster, was removed from the newspaper's website [update] before reappearing the next day.
21 April 2011
China
Bill Bishop at DigiCha and Imagethief's Will Moss ruminate on Facebook's PR strategy as speculation grows over the social networking site's possible entry into the Chinese market.
12 December 2010
China
Danwei has translated a range of Chinese microbloggers' tweets and posts celebrating their heroes. Those mentioned are all surnamed Liu, and share similar traits with Liu Xiaobo, this year's imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner.
10 December 2010
Brazil
Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) has this week criticised [pt] the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, condemning the Brazilian press for not having defended the Australian activist. Lula said [pt, en], “the boy was arrested and I'm not seeing any protest against [the curtailment of] freedom of expression.”
Next time we will be there again :)