"How is the adoption of digital media in the Arab world affecting the relationship between the state and its subjects? What new forms of online engagement and strategies of resistance have emerged from the aspirations of digitally empowered citizens? This book tells the compelling story of the concu
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rrent evolution of technology and society in the Middle East and North Africa region. It brings into focus the intricate relationship between Internet development, youth activism, cyber resistance, and political participation. Taking Tunisia—the birthplace of the Arab uprisings—as a case study, it offers an ethnographically nuanced and theoretically grounded analysis of the digital culture of contention that developed in an authoritarian context. It broadens the focus from narrow debates about the role that social media played in the Arab uprisings toward a fresh understanding of how changes in media affect existing power relations." (Publisher description)
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"In Making Democracy Fun, Josh Lerner offers a novel solution for the sad state of our deliberative democracy: the power of good game design. What if public meetings featured competition and collaboration (such as team challenges), clear rules (presented and modeled in multiple ways), measurable pro
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gress (such as scores and levels), and engaging sounds and visuals? These game mechanics would make meetings more effective and more enjoyable -- even fun. Lerner reports that institutions as diverse as the United Nations, the U.S. Army and grassroots community groups are already using games and game-like processes to encourage participation. Drawing on more than a decade of practical experience and extensive research, he explains how games have been integrated into a variety of public programs in North and South America. He offers rich stories of game techniques in action, in children's councils, social service programs and participatory budgeting and planning. With these real-world examples in mind, Lerner describes five kinds of games and 26 game mechanics that are especially relevant for democracy. He finds that when governments and organizations use games and design their programs to be more like games, public participation becomes more attractive, effective and transparent." (Publisher description)
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"Communication Rights and Social Justice offers historical perspectives on struggles to use the instruments of state and political participation - power, inter-governmental treaties and declarations, and various forms of political advocacy and protest politics - to articulate the concept of communic
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ation as a fundamental right. The contributions make up an intergenerational and multi-vocal dialogue. Different generations of scholars, activists and practitioners, who have been engaged with mobilizations at different times, present their views; some adopt a more academic style, others reflect autobiographically on personal experiences. The collection acknowledges the plural geo-cultural roots that compose what have eventually become a network of transnational mobilization dynamics that are increasingly global, digitally mediated, multi-stakeholder and faced by new and forthcoming challenges." (Publisher description)
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"Leading media scholars from nine Asian nations focus on three main questions: How frequently do Asians use social media to access and discuss political information? Does the use of social media increase political participation? What political, social and cultural factors influence the impact of soc
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ial media on political engagement in each nation? To answer these questions, contributors first analyze the current state of social media in their nations and then present the findings of a cross-national survey on social media use that was conducted with over 3,500 Asian respondents. By employing a comparative approach, they analyze how social media function and interact with the cultural and political systems in each country - and how they might affect political engagement among individual citizens." (Back cover)
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"The study will begin by defining and classifying social media and will go on to explain the reach and role of these media in developing contexts, in particular when used for political communication, interaction and decision-making processes. In a second chapter, risks and benefits of social media a
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nd political participation in developing contexts will be reviewed. The heart of the study will be the third chapter, where 10 case studies will demonstrate the bandwidth of use of social media for political participation. The case studies offer insight into different forms of citizen to government and government to citizen interaction using different types of social media. They have been authored by people directly involved as creators or users of the projects featured from different countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa. The study will provide an assessment on the impact social media can have on the work of German development cooperation in the area of good governance and conclude with a set of recommendations how to incorporate social media into their good governance programmes." (Introduction, page 4)
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"This research presents a picture of a public in Burma that, to varying degrees, lacks knowledge, confidence, motivation and opportunity to participate in governance processes and make their voices heard. However, the study provides objective evidence that a relationship exists between people’s me
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dia access and their level of citizen engagement. Access to public service oriented media increases the likelihood of being formally engaged rather than disengaged. Even when accounting for those characteristics that can act as barriers for the individual to engage in governance processes – being female, being poor and living in rural areas – the effect of media on engagement is significant." (Key findings)
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"Es lässt sich also feststellen, dass der Dokumentarfilm der Demokratie insofern zuträglich ist, da er seinen Schwerpunkt auf der Gewährleistung der Validierungs-, Orientierungs-, Informations-, Bildungs- und Sozialisationsfunktion hat, während das citizen journalism footage sich insbesondere da
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durch auszeichnet, dass es der Beobachter-, Informations-, Artikulations- und Kritik- und Kontrollfunktion verstärkt gerecht wird. Indem also das citizen journalism footage durch professionelle Instanzen in eine den gängigen Konventionen entsprechenende Form des etablierten Dokumentarfilms gebracht wird, können so die demokratieförderlichen Attribute ,alter‘ und ,neuer‘ Medien ergänzend kombiniert werden." (Conclusio, Seite 75-76)
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"Nas próximas páginas queremos dar uma olhada ampla sobre a prática e os desafios da radiodifusão comunitária no Brasil e em outros países. Convidamos uma turma diversa de 11 autoras e autores, entre elas e eles jornalistas, radialistas, acadêmicos e advogadas. As suas abordagens são origina
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is, convidam-nos para conhecer a radiodifusão comunitária de perto de um ângulo tanto crítico como solidário. São expostos nos textos como organizações internacionais e nacionais influenciam sobre o acesso e o uso do espectro eletromagnético, nos contam dos problemas cotidianos das emissoras independentes no Brasil, México e nos Estados Unidos para conseguir uma outorga. E perguntam por que as rádios comunitárias reproduzem a falta de interesse no esporte feminino, não conseguem romper por completo com tendências homofóbicas da imprensa e não defendem com maior vigor o acesso de migrantes aos ondas eletromagnéticos." (Página 4)
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"We are pleased to be sharing with you the second yearbook on media and information literacy and intercultural dialogue. The first MILID Yearbook was published in June 2013 [...] The theme of the 2014 Yearbook is Global Citizenship in a Digital World. Global citizenship assumes ease of participation
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in global spaces in which persons are media and information literate and are equipped with competencies and attitudes to deal with the multi-faceted nature of a mediated world in which information is no longer bound by space or time. The unprecedented access to and use of media and Internet technologies for communication and collaboration especially among youth, suggest that effective strategies must be found to enable active critical inquiry and effective media production." (Foreword, page 7)
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"Por su propia naturaleza, trabajar eficazmente por el derecho de las personas a ser escuchadas es una tarea compleja y multidimensional, y requiere acciones a diferentes niveles y sectores, valiéndonos de diversas estrategias. El objetivo de esta guía es orientar nuestro trabajo y hacer hincapié
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en este elemento esencial. Plasma el objetivo de cambio de Oxfam Internacional sobre el derecho de las personas a ser escuchadas y su propósito es ayudarle a analizar detalladamente la complejidad inherente y a tomar decisiones sobre los distintos enfoques que se deben poner en marcha para alcanzar sus objetivos." (Introducción a la guía de aprendizaje, página 3)
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"This paper presents the findings from a one-year applied research pilot project, Africa's Voices, run by the University of Cambridge's Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR). Africa's Voices developed out of CGHR's wider research programme on politics, ICTs and interactive media in Africa. Th
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at research analyses how audiences interact with radio stations through mobile phones; how different actors including audiences, radio journalists, and governance actors (state officials, but also others such as community leaders and aid actors) perceive the importance of these interactions; and what the practical implications are for public discussion of political and social issues and for governance processes that shape access to and the quality of public goods. With Africa's Voices, the CGHR research team piloted a programme format with local radio stations in eight sub-Saharan African countries with the objective of practically assessing the potential for deploying interactive radio to gather and comparatively analyse opinions of harder to reach sub-Saharan African populations. Besides evaluating optimal modes of working with smaller and more rural radio stations, the research has focused on patterns of audience participation in different formats of mediated public discussions and on the efficacy of different approaches to defining, gathering and measuring public opinion. This paper presents the results of the pilot and discusses them with respect to the above mentioned objectives. The paper also discusses some of the methodological and ethical challenges of using the affordances of ICT and interactive media that make them suitable for gathering and researching citizens' opinion in Africa." (Abstract)
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"Examining the opportunities presented by the real-time generation of new, relatively unregulated content online, Uncommon Grounds evaluates the prominent role that new media has come to play in artistic practices – and social movements – in the Arab world today. Analysing alternative forms of c
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reating, broadcasting, publishing, distributing and consuming digital images, this book also enquires into a broader global concern: does new media offer a ‘democratisation’ of – and a productive engagement with – visual culture, or merely capitalise upon the effect of immediacy at the expense of depth? Featuring full-colour artists’ inserts, this is the first book to extensively explore the degree to which the grassroots popularity of Twitter and Facebook has been co-opted into mainstream media, institutional and curatorial characterisations of ‘revolution’ – and whether artists should be wary of perpetuating the rhetoric and spectacle surrounding political events." (Publisher description)
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"This policy briefing offers an empirical contribution to evolving thinking on governance within the international development landscape. Using the example of media, we argue that interventions designed to foster demand-based accountability may not be as successful in some fragile settings as more d
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iscursive platforms that aim to tackle problem-solving collectively. The paper thus underscores the need for locally embedded approaches to governance support that are both adaptive and reflective." (Conclusions)
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"This article uses interdisciplinary insights and a critical review of relevant literature to identify research opportunities that stand to advance mobile political communication theory. Contributions and limitations of studies focused on ICTs and political participation are reviewed and discussed.
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Analysis of studies focused on the political participation outcomes of mobile media use is synthesized with theory from user-focused mobile communication literature to highlight the unique qualities that distinguish mobile media and the implications of those distinguishing features for studying political participation. Recommendations are made for research directions that would further investigate the association of mobile media's distinctive features with online and offline forms of political participation. This analysis indicates opportunities for scholars to unpack mobile media's unique features in ways that potentially redefine political participation, and, accordingly, further the development of research questions and theories that investigate the relationship of mobile media and political participation. It is concluded that research is needed that explains mobile media use in finer detail, accounts for shifting conceptualizations of political participation, and contributes to the development of cross-cultural comparative frameworks." (Abstract)
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