"This report summarizes powerful research on the Philippines’ human rights sector in “survival mode” under Rodrigo Duterte’s violent regime. Historically known as the most active civil society in Asia, the Philippines human rights movement has faced an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy whil
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e burdened with the responsibility to advocate for the many victims of abuses. Drawing on interviews with human rights workers and their allies in journalism and the academe, this study captures diverse interpretations as to how human rights has become “broken,” “tarnished,” and “a bad word” within a short span of four years. It also describes sectoral, organizational, and generational conflicts in how seasoned veterans and younger activists have been strategizing differently in their efforts to win back public trust. This study identifies the long- and short-term trade-offs behind organizational strategies of frontlining and speaking out on the human rights abuses of the Duterte regime versus more under-the-radar backchanneling work focused on service delivery and grassroots organization. Taking a strategic communication perspective and worker-centered approach, our study specifically places the voices of the communication and technology workers in the human rights sector at the heart of our analysis. What our research uncovers is that despite their many creative experiments to connect with diverse constituencies, human rights organizations have still failed to invest material resources in sustainable communication infrastructures and empower their communication personnel. Almost half of the organizations we interviewed still had no staff member dedicated to communication or branding; communication workers continued to play peripheral roles in their organizations." (Executive summary, page 8)
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"There is a growing public and academic debate on the societal impacts of the internet and, in particular, social media. For its proponents, social media is a force for change, which can challenge entrenched hierarchies, redistribute power, democratize information, support mass mobilization and cont
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ribute to the building of global movements. Increasingly such positivist arguments are being questioned. Critics argue that it has become a sinister force, facilitating the spread of ‘fake news’, providing an instrument for citizen surveillance and re-enforcing neoliberal hegemony. The community development literature has barely engaged in those debates around social media that appear urgent in other disciplines. Social media has been seen as a value-free tool for broadcasting and dissemination, and neither evaluated as a force for change nor examined as an instrument of neoliberal intents. Although there is a community development literature on neoliberalism and globalization, it often accepts these, rather than critiques them, as the contexts within which community development operates. Challenging established power imbalances and enhancing citizen participation in democratic processes are purposes central to community development values. Analysis of wider literature raises questions with regard to the values embedded in the technologies from which enhanced levels of participation and engagement are expected to flow. It also raises questions about who benefits most from the affordances of these technologies. This article, drawing on an extensive literature review, presents the case for community development values to be asserted in these debates." (Abstract)
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"Media Culture in Nomadic Communities examines the ways that new technologies and ICT infrastructures have changed the communicative norms and patterns that regulate mobile and nomadic communities' engagement in local and international deliberative decision making. Each chapter examines a unique com
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municative event, such has how the Maasai of Tanzania have used online petitions to demand government action. How Mongolians in northern China have used micro blogs to record and debate land tenure. And how herding communities from around the world have supported the Lakota Sioux protests at Standing Rock. Through these case studies, Hahn argues that mobile and nomadic communities are creating and utilizing new communicative networks that are radically changing local, national, and international deliberations." (Publisher description)
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"In diesem Open-Access-Sammelband setzen sich Autor*innen aus unterschiedlichsten Disziplinen mit der Auswirkung einer digitalisierten Öffentlichkeit für die Politische Bildung auseinander. Sie erörtern, wie sich die Formen digitaler politischer Kommunikation auswirken, wie der Politikunterricht
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mit der veränderten Ausgangslage umgehen könnte und welche Kompetenzen Schüler*innen benötigen, um in der digitalen Öffentlichkeit selbstbestimmt und -ermächtigt politisch teilzuhaben. Die Komplexität und die Interdependenzen digitaler Kommunikation verlangen nach einer multiperspektivischen und transdisziplinären Perspektive, der dieser Band verpflichtet ist." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Despite the growing impact and diversity in the alternative media scene in Lebanon, and the key role they play in producing a counter-hegemonic narrative on political, economic, and sociological matters, they remain nonetheless lacking a viable and sturdy infrastructure. The latter is evident in th
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eir lack of a legal infrastructure that could potentially guarantee the rights of their workforce on the long term and simultaneously further their causes. Likewise, their lack of sustainable and stable income generation and funding put strain on their continuity. Yet, most saliently, it is likely the divisive and loose structure that the alternative media scene currently has that mostly curtails its ability to build a parallel and equally competitive narrative against that maintained by the ruling elites and their associated institutions and clientalist networks. The fractures and fragility of the alternative media scene is not a product of its diversity, but rather of the absence of legal, economic, and institutional infrastructure that could built ground for a more collaborative and powerful counter-narrative. Indeed, should these initiatives muster efforts to create such infrastructure, the viability of the alternative media scene remains contingent to the presence of a strong and grounded political opposition force in the country. As this research has indicated, the role of alternative media and the advent of a counter-hegemonic narrative is inextricable from the broader political landscape." (Conclusion)
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"This study used Twitter advertisements to solicit survey participation from the most-influential members of pro-Ukraine and pro-Russia communities of Twitter users identified in an analysis of 25 million Russian language tweets emanating from Eastern Europe. Survey results suggest that pro-Ukraine
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activists are eager to counter Russian influence. Large percentages of respondents reported using Twitter to help counter Russian influence, and they take this activism to other social media accounts and offline channels, including talking to family members or friends and - to a lesser extent - participating in advocacy groups. At least half of the sample reported being open to receiving additional social media training, and most did not seem opposed to taking this support from the European Union, United States, or Ukraine. However, a hypothetical agreement to receive funding or participate in training does not mean that participants actually would do so. Following a brand ambassador model would help connect influential users with training and content. This model would involve reaching out, building an initial relationship, and establishing trust with these activists. It might be possible to help such users join together to advocate for a unified and democratic Ukraine, increase awareness of particular Russian influence campaigns, disseminate memes or video content addressing media literacy, or identify Russian bots and trolls." (Key findings)
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"With the diffusion of the internet, media and communication research witnessed the emergence of a new term, ‘engagement’. Although, the term is widely used it is poorly defined and in need of explication. Through semantic network analysis, the analysis shows how traditions, as varied as audienc
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e research, political science, science communication, marketing studies and media psychology, have put the concept to use for very different purposes. Clusters in the network map demonstrate clear demarcations between traditions and perspectives on the ontology of engagement. Following from this mapping, the article evaluates the different perspectives and outlines key issues that scholars need to deal with to advance engagement as an analytical concept in media and communications research. In the end, the article argues that engagement should foreground the reflexive capacities of individuals rather than instrumental interactions or societal participation. In this way, the concept can retain its specificity and richness rather than turn into a colloquial term with vague and indistinct connotations." (Abstract
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"This article discusses activists’ need to reflect on how achieving social media visibility might translate into vulnerability. In order to provide activists with a tool for this reflection, the Stepping into Visibility Model has been developed and applied to two case studies: (a) an activist grou
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p in a Brazilian favela using social media for protection against police brutality and (b) a Kenyan photographer, affiliated to an art-ivist (artistic and activist) collective, producing images of Nairobi at night to tackle social anxiety issues. The research draws from sociological insights on the concept of ‘visibility’ and adopts a case study methodology combined with ethnographic approaches. By adopting a Global South perspective, it discusses counter surveillance efforts in ways that go beyond techno-legal solutionism (Dencik et al, 2016) and in periods outside that of big-scale protests (McCosker, 2015). By devising this model, we hope to offer a contribution on how marginalised communities can be better informed when they encounter unintended negative visibility." (Abstract)
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"Through our booklet we do not want to encourage just "any kind" of online expression. We want to promote a specific way to express oneself online. Our intention is to stimulate structured and socially oriented active participation online, as a continuation of Civil Society Organisations' effort to
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promote active participation in society. In this sense, what characterizes online active participation is the presence of different elements: the creation of relationships; the building of a community or the fact of representing a community; the collective interest; the intention to produce a change, to influence society. As civil society organisations, active participation of citizens is part of our mission, and today, more than ever, we have to be able to rethink our way to pursue it, including the online space within our range of intervention. This is why we consider it a stimulating and important challenge to accompany educators and school teachers to promote a more creative, active and wise use of the web, exploring the opportunities given not only by social media and blogs, but also by more structured means such as web radio and web TV." (Introduction)
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"Public protests, including women-led struggles, are increasingly gaining a foothold in many parts of the world in response to multiple crises and growing exclusion, in a context of fragility. In the global South, most public protests involve temporary, informal coalitions where people come together
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and participate in a one-off event. The fluid nature of political space makes sustaining protests elusive because of protest fatigue. Yet, the #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG), a women-led movement, headed a long-term protest that focused on the rights of the girl child to education – a direct response to Boko Haram’s gendered terror tactics, in which girls were abducted, forced t o abandon school, and get married. This article examines when and how movements crystallise into long-term programmes of action in fragile and conflict-affected societies where state–society relations are weak and government is considered to be unresponsive. We use the case of the #BBOG movement, one of Nigeria’s intense social media-driven and womenled action, to examine the mix of pressures it faced, its characteristics, and strategies in situations of fragility, conflict, and closed political spaces. We identify four key strategies that the #BBOG has deployed to keep members coming, garner international support and sympathy, keep pressure on the elite in a safe manner for the movement members, and ensure an independent funding regime for durability and impact. This article finds that #BBOG was able to navigate fragility and the closing civic space in Nigeria by challenging the failure of government to address insecurity in the country, transcending societal barriers including gender, religion, and political class, transnationalising their movement, self-funding, and using social media strategically." (Abstract)
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