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Community Driven Governance and Service Delivery Audits in Nairobi, Kenya

Nairobi: Africa’s Voices Foundation (2020), 60 pp.

"There is a strong consensus within the governance space that citizen engagement is integral in supporting social accountability and strengthening democracy. The impact of the modalities through which citizens make demands on the degree to which citizens feel empowered to trigger recognition and act ... ion from the duty holders remains an open question, more so in the Kenyan context where citizen engagement and social accountability align to the Constitution’s provisions on “public participation”. To this end, Africa’s Voices bridges this gap by deploying its innovative approach to civic engagement through the ‘Common Social Accountability Platform’ (CSAP) which uses interactive radio shows to achieve meaningful spaces of mediated public discussion between citizens and authorities that are valued by both and strengthens relations between them. The approach also provides evidence of citizen opinions in a form that supports policy action by authorities. In the Strengthening Public Accountability and Integrity Systems (SPAIS) pilot project, AVF focused the intervention on the urban poor settlements of Nairobi through a series of weekly interactive radio shows in three popular radio stations over a period of 2 months (8 shows per station for a total of 24 broadcasts over 8 weeks). While the shows explored a range of issues relevant to corruption, transparency, public participation and accountability, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the content of the discussions was largely focused on health governance and healthcare service delivery. The topics of discussion included overall citizen experience and satisfaction in healthcare service provision; appropriate utilisation of resources allocated to healthcare for COVID-19; and citizen perceptions of their role in ensuring and monitoring appropriate resource allocation for healthcare. The intervention also served as a mechanism for citizens to air concerns and grievances related to potential corruption incidents in the healthcare sector and beyond. This SPAIS project convenes large-scale, plural and inclusive accountability dialogues between authorities and citizens in urban poor settlements of Nairobi with a view to promote and uphold public accountability and the role that citizens can play in countering corruption, to enhance citizen perceptions of voice and efficacy, government recognition of and engagement with citizens, and ultimately the forging of trust between citizens and authorities. Moreover, this project aims to strengthen citizen engagement in the monitoring of healthcare service delivery in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and to provide trusted spaces for an exchange on matters related to the provision and quality of healthcare services. It envisions to draw rich insights from citizen voices and recommend programme options for UNDP and SPAIS partners to adapt future programming to the needs and opinions of citizens regarding tackling corruption in the health sector." (Introduction, page 7-8) more

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Political Participation in the Digital Age: An Ethnographic Comparison Between Iceland and Germany

Julia Tiemann-Kollipost

Bielefeld: transcript Verlag (2020), 221 pp.

"This book explores the potential of the Internet for enabling new and flexible political participation modes. It meticulously illustrates how the Internet is responsible for citizens' participation practices from being general, high-threshold, temporally constricted, and dependent on physical prese ... more

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The Media and Participatory Governance in Ghana: Trends and Challenges

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) (2019), 15 pp.

"Drawing on available data and literature, this paper begins with an introduction on the media landscape in Ghana and explains how the media have contributed to promoting participatory and accountable governance. It further discusses the trends, barriers of media and governance in Ghana and makes ke ... more

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Social Media in Africa: An Emerging Force for Autocrats and Activists

Geoffrey York

In: Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond

Allan Thompson (ed.)

Waterloo, Ontario: Centre for International Governance Innovation (2019), pp. 415-430

"The most extreme damage inflicted by social media can be seen in South Sudan. As documented in the chapter by Theo Dolan, social media in South Sudan has contributed to hatred and conflict among ethnic groups. Many investigators, including UN investigators, have warned that South Sudan's social med ... ia are triggering violence against ethnic groups. Since the beginning of the civil war in late 2013, social media has fuelled waves of hate speech that have provoked deadly violence and ethnic conflict in South Sudan, including massacres and other atrocities. In that sense, social media has become a new variation of the "hate radio" phenomenon that flourished in Rwanda before and during the 1994 genocide … Social media is also emerging as a powerful way to harass and intimidate the opponents of a regime or a political party. In this sense, it adds another weapon to the arsenal of a powerful regime that already has multiple weapons at its disposal. A regime can mobilize its supporters to use social media in a targeted way against its foes, or it can use its financial resources to create a fake army of fictional users on social media. In either case, it is tilting the playing field against its enemies. A targeted attack through social media can be more effective than the telephone threats or messages often deployed in the past. The use of social media can be more intimidating because it belittles the targeted person in front of a much bigger audience. The presence of this audience means that the attack is more damaging, more difficult to ignore and has the potential to mobilize large numbers of people against the victim … While social media is often used for anti-democratic purposes in Africa's authoritarian states, it has also been used as a force for reform, accountability and justice. It has helped to safeguard the fairness of elections. It has allowed greater scrutiny of potential threats, such as vote-rigging or violence, allowing citizens to be alerted when there is still a chance to prevent the worst abuses. It has put a spotlight on corruption and political wrongdoing, allowing activists to mobilize pressure on governments to resolve these long-neglected problems. In some cases, as it did in the Arab Spring, social media has played a role in toppling an authoritarian state. When an election was called in the small West African state of Gambia, where the dictator Yahya Jammeh had ruled for 22 years, opposition candidates had little access to state-controlled media. So the main opposition party created more than a dozen WhatsApp groups, allowing it to communicate with voters. Other forms of social media also proliferated. A leading independent group, the Gambia Youth and Women's Forum, discussed election issues on a public Facebook group with 55,000 members. The government blocked access to WhatsApp and eventually extended the shutdown to the entire internet, but Gambians used virtual private network (VPN) technology to bypass the shutdown. The opposition won the election and Jammeh was forced to flee the country." (Pages 419-423) more

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Communication for Social Change: Context, Social Movements and the Digital

Pradip Thomas

Los Angeles et al.: Sage (2019), viii, 216 pp.

"Communication for Social Change: Context, Social Movements and the Digital is a critical introduction to communication for social change (CSC) theory. The book presents refreshingly new perspectives and specifically makes the case for CSC theory to factor in context, leanings from social movements ... more

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Media-CSO Collaboration: Old Allies, New Challenges

Dhaka: Management and Resources Development Initiative (MRDI) (2019), 71 pp.

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El reto de la democracia digital: Hacia una ciudadanía interconectada

Elaine Ford Deza

Lima: Jurado Nacional de Elecciones (JNE); Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (ONPE); Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS); Democracia & Desarrollo Internacional (2019), 174 pp.

"Son cuatro los capítulos que acá se incluyen que reúnen teoría, conceptos, casos, iniciativas, datos, ejemplos y, por supuesto, reflexión y análisis. Los capítulos abarcan: 1. Definiciones sobre Democracia Digital. Se revisa de manera teórica, clara y concisa lo que es la Democracia Digital ... more

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#meinung #macht #digital #plattformkapitalismus

ila, issue 426 (2019), pp. 4-40

"WhatsApp und Facebook werden auch in Lateinamerika massiv genutzt, vor allem aufgrund ihres vermeintlich kostenlosen Charakters. Auch dort wird das Problem der rechten Meinungsmache und der Fake News diskutiert, denn die Tatsache, dass sich die Leute heute vor allem über Werbeplattformen informier ... en, die unzutreffend „soziale Medien“ genannt werden, hat handfeste politische Auswirkungen. In Brasilien und El Salvador wurden die jüngsten Wahlen nicht über Präsenz und Debatten in den traditionellen Medien gewonnen, sondern über gut vorbereitete und teure WhatsApp-Kampagnen. In Brasilien siegt so der Rechtsextremist Jair Bolsonaro, in El Salvador der politische Wende-hals und PR-Profi Nayib Bukele. Die brasilianischen WhatsApp-Nutzer*innen wurden während des Wahlkampfs mit gefälschtem, häufig explizit sexuellem Inhalt geflutet, wie etwa der Meldung, dass die Arbeiterpartei plane, Babyfläschchen mit Nuckel in Penisform zu verteilen, um die Homosexualisierung der Kleinkinder voranzutreiben. Haarsträubendes postfaktisches Zeitalter – warum fallen Fake News auf fruchtbaren Boden? Klar ist: Klassische Medien haben ihre Funktion als „Gatekeeper“, als Instanzen, die sortieren und filtern, längst eingebüßt. Die Gesellschaften werden vielfältiger und unübersichtlicher: mehr Pluralität auf der einen Seite, andererseits immer tiefere Gräben, die sich durch die Gesellschaften ziehen. Die mediale Öffentlichkeit und die Zugangsbedingungen zu ihr wandeln sich. Die Menschen misstrauen „denen da oben“ durchaus zu Recht. Aber die kommerziellen Global Tech Player beherrschen die Räume für Kommunikation, Information und Meinungsbildung mit Algorithmen. Das hat Folgen. Das Geschäftsmodell basiert auf Datenschürfen, kombiniert mit persönlich zugeschnittener Werbung. Du bekommst das, was du sehen und hören willst, nicht was wahr ist und den Tatsachen entspricht. Und davon profitieren vor allem rechtspopulistische Akteure. Gibt es dazu einen funktionierenden linken Gegenentwurf? Wir, die Macher*innen der ila und ähnlich Gesinnte, wollten eigentlich schon immer zur Bildung einer Gegenöffentlichkeit beitragen, positionierten uns gegen den „bürgerlichen Journalismus als Stellvertreterjournalismus“, wollten „Betroffenenberichterstattung“. Heute haben Rechte und Rechtsextreme den Begriff „Gegenöffentlichkeit“ für sich gekapert. Und jetzt haben wir den Salat. Aktuell existiert eine Öffentlichkeit jenseits der Dichotomie „staatlich geregelt oder privat“. Wir haben kein Problem mehr damit, unsere eigenen Inhalte zu verbreiten und eigene Medien zu schaffen. Das stellt allerdings noch längst nicht sicher, dass wir auch gehört werden. Der springende Punkt ist nicht mehr der Zugang, sondern die Reichweite. Wir konkurrieren mit allen anderen Anbietern von welcher Information auch immer um Aufmerksamkeit. Und dabei verfügen wir, kaum anders als früher, immer noch über die schwächeren Möglichkeiten. Wie sieht also das Überleben im „Plattformkapitalismus“ aus, wie sich darin bewegen, schützen, informieren, seine Meinung bilden und als politisch Aktive oder alternative Medienschaffende die eigenen Inhalte verbreiten? Dazu ein paar Ideen, die sich aus der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema und lateinamerikanischen Gesprächspartner*innen herauskristallisieren: Versteht, die Technik zu verstehen (in Lateinamerika ist die Rede von hackear la tecnología, also die Technologie für die eigenen Zwecke zu nutzen wissen), wahrt eine kritische Distanz, haltet eure Informationsquellen vielfältig (was vor allem auch Kindern und Jugendlichen vermittelt werden sollte), schafft und nutzt alternative Plattformen. Manchmal kann auch digitales Fasten das Gebot der Stunde sein. Handy aus und raus auf die Straße – oder in den Wald." (Editorial) more

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Documenting Syria: Film-Making, Video Activism and Revolution

Josepha Ivanka Wessels

London et al.: Tauris (2019), xiv, 321 pp.

"Since the 1970s, Syrian cinema masters played a defining role in avant-garde filmmaking and political dissent against authoritarianism. After the outbreak of violence in 2011, an estimated 500,000 video clips were uploaded making it one of the first YouTubed revolutions in history. This book is the ... more

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Making Journalism More Memberful: Practical Tips from 19 News Sites Around the World for How to Involve Your Supporters in the Work

Katharine Quamby, Emily Goligoski, Joy Jenkins

Membership Puzzle Project (2019), 61 pp.

"Even at the most audience-informed organizations, journalists recognize the immense difficulty in making sense of what audience members and relevant experts know, particularly without presently available tools and ample staff. This work is hard, yet there is an increasing amount of interest in it. ... more

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Medios sociales y acción colectiva en Chile

Salvador Millaleo, Pablo Cárcamo

Santiago de Chile: Fundación Democracia y Desarrollo (2019), 135 pp.

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The Other Digital China: Nonconfrontational Activism on the Social Web

Jing Wang

Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press (2019), 312 pp.

"A scholar and activist tells the story of change makers operating within the Chinese Communist system, whose ideas of social action necessarily differ from those dominant in Western, liberal societies." (Publisher description)

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Media Cultures in Latin America: Key Concepts and New Debates

Anna Cristina Pertierra, Juan Francisco Salazar (eds.)

New York; London: Routledge (2019), x, 198 pp.

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Listening at the Local Level: The Role of Radio in Building Community and Trust

Jocelyn Ellen Nettlefold

Media International Australia, volume 172, issue 1 (2019), pp. 74-88

"This article examines the role of local radio in the contemporary media environment, specifically as a site for community engagement. Previous research finds journalistic organisations, at the local level, are critical to the functioning of society and more needs to be understood about their contem ... more

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Donor Assistance in the Transparency and Accountability Movement

Davin O'Regan

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace (USIP) (2019), 36 pp.

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Deep Insights

Madeleine Pastinelli, Francine Saillant, Mouloud Boukala, Célia Forget

Paris: UNESCO (2019), 87 pp.

"L’étude suggère que les médias sociaux ne sont pas toujours la panacée pour l’engagement citoyen des jeunes. Internet n’est pas un monde isolé en soi dans le sens où il ne fait que prolonger les usages éprouvés dans la vie citoyenne. Son rôle dans l’essor des Révolutions arabes a ... more

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Digital Activism and Indignation Nets in Brazil: The Pressure Groups

Davi Barbosa Cavalcanti, Elder Paes Barreto Bringel, Fábio Regueira Jardelino da Costa, Tassiana Moura de Oliveira, Vinicius Rodrigues Zuccolotto

Journal of Politics in Latin America (JPLA), volume 11, issue 1 (2019), pp. 109-130

"This text, of exploratory stamp, debates the digital activism in contemporary Brazil. Methodologically, we will make a discussion on cyberactivism, digital media, and national pressure groups starting from two examples, Movimento Brasil Livre (The Free Brazil Movement) and Vem pra Rua (Come to The ... more

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The Playful Citizen: Civic Engagement in a Mediatized Culture

René Glas, Sybille Lammes, Michiel de Lange, Joost Raessens, Imar de Vries (eds.)

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (2019), 431 pp.

"From the Occupy movement to playful city-making to the gameful designs of the Obama 2008 and Trump 2016 presidential campaigns, and the rise of citizen science and ecological games, this book shows how play is a key theoretical, methodological, and practical principle for comprehending such new for ... more

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Digitale Ziviligesellschaft fördern: Wie Politik und Verwaltung die Digitalisierung des dritten Sektors unterstützen können

Anna Wohlfarth

Robert Bosch Stiftung (2019), 20 pp.

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Silencing a Snakehead Fish: A Case Study in Local Media, Rural-Based Activism, and Defamation Litigation in Southern Myanmar

Jennifer Leehey

In: Myanmar Media in Transition: Legacies, Challenges and Change

Lisa Brooten, Jane Madlyn McElhone, Gayathry Venkiteswaran (eds.)

Singapore: ISEAS (2019), pp. 151-176

"My focus in this chapter is on civil society mobilization in Tanintharyi Region in southern Myanmar, and particularly in Kanbauk, a village of about 1,500 households in the Tanintharyi Hills, eighty kilometres north of the regional capital, Dawei. In recent years, Kanbauk villagers have contended w ... more

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