"This study discusses how and to what extent peace operations are affected by digital disinformation and how international organisations (UN, EU, OSCE and NATO) as mandating bodies for peace operations have responded to limit the effect of disinformation or even prevent it. Based on this assessment
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of the current situation, the study identifies areas in need of action and suggests options for peace operations. These focus on four areas [Situational awareness; Response; Resilience; Cooperation] and include both short- and long-term measures." (Introduction)
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"Many mediators and peacebuilders are interested in using information about actors and narratives on social media to inform programming. Our starting assumption is that users of this toolkit do not have the resources to either hire a specialist social media analysis firm or to pay for commercial soc
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ial media analysis tools. Therefore, this toolkit is a practical how-to guide for mediators and peacebuilders who want to conduct their own social media analysis, offering an overview of what is possible, a practical guide to a handful of technology tools, and suggestions on analysis methods. The toolkit is also a why-to guide, offering ideas on what programming social media analysis can inform and when it is worth investing resources in this kind of analysis. The toolkit is structured in three sections:
Section 1 outlines what it is possible to do with social media data. It covers how to select the social media platforms on which to conduct analysis and explains what data it is possible to gather from each platform. It also offers three main use cases for social media analysis that can support the work of peacebuilders and mediators, explaining the kind of insights we can glean from social media data, and how they connect to relevant programming.
Section 2 outlines in detail how to work with Facebook and Twitter data. It includes how to come up with search parameters, how to decide whether to download data or view it in a search tool, how to access data from Facebook and Twitter, and how to organise data that has been collected. It also looks at analysis methods to find patterns in this data that can help peacebuilders and mediators understand what is the general narrative (netnography or narrative analysis), what people are talking about most and how (quantitative analysis), what is the tone and emotion of a narrative (sentiment analysis), and who is talking about what with whom (network analysis).
Section 3 offers case studies of social media analysis conducted to support peacebuilding or mediation programs. The case studies connect to the previous sections, illustrating how the methods and tools outlined are used in practice in our fields." (Introduction)
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"The COVID-19 pandemic began in 2019, spread to the rest of the world in 2020 and still holds nations in its grip in 2021. There is scant research on the way it has affected Holocaust awareness. Based on scholarly work on Holocaust awareness in Israel, the top-down memory of the Holocaust in the med
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ia and the vernacular Holocaust memory on social media, this article analyzes the ways the Holocaust became a frame of reference in Israel for the interpretation of the COVID-19 pandemic and the newest link in a long chain of using the Holocaust as a prism for other topics in Israeli society. The article centers on the evolution of the COVID-19 – Holocaust references and the role of media and social media in it. It shows that the initial panic created a wave of comparisons between the Holocaust and the pandemic in the media and social media. In the second half of the year, as the restrictions and two more lockdowns became part of life, references to the Holocaust changed – negative reactions to COVID-19 government regulations and law enforcement were compared on social media to Nazi acts. The Israeli media did not create these comparisons but reported them widely and contributed to their circulation." (Abstract)
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"With the growth of new social media users across the Sahel, existing conflict dynamics are increasingly manifesting. Sahelians are entering a complex digital space. The ability of individuals and communities to adapt to online/offline conflict dynamics will define the future of conflict in the regi
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on. Search for Common Ground convened West African academics and practitioners in Bamako, Mali in October 2021, to analyze conflict trends and opportunities for peacebuilding in digital spaces in the central Sahel region (Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger)." (At a glance, page 1)
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"Questions of reconciliation and memory after genocide and conflict in Cambodia remain finely poised. Young people often do not believe the stories of hardship and loss of the older generation, and cleavages remain between divided and stigmatised former factions. This article reflects on a series of
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participatory video projects led by young Cambodians that sought to engage and explore complex ‘perpetrator’ memories with the aim of building dialogue across communities and generations. Working in partnership with the Documentation Centre of Cambodia through 2018, our participatory-video project sought to document the experiences and accounts of former lower level Khmer Rouge community members. Through a discussion of the 11 films produced, and young filmmakers’ reflections on their involvement in the project, we show how participatory video allows and produces interventions on memory that can renegotiate, augment and contest dominant narratives of past violence. Crucially, we argue, that when read together, the films outline the contours, ambiguities and contestation of claims for ‘complex victimhood’ in Cambodia, and the problems of stabilising singular stories of past violence. We argue that this has implications for transitional justice more broadly, which is a field that tends to rely on neat distinctions of victim and perpetrator and shared accounts and meanings of past harm in the ways it intervenes on memory." (Abstract)
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"Wie denken gewöhnliche Russ:innen wirklich über die Entscheidung von Präsident Putin, in die Ukraine einzumarschieren? Obwohl einiges dafürspricht, dass frühere Umfragen, die Zustimmungswerte um 60 % für den Krieg zeigen, als genuine Signale der russischen öffentlichen Meinung gewertet werde
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n können, untersucht dieser Beitrag eine Reihe von Gründen, warum diese Umfrageergebnisse mit großer Vorsicht behandelt oder gar ignoriert werden sollten. Gründe dafür sind u. a. die staatliche Zensur, die Selbstzensur der Bevölkerung und eine verzerrte Beantwortung der Fragen, das Vorhandensein von Protesten sogar in einem autoritären Umfeld in Russland, als auch die Tatsache, dass einige der früheren Umfragen nach einem hypothetischen Einmarsch fragten, über den viele Russ:innen wohl nicht ausreichend nachgedacht haben könnten. Allerdings führt der Beitrag an, dass die plausibelste Erklärung für den offensichtlichen anfänglichen Rückhalt für den Krieg in der Manipulation der öffentlichen Meinung durch staatliche Kontrolle der Kommunikationskanäle und der weitverbreitete Einsatz von Zensur, Propaganda und Desinformation im eigenen Land als auch im Ausland liegt." (Seite 6)
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"This study sought to examine work-related exposure to trauma and predictors of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms among regional journalists in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, a conflict-ridden area in northwest Pakistan. We recruited 216 KP journalists. Analysis of the surveys re
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vealed a high prevalence of trauma exposure and PTSD symptoms. All of the participants had covered at least one trauma inducing event. Exposure to work-related trauma, active emotional coping and avoidant emotional coping were statistically significant factors associated with PTSD symptoms. This study is the first to highlight the severity of the impact of trauma on regional journalists in Pakistan." (Abstract)
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"Polnische Juden stellten nicht nur die größte Gruppe unter den Opfern des Holocaust, in den 1930er Jahren hatte auch kein Land Europas mehr jüdische Einwohner und einen vielfältigeren jüdischen Printmarkt als Polen. Die Studie trägt zu einem Paradigmenwechsel bei, der diese Tatsachen stärker
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berücksichtigt, indem er den Blick von Ost nach West richtet und die polnischen Juden nicht länger als monolithischen Block passiver Opfer begreift, sondern als handelnde Subjekte, die den Antisemitismus, der sie bedrohte, aktiv bekämpften. Aufbauend auf einer Analyse der Berichterstattung der jiddischen Warschauer Tagespresse über Nationalsozialismus und Judenverfolgung legt sie die Netzwerke der jüdischen Zeitungsmacher frei und zeigt, wie diese sich trotz Zensur und Repression subversives Wissen aneigneten, es ihrem Publikum vermittelten und so die Vorstellungswelten polnischer Juden über Deutschland prägten sowie Protest- und Solidaritätsaktionen zugunsten der Verfolgten initiierten." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Maidan, Krim und Russland bilden 2014 einen Fokus der Berichterstattung, als Proteste v. a. in Kiew in eine Staatskrise münden und die Halbinsel Krim von Russland annektiert wird. Diese einschneidenden Ereignisse werden von Medien eingeordnet und in Sinnzusammenhänge eingebettet. Die vorliegende
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Medien-Frame-Analyse untersucht das Bild, das seinerzeit in den kommentierenden Texten der reichweitenstärksten deutschen Printmedien geprägt wurde. Sie begreift Meinung als über den Begriff des Frames in den Texten nachweisbar, den sie theoretisch daraus herleitet, wie Menschen mit (Eigen-)Kategorien die Welt verstehen und sortieren. Mit einer operationalisierbaren Definition des Begriffes Frame können so die Meinungsspektren nachgezeichnet werden." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Since Syrians took to the streets more than 11 years ago demanding freedom from decades of dictatorship, the Syrian regime has used violence and disinformation as tools to silence those who dare to oppose it, especially those brave enough to expose the war crimes being committed. Civilians, doctors
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, humanitarians and human rights defenders have all faced real-life consequences of online harms. Their experiences are testament to the deadly cost of disinformation. Although there is a trove of evidence of torture, chemical weapons use, and the indiscriminate and targeted bombing of civilians, a relatively small number of conspiracy theorists – sometimes aided by a Russian-backed disinformation campaign, other times inspired by Russia’s disinformation talking points – have managed to distort the facts, endanger people’s lives, and cast long shadows of doubt over policy debates on Syria; in some cases stalling political action by the international community when it was sorely needed. New data gathered and analysed by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) for this report shows that disinformation about the conflict in Syria has created a dangerous ecosystem that permeates beyond the online bubble of social media and impacts both lives and government policies in the real world. The disinformation campaign has been devastating for those who are brave enough to risk everything to document human rights violations, as well as for survivors of chemical attacks. The unprecedented use of social media in the Syria conflict shed new light on the evolution of information warfare. Indeed, the war in Syria was the first major conflict to be played out online, creating what researchers have dubbed "a dangerous illusion of unmediated information flows." (Page 2)
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"The volume analyses the ambivalent relationship between human rights and modern technologies since 1945. Tools of suppression or agents of emancipation? Modern technologies have become a major subject of human rights policy. Surveillance technology, the military use of drones, and the possibilities
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of Big Data analysis pose new challenges for the international human rights movement. At the same time, these techniques offer new ways to document and denounce violations of human rights and to promote mass mobilization. The volume analyses this ambivalent relationship between human rights and technological change in a historical perspective. Showing how the spread of modern technologies both challenged and served human rights policies, the volume focuses on four key areas of technological change: 1) development politics, infrastructures and large technical systems, 2) population politics and demographical knowledge, 3) media cultures and communication technologies, and 4) the societal impact of computerization. By sketching these debates since 1945, the volume adds a historical perspective to current debates about the political and ethical challenges of new technological developments." (Publisher description)
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"Following seminal study on journalistic attitudes towards wars and peace journalism, in this study we investigated the perceptions of conflict reporters in the three most deadly countries in the world including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. A total of 317 journalists participated in this study. T
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hough generally we found support for the earlier study, the analysis shows journalists engage in wider practices than predicted that overlap war and peace journalism approaches. A closer examination showed that journalists favored active war journalism practices and passive peace journalism practices. Finally, we did not find that journalistic experience and contextual factors influenced preferences towards war and peace journalism substantially." (Abstract)
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"Since January 2021, Tech Against Terrorism has identifi ed 198 websites that we assess to be operated by terrorist actors, or by violent extremists that pose a credible and urgent threat to society. 79 of these sites relate to violent Sunni Islamist actors, 18 to violent Shia Islamist actors and 10
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1 linked to the violent far-right. In 2021 we facilitated the removal of 16 of these sites that linked to accelerationist neo-Nazi actors, the Taliban and the Islamic State. From a representative sample of 33 terrorist- and violent extremist-operated websites, we found that: 91% displayed audio/visual progaganda; 73% had an archive of historic content; 57% included a communication feature. The total average monthly visits to these 33 sites is 1.54 million." (Executive summary)
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"Freedom of speech and freedom of the press is generally attributed to an independent society where the basic rights of citizens are ensured. Balochistan, the western and resources rich province of Pakistan with its huge geopolitical importance has been under a strong wave of terrorism for the last
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two decades. This menace of terrorism has severely affected citizens of the province including media workers.
Design/Methodology/Approach: This research endeavor is an attempt to explore the impact of terrorism on the performance of media professionals in Balochistan. The study is based on the Hierarchy of Influence model which provides ground to explore the influence of terrorism. In this quantitative study, the researchers employing the systematic sampling technique have selected 50 media professionals out of 194 registered journalists of five press clubs: Quetta, Chaman, Noshki, Mastung, and Loralai.
Findings: The survey findings show that terrorism has badly affected the quality of their reporting. The study also reveals that objective journalism is hard to follow in the province by journalists as they are always threatened not only by terrorists but also by the law enforcement agencies to mold the reports in their favor.
Implications/Originality/Value The findings also indicate that terrorism has also affected journalists’ personal lives." (Abstract)
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"Beginning in August 2017, the Myanmar security forces undertook a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Northern Rakhine State. A UN investigation found that the role of Facebook in the violence was “significant”. This report is based on an in-depth investi
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gation into Meta (formerly Facebook)’s role in the serious human rights violations perpetrated against the Rohingya. It reveals that in the months and years leading up to the 2017 atrocities, the Facebook platform became an echo chamber of virulent anti-Rohingya content in Myanmar. Meta’s algorithms proactively amplified and promoted content which incited violence, hatred, and discrimination against the Rohingya – pouring fuel on the fire of long-standing discrimination and substantially increasing the risk of an outbreak of mass violence. Despite its partial acknowledgement that it played a role in the 2017 violence against the Rohingya, Meta has to date failed to provide an effective remedy to affected Rohingya communities. However, Amnesty International’s systematic legal analysis of Meta’s role in the atrocities perpetrated against the Rohingya leaves little room for doubt: Meta substantially contributed to adverse human rights impacts suffered by the Rohingya and has a responsibility to provide survivors with an effective remedy." (Back cover)
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