"Public diplomacy has become one of the central instruments of foreign policy and national security; this crucial Research Agenda provides a new outline for its investigation. Aiding the comprehension of the broad boundaries of the field, it proposes a clear starting point for contemporary research
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into important areas of public diplomacy. This enlightening Research Agenda is divided into three parts which thoroughly explore the actors, disciplines and instruments involved in the process of public diplomacy. Rich in innovative analysis, chapters offer insights from many of the most prominent scholars and practitioners in the field to cover existing research, gaps, and future directions." (Publisher description)
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"Social media influencers impact our collective societal mindset by shaping our thoughts and opinions or setting agendas. Past research on social influence must be unpacked to understand how social media influencers effectively create content using authenticity co mpared to celebrity. Establishing a
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sense of authenticity – consciously or unconsciously – enables them to come across as “being real.” This ability can be exploited and abused to amplify disinformation. The Digital Services Act’s approach to disinformation reflects the realization that platforms cannot adequately self-govern. Thus, it prescribes a structured role for civil society inclusion. For more oversight and accountability, EU member states will have to appoint Digital Services Coordinators who can be more effective if they work with platform councils made up of representatives from civil society, including influencer associations." (Page 1)
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"This article investigates the role of community radio in fostering good governance at the local level in the setting of Indonesia. Using the example of PASS FM Radio, this article demonstrates how community radio has fulfilled the purpose and function of media as a public sphere. As a community rad
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io station, PASS FM has not only succeeded in breaking down communication barriers between citizens and the local administration, but it has also presented solutions for optimising local potential. PASS FM Radio has also succeeded in partnering with the government to jointly serve the public interest and support the ideals of good governance, with the main features of transparency and public participation." (Abstract)
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"Martin Marinos applies a critical political economy approach to place Bulgarian right-wing populism within the structural transformation of the country’s media institutions. As Marinos shows, media concentration under Western giants like Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and News Corporation have l
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ed to a neoliberal turn of commercialization, concentration, and tabloidization across media. The Right have used the anticommunism and racism bred by this environment to not only undermine traditional media but position their own outlets to boost new political entities like the nationalist party Ataka. Marinos’s ethnographic observations and interviews with local journalists, politicians, and media experts add on-the-ground detail to his account. He also examines several related issues, including the performative appeal of populist media and the money behind it." (Publisher description)
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"The impacts of media, mainly social media, have attracted greater scholarly attention. However, their effects on public policy development and the decision-making procedure of a government have not been examined so far. Thus, this study examines such effects in pre-Taliban Afghanistan before August
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2021. Theories of signal detection and agenda-setting are adopted. Five variables (problem identification, media attention, perceived change, social media intensity, and relevance of social media) were conceptualized and operationalized to understand and measure the impact. Two data sets, qualitative and quantitative, were chosen on the eve of a presidential election (September 2019). For the first data set, a 63-question questionnaire was developed and piloted, and a purposive sample was chosen (N = 385). The second set contains in-depth interviews with government employees and bloggers. Findings show that social media influences public policy formulation and decision-making procedures. The results further reveal that social media are an essential vehicle for governance, have the potential to provide a networked public sphere, and bridge the communication gap between government and the public in a fragile state like Afghanistan." (Abstract)
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"Investigating the impact of digital technology on contemporary constitutionalism, this book offers an overview of the transformations that are currently occurring at constitutional level, highlighting their link with ongoing societal changes. It reconstructs the multiple ways in which constitutiona
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l law is reacting to these challenges and explores the role of one original response to this phenomenon: the emergence of Internet bills of rights. Over the past few years, a significant number of Internet bills of rights have emerged around the world. These documents represent non-legally binding declarations promoted mostly by individuals and civil society groups that articulate rights and principles for the digital society. This book argues that these initiatives reflect a change in the constitutional ecosystem. The transformations prompted by the digital revolution in our society ferment under a vault of constitutional norms shaped for 'analogue' communities. Constitutional law struggles to address all the challenges of the digital environment. In this context, Internet bills of rights, by emerging outside traditional institutional processes, represent a unique response to suggest new constitutional solutions for the digital age." (Publisher description)
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"The popular encrypted messaging and chat app WhatsApp played a key role in the election of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. The present study builds on this knowledge and showcases how the app continued to be used in a governmental operation spreading false and misleading information pop
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ularly known in Brazil as the Office of Hatred (OOH). By harnessing in-depth expert interviews with documentarians of the office’s daily operations—researchers, journalists, and fact-checkers (N = 10)—this study draws up a chronology of the OOH. Via this methodological approach, we trace and chronologize events, actions, and actors associated with the OOH. Specifically, findings (a) document the rise of antipetismo and disinformation campaigns associated with attacks on the Brazilian Worker’s party from 2012 until the election of Bolsonaro in 2018, (b) describe the emergence of the OOH at the heels of the election and subsequent radicalization in WhatsApp groups, (c) provide an overview of the types of disinformation that are spread on the app by the OOH, and (d) illustrate how the OOH operates by mapping key actors and places, communicative strategies, and audiences. These findings are discussed in light of ramifications that government-sponsored forms of disinformation might have in other antidemocratic polities marked by strongman populist leadership." (Abstract)
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"Politics and religion are traditionally connected in large democracies, with many examples in the Global South. Recently in Brazil, a specific Bible verse has been assimilated into political expression and amplified by social media: John 8:32 (“And you shall know the truth, and the truth will set
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you free”). In this article, we employ thematic analysis of Twitter1 data referencing this verse, collected during the 2022 Brazilian presidential election. The analysis shows how the verse became symbolic shorthand for a bundle of values associated with political and religious righteousness, reinforcing the connections between conservative politics and religion. Strongly associated with the persona of former president Jair Bolsonaro, the verse wasdeployed by his supporters as a symbolic debunking tool against perceived misinformation but was also used ironically by Bolsonaro’s detractors to criticize the former president. By zooming in on the multifaceted use of this Biblical verse in the online political sphere, this article illuminates the multilayered interconnections between political expression on social media, religion, and misinformation in the context of Brazil." (Abstract)
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"Das Fernsehen ist ein politisches Medium. Es ist in seiner institutionellen Gestalt geprägt durch Entscheidungen im politischen System und durch verfassungsgerichtliche Rechtsprechung. Politische Akteure versuchen immer wieder, Einfluss zu nehmen und das Medium für eigene Zwecke zu nutzen. Gleich
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zeitig ist das Fernsehen auch auf der inhaltlichen Ebene durch und durch politisch - und das nicht nur in der dezidierten Politikberichterstattung. So prägen Nachrichten, Sondersendungen, Talk-Shows, aber auch satirische oder fiktionale TV-Formate den Blick der Rezipientinnen und Rezipienten auf Politik und Gesellschaft. Der Medienwissenschaftler Andreas Dörner zeigt, wie das Fernsehen politisch konstruiert ist und wie es zugleich selbst die politische Welt konstruiert, Identitätsangebote macht und Interpretationsfolien für das Weltgeschehen anbietet. Er analysiert auch den Wandel des Mediums im Zuge der allgegenwärtigen Digitalisierung. Das sogenannte lineare Fernsehen ist auf dem Rückzug, Mediennutzung individualisiert sich weiter und TV-Sender, Streamingdienste und Videoplattformen verschmelzen zu einem vielfältigen Bewegtbildmarkt. Aber auch mit geänderten Formen und Vertriebswegen nimmt das Medium weiterhin eine zentrale Stellung in der politischen Öffentlichkeit Deutschlands ein." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Based on theoretical frameworks of media sociology, political economy of communication and cultural studies, the book traces the development of Chinese documentary and discusses social transformation and cultural representation embodied in documentaries related to China. It is revealed how these wo
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rks witness, reflect and interact with social transitions in all aspects of a modernizing China, as well as how documentary production struggles among and mediates between technology, market, ideology, social forces and professionalism. In terms of future prospects of documentary in an era when media convergence is burgeoning, the author explores feasible paths to further promotion of cross-cultural communication and China’s national image, by analyzing documentary aesthetics and representative cases of documentary practice." (Publisher description)
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"Der Begriff der "alternativen Fakten" hat in den vergangenen Jahren einen raschen Aufstieg erfahren. Mit ihm verbindet sich die Sorge, dass "alternative", den Tatsachen widersprechende Deutungen bestimmter politisch relevanter Sachverhalte zugenommen haben - und dass dies auf ein Schwinden des gete
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ilten Wissens in der Gesellschaft hinweise. Doch was sind eigentlich "alternative Fakten", und wie ist ihre Verbreitung zu verstehen? Wie der Soziologe Nils C. Kumkar darlegt, gehe es hierbei nicht lediglich um fehlgeleitete Annahmen über die Welt, die durch die "richtigen" Informationen korrigiert werden könnten. Für ein Verständnis des Phänomens relevant sei vielmehr die kommunikative Funktion, die es in Prozessen der öffentlichen Meinungsbildung einnehme. Empirisch arbeitet er anhand von drei Beispielen - der Debatte um die Zuschauerzahl bei der Amtseinführung Donald Trumps, der Verbreitung von Publikationen, die den menschengemachten Klimawandel anzweifeln, sowie der Debatte um die "Querdenker" und die Corona-Maßnahmen - heraus, dass die Nutzung "alternativer Fakten" stets in vorgängige gesellschaftliche Konflikte eingebettet ist. Innerhalb dieser Konflikte erfüllten sie weniger die Funktion, glaubhafte Deutungen zu vermitteln, als die, Verwirrung zu stiften. Der Autor plädiert dafür, diese hintergründigen Konflikte in den Blick zu nehmen, um das Phänomen "alternative Fakten" besser verstehen und ihre Verbreitung bekämpfen zu können." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Successive Iranian leaders have struggled to navigate the fraught political-cultural space of media in the Islamic Republic-skirting the line between embracing Western communications technologies and rejecting them, between condemning social networking sites as foreign treachery and promoting thems
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elves on Facebook. How does a regime that originally derived its hegemony from the ability to mass communicate its ideology protect its ideological dominance in a media environment defined by hybridity, hyper-connectivity, and near constant change? More broadly, what is the role of media in the construction and maintenance of power in Iran? This book addresses these questions by examining the institutions, policies, and discourses of two political regimes over the course of nearly eight decades. Drawing from over 3,000 primary source documents and digital artifacts in Persian and English, including formerly classified material hidden deep in the archives, this book offers a history of media in Iran across political regimes and media paradigms- from the public's first encounter with mass communication in the 1940s, to the dawn of digital media in the 1990s, to internet and mobile telephony today. At the same time, the book trains a keen eye on contemporary politics." (Publisher description)
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"Community media is widely recognized as a tool to give voice to the voiceless. This study investigates the transformative potential of community media in India as a vehicle for promoting inclusive development and enhancing democracy. The research aims to examine the distinctive ways that community
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media promotes diverse viewpoints, local content, and participatory communication, contributing to social change and community empowerment. It draws on secondary data and case studies of successful community media initiatives in India and other nations with comparable socio-political contexts. A thorough literature review and thematic analysis are used in the study’s qualitative methodology to identify major topics, such as community participation and empowerment, local content and cultural preservation, solving development difficulties, and challenges and opportunities. The results show that community media projects like Radio Namaskar and Radio Mewat effectively foster community ownership, empower marginalized populations, and involve community members in content development and decision-making processes. The findings also emphasize how community media may help with local development challenges and cultural heritage preservation. However, community media initiatives in India encounter several obstacles, such as legal restrictions, a lack of funding, and low media literacy among underprivileged groups. The findings of the study also provide policy recommendations for boosting community media efforts’ efficacy in India, dealing with the problems they encounter, and utilizing the advantages offered by digital technologies and social media platforms. The research adds to the current discussion about the function of community media in advancing democratic ideals, inclusive growth, and social transformation in India and elsewhere." (Abstract)
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