"Political blogging in Francophone Africa is quite a recent phenomenon. Most bloggers are journalists and use their blogs to practice writing and/or report affairs they can’t cover in the mainstream media. A blog is therefore a tool for the publication of content to inform the users of development
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s in the political and social spheres of their country. It is a platform for freedom of expression. Blogging can be a way to earn a living, especially when combined with social media." (Page 1)
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"It is often assumed that a robust, free and independent media will contribute to the deepening of democracy by keeping governments accountable and broadening citizen participation in deliberative democratic debates. But in new democracies such as South Africa, the deepening and broadening of democr
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atic participation is often curtailed by challenges such as unequal access to the media, the orientation of mainstream media towards elite audiences and renewed attempts by sources of power to control the free flow of information. Despite the promise of a peaceful, equitable and democratic society after the end of apartheid, conflicts continue to erupt due to continued social polarisation, vast socio-economic inequalities and new struggles for power. In South Africa these conflicts include social protests on a daily basis, repeated outbreaks of xenophobic violence and disruptions to the parliamentary process. This paper probes the role of the media in these conflicts from the perspective of journalists who have reported on these issues. The paper explores ways in which journalists critically reflect on their abilities to perform the roles expected of them within a normative framework informed by the Habermasian ideal of deliberative democracy. The reasons they offer for not fulfilling these roles, and the conditions underpinning these failures, lead them to question the ability of the South African media to contribute to an emerging democracy." (Abstract)
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"The protests that took place in Nigeria due to removal of fuel subsidy by the Jonathan administration in January 2012, tagged ‘Occupy Nigeria Protest’, have been labelled the social media revolution by the conventional media commentators in the country. For the first time in the history of the
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country, ethnic, regional and religious differences were set aside to confront the State in an arena without any State control: the Internet and its social communities, unrestricted, uncontrolled, uninhibited; the images, imageries and imaginations of the protestors deconstructed State authority and control - often in the face of brutal State attempts at offline suppression - and spread messages of solidarity and ‘anti-State’ forces. Using semiotic analysis and grounded within the theories of intermedialities, the findings suggest that the images on social media had played a significant role in mobilizing the protesters to come out and keep them on the street for the period of the protest." (Abstract)
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"In Latin America, several countries’ laws permit the president to commandeer all radio and television broadcasts. Initially contemplated for use in rare circumstances such as national emergencies, a few leaders in the region, beginning with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, have taken advantage of thes
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e laws to create an unprecedented media bully pulpit that has been an essential part of their populist politics. This report explores how these obligatory presidential broadcasts have become a routine occurrence in Venezuela, Argentina, and Ecuador with troubling implications for public debate. The report also surveys the legal and regulatory frameworks across the region for lessons on how presidential communication authority can be restricted to prevent this kind of abuse in the future." (Key findings)
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"The Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) was established as Malawi's first national radio station when the country gained independence from Britain in 1964, partly with an ideological function of mobilising Malawians for the task of nation building. Since its inception, the broadcaster has been ac
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cused of serving the ideological interests of the ruling elite at the expense of the public good. Content-based evidence supporting this assertion has, however, been lacking. Against this background, a content study of one of MBC's leading television public affairs programmes, Speak Out, was conducted to interrogate a widely-held perception that the broadcaster's staffers interact with dominant ideology passively at the expense of promoting public good. The study was situated in debates between the dominant ideology thesis and the pluralist paradigm of news. Its results show that, contrary to the widely-held claim, the pursuit of the ideological project of nation building at the broadcaster generally conforms to the pluralist paradigm, especially Shoemaker and Vos's gatekeeper thesis which conceptualises journalists who actively engage with programme content as they mediate it. Presenters and producers of the programme use strategies which, to a considerable extent, connote their effort to pursue impartially politically sensitive aspects of the ideological project of nation building." (Abstract)
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"This book argues that Internet diffusion and use in the Middle East enables meaningful micro-changes in citizens’ lives, even in states where no Arab Spring revolution occurred. Using ethnographic evidence and taking a comparative perspective, it presents a grass roots look at how new media use f
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its into the practice of everyday life. It explores why citizens use social media to digitally route around state and other forms of power at work in their lives. This increase in citizen civic engagement, supported by new media use, offers the possibility of a new order of things, from redefining patriarchal power relations at home, to reconfigurations of citizens’ relationships with the state, broadly defined. The author argues that new media channels offer pathways to empowerment widely and cheaply in the Middle East." (Publisher description)
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"During the transition years, Albania saw the establishment of a relatively complete legal framework for the protection and development of media freedom and independence. However, in many cases, the legal framework was delayed or a mechanical transplant of western legislation. Enforcement of legisla
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tion remains a problem. In the framework of relations between the media and politics, both in the early transition phases and during recent years, there have been frequent efforts of political formations to ensure in a way control Relations between media and politics in Albania over the media through law as in the case of the Press Law or the case of legislation establishing the regulations for the election of the Steering Council of RTSH and AMA, which gives the opportunity to the political majority to decide on the composition of the steering bodies of these two institutions. In terms of transparency over media ownership, Albania has made progress, but the concern is raised regarding the possibility of hidden ownership. Besides the ownership factor, their funding also has played a considerable role in the degree of dependence or independence of the media. In this regard, for many domestic analysts or international rapporteurs, the situation remains alarming. The EU Progress Report on Albania notes that media financing remains very problematic. There is almost no transparency and funding sources are manipulated or hidden. Similar to countries of the polarized pluralistic media model, in Albania too, professional organizations and the trade unions of journalists are generally weak. An indicator of the lack of organization of the media and the journalists’ community is also the fact that Albania, for a long period during the transition years, has not managed to have a Media Council, which exists in the majority of the region’s countries. The inexistence or poor role of journalists’ associations has led to a poor level of self-regulation of media in the country." (Executive summary)
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"Von algorithmischen Prozessen gesteuerte Intermediäre wie Google oder Facebook haben im Vergleich zu redaktionell gesteuerten Medien wie dem Fernsehen einen großen, aber bislang nicht entscheidenden Einfluss auf die öffentliche Meinungsbildung. Sie bewerten die Relevanz von Inhalten viel stärke
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r als redaktionelle Medien an unmittelbaren Reaktionen des Publikums. Die Nutzung der Intermediäre für öffentliche Meinungsbildung führt zu einem Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Zentral ist dabei ein zunehmend personalisiertes und maschinell kuratiertes Medienangebot, bei dem unmittelbare Nutzerreaktionen ein bedeutender Input sind. Eine Reihe psychologischer Faktoren führt aber dazu, dass die ausgewerteten vor allem impulsiven Publikumsreaktionen schlecht geeignet sind, um Relevanz im Sinne klassischer Leitwerte wie Wahrheit, Vielfalt oder gesellschaftliche Integration zu bewerten, die in Deutschland Grundlage der von redaktionellen Medien geschaffenen Öffentlichkeit sind. Im Zentrum der komplexen Wechselwirkungen digitaler Öffentlichkeit stehen algorithmische Prozesse, die Inhalte sortieren und deren Zusammenstellung personalisieren. Deshalb müssen Lösungen zuerst hier ansetzen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The Companion is the first collection to bring together two distinct ways of thinking about human rights and media, including scholarship that examines media as a human right alongside that which looks at media coverage of human rights issues. This international collection of 49 newly written piece
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s thus provides a unique overview of current research in the field, while also providing historical context to help students and scholars appreciate how such developments depart from past practices. The volume examines the universal principals of freedom of expression, legal instruments, the right to know, media as a human right, and the role of media organisations and journalistic work. It is organised thematically in five parts: Communication, Expression and Human Rights; Media Performance and Human Rights: Political Processes, Media Performance and Human Rights: News and Journalism; Digital Activism, Witnessing and Human Rights; Media Representation of Human Rights: Cultural, Social and Political." (Publisher description)
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"The objective of this book is to outline how a radically democratic politics can be reinvigorated in theory and practice through the use of the internet. The author argues that politics in its proper sense can be distinguished from anti-politics by analyzing the configuration of public space, subje
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ctivity, participation, and conflict. Each of these terrains can be configured in a more or less political manner, though the contemporary status quo heavily skews them towards anti-political configuration. Using this understanding of what exactly politics entails, this book considers how the internet can both help and hinder efforts to move each area in a more political direction. By explicitly interpreting contemporary theories of the political in terms of the internet, this analysis avoids the twin traps of both technological determinism and technological cynicism. Raising awareness of what the word 'politics' means, the author develops theoretical work by Arendt, Rancière, Zizek and Mouffe to present a clear and coherent view of how in theory, politics can be digitized and alternatively how the internet can be deployed in the service of trulydemocratic politics." (Back cover)
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"This book provides a fresh perspective on the importance of the Hindi media in India's political, social and economic transformation with evidence from the countryside and the cities. Accessed by more than forty percent of the public, it continues to play an important role in building political awa
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reness and mobilising public opinion. Instead of viewing the media as a singular entity, this book highlights its diversity and complexity to understand the changing dynamics of political communication that is shaped by the interactions between the news media, political parties and the public, and how various media forms are being used in a rapidly transforming environment. The book offers insights into how print, television, and digital media work together with, rather than in isolation from, each another to grasp the complexities of the emerging hybrid media environment and the future of mobilisation." (Publisher description)
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"This article aims at investigating the relationship between the concept of mediated citizenship and participation through radio talk deliberation. It intends to offer an analysis of the content mediated through public discourses by determining the way in which participants draw their identities thr
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ough different topics articulated in radio talk shows. This article will focus on a breakfast radio talk show – Jambo Kenya, a programme broadcasted on Radio Citizen, the second largest radio station in Kenya. This highly interactive programme airs from 7:15 a.m. with thought-provoking dialogue, giving a voice to groups that would otherwise be unheard. The article focuses on how the call-in listeners gain access to this media space to contest their various ideas." (Abstract)
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"The present research examines media agenda setting effects in a Kenyan context in 2013 and 2014. Specifically, focusing on the first level of agenda setting, the study investigates whether two national daily newspapers influenced public opinion on six issues of national importance: corruption, devo
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lution, economic crisis, insecurity, poverty, and unemployment. Moreover, the study examines whether the newspapers’ agendas are related in connection to the coverage of the six issues. Findings indicate that the two newspapers had little influence on the opinion of the Kenyan public regarding the six issues. This is based on a low correlation of +.30 between the two newspapers’ agendas and the public agenda. However, the agendas of the two publications were strikingly similar—yielding a perfect correlation of + 1. This means in their news coverage, the newspapers gave similar weight to the six issues." (Abstract)
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"Die ägyptische Muslimbruderschaft hat in den fast 90 Jahren ihres Bestehens immer wieder neue Kommunikationstechnologien adaptiert und Medienpraktiken inkorporiert, um ihre Außenkommunikation zu professionalisieren. Der Beitrag zeigt unter Rückgriff auf Ansätze der Sozialen-Bewegungs-Forschung
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sowie zu Medienpraktiken, wie diese Anpassungen im Kontext politischer Entwicklungen vorgenommen wurden und mit veränderten Materialitäten, Kompetenzen und Bedeutungszuschreibungen in Zusammenhang stehen. Das Fallbeispiel der Rabi’a-Ereignisse von 2013 illustriert schließlich einen Höhepunkt der auch performativen und transnational zirkulierenden Medienpraktiken der Muslimbruderschaft." (Abstract)
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"Nadia Sraieb-Koepp shares her experiences designing participatory media campaigns and visual strategies that helped facilitate the democratic transition in Tunisia in 2011. She offers her thoughts about the need for inclusive social media strategies designed to counter recruitment messages targetin
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g youth by violent extremists." (Introduction to part 5, page 241)
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"Elisabeth Wehling zeigt anhand zahlreicher Erkenntnisse der modernen Neuro- und Kognitionsforschung, wie über Sprache und die jeweils adressierten Frames Assoziationen geweckt, Meinungen gelenkt und Handlungen bestimmt werden können: So müssen beispielsweise im geläufigen Jargon Steuern aufgebr
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acht, nicht etwa beigetragen werden, und ihre Lasten drücken uns, statt dass wir sie als Grundlage staatlichen Gemeinwohlhandelns begreifen. Ein bewussterer und klügerer Umgang mit der Sprache, so die Autorin, sei eine der Grundvoraussetzungen für konstruktive Auseinandersetzungen in den zahlreichen politischen Debatten unserer Zeit." (Klappentext)
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"En République démocratique du Congo (RDC), le Web constitue, depuis le dernier mandat constitutionnel du président Joseph Kabila au pouvoir depuis 2001, un espace d’affrontements politiques par le biais des discours religieux, ou par leaders religieux interposés. Alors que le président Kabil
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a a épuisé son dernier mandat constitutionnel, les discours religieux sur Internet sont devenus un outil de mobilisation, si bien qu’ils permettent de distinguer les partisans de l’alternance ou du maintien du gouvernement en place. Les médias numériques ont démontré leur capacité à mobiliser la rue lors des manifestations contre le maintien au pouvoir du président Joseph Kabila entre 2015 et 2017. Les discours religieux sur le Web peuvent jouer, quant à eux, une fonction d’atténuation de la contestation." (Résumé)
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