"This article examines debates about national identity in the media landscape of post-referendum and post-independence South Sudan. Having never existed as a sovereign state and with its citizens being a minority group in Sudan, collective action among South Sudanese has historically been shaped in
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response to external pressures: in particular, the aggressive nationbuilding pursued by successive Khartoum governments that sought to Arabize and Islamize the South. Today, in the absence of a clear-cut enemy, it is a major challenge for South Sudan to devise a common identity that unites the putative nation beyond competing loyalties to ethnicity, tribe and family. Analysing opinion pieces from South Sudanese online media and placing them in the context of contemporary African nationalism, this article gives an initial overview of the issues that dominate the public debate on national identity: fear of tribalism and regionalism, commemoration of the liberation struggle, language politics, and the role of Christianity." (Abstract)
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"This paper takes a critical look at the view that the Internet can serve as a laboratory of political experimentation for reconfiguring the repertories of political actions. The overall discourses on information and communications technology (ICT) are too often focused on technology and infrastruct
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ure, when the question of its use should be central. In order to comprehend how ICT can serve as a democratic enhancer, this paper critically examines the African anthropology of the state and of the public sphere. It captures the African endogenous productions of political modernity and the subsequent way ICT is appropriated and indigenized by African local instances. African states and civil societies do not fit into prescriptive Western paradigms. In order to encourage the effective use of new technologies, this paper has developed the so-called “African model of ICT practice”, which proposes a set of hypotheses that aim to enable the effective usage and integration of ICT within the democratic process in the context of an African self-defined political reality." (Abstract)
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"While views may differ on the factors that made the 2011 Egyptian revolution possible, the role of mass media will remain undisputable. The Internet-based social networks caught the Mubarak regime by surprise, and the popular disillusionment with the‘national’ media led the public to turn to pr
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ivate newspapers and satellite channels for keeping pace with the events. This paper examines the role of specific media during the 18 days of the 2011 Egyptian revolution – from 25 January to 11 February, 2011 – which we have divided into four parts. It discusses how these media contributed to the unfolding of events, conceptualized the protests and the demands of the public, and presented the actors that participated in or opposed the revolution. These points are addressed by discussing the content of the Facebook pages of the Sixth of April Movement and We Are All Khalid Said, as well as that of a private Egyptian newspaper, al-Shuruq, and the state-run newspaper al-Ahram." (Abstract)
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This book features case studies and reports on the use of web 2.0 and social networking applications and services to increase the impact of research on policy in Latin America. During 2010 and 2011 Fundación Comunica, with funding from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada) an
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d assistance from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), supported a series of small research projects examining the use of online social networking services to link research and policy in the region. For the Impact 2.0 projects, the most successful uses of web 2.0 and online social networking to connect research and policy were those that involved the public in campaigns and consultations. Less successful were those projects that focused on the direct relationships between researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders.
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"Drawing on evidence from the popular protests in Tunisia between December 2010 and January 2011, expert interviews with Tunisian bloggers, and a web survey conducted among Tunisian Facebook users, this paper argues that social media (1) allowed a “digital elite” to form personal networks and ci
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rcumvent the national media blackout by brokering information for outside mainstream media; (2) helped to overcome the “free rider” problem of collective action by reporting the magnitude of protest events; and (3) facilitated the formation of a national collective identity which was supportive of protest action and transcended geographical and socio-economic disparities by providing a shared, mobilizing element of emotional grievance." (Abstract)
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"[Este libro] examina la relación entre el poder político, los medios de comunicación y la ciudadanía; recorre su evolución y establece un diálogo entre la teoría y la práctica mediante el constante acercamiento a episodios que ilustran su interdependencia, pero más allá de esto, el libro
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trata de llamar la atención sobre la peligrosa línea que divide la influencia cada vez mayor de la comunicación estratégica alineada a finalidades políticas, y el nefasto monopolio de la información, tanto de parte de los gobiernos como de parte de los intereses privados. Una comunicación dominante y una comunicación dominada no son, ciertamente, el espacio ideal para el desarrollo de un nuevo modelo de democracia, caracterizado por el diálogo, la participación, la tolerancia y, sobre todo, por la preservación de las libertades individuales y colectivas. La comunicación puede poner o quitar la venda a los ojos de la democracia. Nuestro propósito al escribir este libro fue alimentar la esperanza de que aún estamos a tiempo de ganar la batalla contra la indiferencia." (Presentación, página 10)
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"Die Nutzung von Mikroblogs durch staatliche Stellen und Parteikader ist Teil der Strategie des chinesischen Partei-Staates, das Internet zur Stabilisierung des politischen Systems einzusetzen. Über staatliche Mikroblogs werden offizielle und fundierte Informationen verbreitet; ein Angebot, das von
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der chinesischen Gesellschaft durchaus aufgegriffen wird. Einblick in die öffentliche Meinung gewinnt der Partei-Staat über die Auswertung der auf „zivilen“, also nicht staatlichen, Mikroblogs geführten Online-Debatten. Diese liefern dem Partei-Staat Informationen über Anliegen und Bedürfnisse der Bevölkerung, welche dieser präemptiv aufnimmt, hierdurch die Effizienz seiner Regulierungs- und Steuerungsmaßnahmen erhöht – und letztendlich dadurch den Legitimitätsglauben der Bevölkerung bestärkt. Mit der Einführung neuer Informations- und Kommunikationsmedien wandeln sich die staatlich-zivilen Beziehungen. Für „zivile“ Akteure eröffnen Mikroblogs neue Möglichkeiten der Vernetzung und Interessenskoordination. In diesem Sinne beenden „zivile“ Mikroblogs das Informationsmonopol des chinesischen Partei-Staates und erhöhen den Druck auf das System, Informationen über aktuelle Entwicklungen möglichst zeitnah zu veröffentlichen. Mikroblogs übernehmen somit eine Korrektiv- und Kontrollfunktion." (Seite 1)
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"Hindu nationalists defend the advent of a Hindu state in India, while projecting the universal appeal of their ideology. Their very territorialised yet universal claims have been finding particular resonance among migrant populations, particularly in North America. This study strives to go beyond c
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ontent analyses that foreground voices to focus on the network structure in order to highlight the new transnational practices of nationalism. Two main points emerge from this in-depth scrutiny. On the one hand, Hindu nationalist organisations have transferred their online activities mainly to the USA, where the Indian diaspora is 3.2 million strong and constitute therefore a prime example of long-distance transnationalist nationalism. On the other hand, the morphological discrepancies between the online and the offline networks point to new strategies of discretion developed to evade the gaze of authorities in countries of residence. The recourse to such cartographies thus becomes crucial not only in understanding what sectarian or illegal movements do but also what they seek to hide." (Abstract)
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"Der hier vorgestellte Ansatz untersucht die empirischen Leistungen der Medien für die demokratische Freiheit in Gesellschaften mit Hilfe einer Reihe von demokratietheoretisch abgeleiteten Indikatoren. Diese betreffen sowohl die gesamtgesellschaftlichen Medienstrukturen, als auch die konkreten Leis
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tungen einzelner Medienorganisationen. Die empirische Basis bilden Erhebungen aus neun europäischen Ländern und Australien, wobei insbesondere das relative Abschneiden Deutschlands im Vergleich mit den anderen Ländern dargestellt und erläutert wird." (Zusammenfassung)
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"In this fourth issue of the report, we focus on exploring the societal and cultural transformations taking place in the Arab region, influenced by the continuing exponential growth of social media. In this edition of the report we provide regional statistics on more social networking platforms, in
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addition to Facebook and Twitter; including for the first time, analysis on LinkedIn. The findings of the regional survey provided here aims to measure emerging perceptions of social media users in the Arab World on identity and culture, a topic that is closely linked with several critical policy questions in the region, and begs for more research on a regional and individual society levels." (Overview, page 1)
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"To deepen our understanding of the relationship between social media and political change during the Egyptian uprising of early 2011, events in Tahrir Square must be situated in a larger context of media use and recent history of online activism. For several years, the most successful social moveme
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nts in Egypt, including Kefaya, the April 6th Youth, and We are all Khaled Said, were those using social media to expand networks of disaffected Egyptians, broker relations between activists, and globalize the resources and reach of opposition leaders. Social media afforded these opposition leaders the means to shape repertoires of contention, frame the issues, propagate unifying symbols, and transform online activism into offline protests." (Abstract)
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"Revisar cuarenta años de historia de los medios masivos de información en tan breve espacio es sin duda insuficiente, pero lo hacemos considerando que cada vez más alumnos —y en especial tesistas— requieren de información histórica básica para sus trabajos. El propósito de este texto es,
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entonces, fijar hitos para quienes deseen repasar la historia de nuestros medios informativos, no ciñéndose a fuentes únicas sino atendiendo a que existen distintas visiones que no se pueden eludir si la intención es genuinamente académica. Debe advertirse que en un tema tan complejo como la historia de los medios, las clasificaciones y nominaciones son arbitrarias. Los interesados en su estudio deben someterse a ese riesgo. En ese sentido, trataremos de proveer las fuentes de consulta que a nuestro parecer son básicas para acceder a los escenarios, muy complejos, que hicieron posibles eventos tan significativos como la fundación de medios, su desaparición o la influencia que tuvieron en contextos determinados. Se ha venido además insistiendo, en especial en los estudios políticos, en la ausencia de trabajos en nuestro país que se acerquen más y mejor a las relaciones del poder con los medios masivos de información, que son empresas que pugnan por la rentabilidad a la vez que tratan de situarse como promotoras de opinión proclamando una independencia que nunca han tenido." (Página 11-12)
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"Anfang Mai 2012 wurde Vladimir Putin erneut ins Präsidentenamt eingeführt. Die pompöse Zeremonie unterschied sich nur graduell von seinem ersten Einzug in den Kreml im Jahr 2000. Man glaubt ihn inzwischen zu kennen. Doch Putin ist ein Verwandlungskünstler. Die mediale Inszenierung als omnipoten
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ter Herrscher, Feldherr, guter Zar und Retter seines Volkes verwendet nationale Traditionen aus vorrevolutionärer Zeit. Rückgriffe auf die internationale massenmediale Ästhetik sowie populäre Stereotypen versetzen Putin in die Rolle eines modernen Helden, Sexsymbols, Medien- und Popstars. Die symbolische Politik unter Putin ist im Zeitalter des Politainment angekommen." (Abstract)
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"This report presents an analysis of Iranian public opinion and mood as expressed over Twitter in the nine months following the election. The research represents an initial case study of a novel methodology developed to analyze politically oriented social media content. In addition to policy-relevan
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t findings regarding Iranians’ attitudes toward a variety of topics (e.g., President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the United States), our methodological approach is described in detail. The results should be of interest to analysts and policymakers concerned with Iranian politics and public opinion in closed societies, as well as social media researchers." (Preface)
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