"The essays in this report deepen our understanding of the escalating and evolving threats posed by global authoritarianism. While responses to authoritarian information manipulation have been robust in many ways across Latin America, much more can be done to counter it and enhance the quality of in
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formation available to citizens, particularly around elections. Key lessons include: Authoritarians are increasingly collaborating to undermine democracy [...]; Democratic actors must cooperate to address the speed and scale of the challenge to democracy [...]; Strategic responses to authoritarian information operations are essential." (Pages 3-4)
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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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"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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"Venezuela leads Latin America with the largest number of imprisoned journalists and extreme government-led media censorship. Our in-depth interviews with 25 Venezuelan journalists reveal that assisting journalists to combat government control are social media and technology platforms like WhatsApp,
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Facebook and Twitter, which, in Venezuela, have moved beyond their ability to share and mobilise, and have become tactical media, the media of crisis criticism and opposition." (Abstract)
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"This research utilizes the theoretical framework of the protest paradigm to analyze how major TV channels and newspapers in Chile and Colombia covered-on their official X (Twitter) accounts-the massive 2019 protests. The paper collected data using the software Crimson Hexagon(CH), a social media an
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alysis software that accesses all public messages posted on Twitter, and then conducted a manual content analysis to fully explore the adherence to the paradigm in digital environments, including audience interactions with media content. Results show that chosen media outlets take mainly the riotand confrontation frames to delegitimize protesters, partially influencing the reaction of audiences who engaged with those diminishing devices. A further analysis demonstrates how deeply intertwined the media are with the status quo and elites. In addition, legacy media, particularly TV, seem to fall into a systematic delegitimization of social protest. This research is valuable as it enhances the understanding of media portrayals of protests in Latin America given the new dynamics of news engagement on social media." (Abstract)
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"Based on interviews with Syrian media practitioners, this article uses the notion of affective proximity to make sense of local media practitioners’ reporting and witnessing of suffering in their country and community. I argue that the life-risking, and sometimes deadly, media practices of local
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reporters and witnesses, as well as their emotional labour, often do not feature in understandings of journalism when it is conceived as a purely professional discursive pursuit. I explain affective proximity in terms of an imagined space (or the lack thereof) between a media practitioner, on the one hand, and the event they are representing and participating in, on the other. In relation to Syria, I use it to analyse the word ‘revolution’ and what it mediates, the shifting boundaries between activism and journalism, and experiences of, and in, violence. I make the case that the study of affect and emotion in global news should be contextualized within the unequal power relations that give shape to journalistic roles and modes of representaiton." (Abstract)
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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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"This book focuses on developing a systematic approach to understanding the transformations in Africa's public sector social media landscape. Looking at the use of social media from the African public sector perspective, the authors present a comprehensive understanding of social media practices and
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how these could be integrated into African public sector institutions' operational activities in order to deliver greater value for African citizens and consumers of public goods and services. Chapters explore how social media in Africa differs from traditional media use, their application in the public sector, objectives for government using social media, and how social media plays an interactive role in e-government services. Providing practical guidance on the use of social media in Africa's public sector and governmental spaces, the book also serves as a teaching text in governance and public sector communication efforts within the African context for both undergraduate and graduate programmes." (Publisher description)
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"This paper examines two different understandings of professional autonomy among journalists currently and formerly working at Mafra, a Czech media house acquired in 2013 by Andrej Babiš, who in 2017 became the Czech Prime Minister. We build on existing research of local trends in media ownership a
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nd journalistic autonomy to ask the following questions: What differentiated the experience of journalists who exited the organization after the ownership change from that of those who stayed put? How did the two groups understand professional journalistic autonomy? Based on the thematic analysis of twenty semistructured interviews with ten journalists who stayed in the media house after Babiš’s acquisition and ten journalists who left, we argue that in the journalists’ narratives, the two decisions reflect two different notions of autonomy: autonomy-as-a-practice and autonomy-as-a-value. While our findings add to the scarce empirical research on journalists’ lived experiences of the region’s mediascape marked by growing comingling and concentration of political, economic and media power, we also suggest that the autonomy-as-a-practice and journalists’ agency should be further studied as a possible way how to perform and promote journalistic autonomy even in illiberalizing contexts—in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond." (Abstract)
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"Hidden information, double meanings, double-crossing, and the constant processes of encoding and decoding messages have always been important techniques in negotiating social and political power dynamics. Yet these tools, "cryptopolitics," are transformed when used within digital media. Focusing on
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African societies, Cryptopolitics brings together empirically grounded studies of digital media to consider public culture, sociality, and power in all its forms, illustrating the analytical potential of cryptopolitics to elucidate intimate relationships, political protest, and economic strategies in the digital age." (Publisher description)
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"This study investigates social media usage patterns, Twitter’ frequency use and message typologies of selected South African female politicians’. Using the digital public sphere theory as a lens, the study considers six hundred Twitter posts from six female politicians from the African National
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Congress, Democratic Alliance, and Economic Freedom Fighters political parties to examine the potential of social media for visibility and participation, particularly for female politicians who are underrepresented in mainstream media platforms. The study finds that these politicians leverage digital media to promote their public works, challenging media gatekeeping and asserting agency in shaping public discourse. The findings also reveal the strategic use of social media for selfpromotion allowing female politicians to enhance visibility, influence public perception, and consolidate their positions." (Abstract)
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