"This paper presents an exploratory study aimed at systematically mapping the public actions taken by OSCE participating States to combat online violence against female journalists. Adopting a qualitative large N research design, the study examines national policies and initiatives across all 57 OSC
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E participating States. Through extensive desk research of official government documents and gray literature qualitative data is collected. The analysis thereof is guided by three research aims: (a) identifying actions implemented by participating states, (b) examining the roles of public sphere actors, and (c) assessing the approaches adopted to combat online violence. The paper discusses best practices identified in eleven OSCE participating States, shedding light on strategies for addressing online violence against female journalists. However, the findings highlight significant disparities in policy implementation and acknowledgment of the issue, with only a minority of states demonstrating proactive measures on the safety of journalists (11 states; 19.3%). Of these 11 States, only 7 participating States (12.28%) were found to have a gendered approach. 47 (80.7%) participating States lack information and/or targeted action on violence against journalists. Challenges including the legal gray area surrounding online violence, limited response from tech platforms, and the complexities of transnational collaboration are discussed. Finally, based on these insights, policy recommendations are proposed to enhance to address the multifaceted challenges more effectively. These include working towards multinational definitions and approaches on online gender-based violence against journalists, and developing international multi stakeholder cooperation and peer education." (Abstract)
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"Digital tools, such as safety apps, reporting portals, and chatbots, are increasingly being used by victim-survivors of gender-based violence to report unlawful activity and access specialized support and information. Despite their limitations, these interventions offer a range of potential benefit
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s, such as enhancing decisional certainty, promoting safety behaviors, and fostering positive psychological outcomes. In this paper, we introduce an innovative ‘design justice’ approach to the development of digital tools for addressing genderbased violence. Drawing on our experience of building a feminist chatbot focused on image-based sexual abuse, we argue that the integration of feminist principles throughout the design, content, and evaluation stages is crucial for mitigating the risk of harm and promoting positive outcomes. Our theory-informed and practice-led approach can help to guide the development of other digital tools for addressing gender-based violence. Nonetheless, more scholarly research is needed to investigate the use, efficacy, and impacts of such interventions, at the core of which should be interdisciplinary collaboration between subject matter experts, victimsurvivors, technical specialists, and other key stakeholders." (Abstract)
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"We undertook a systematic review to understand (i) how motherhood is represented across different media, (ii) how the modalities of media domains influence the motherhood representations that they offer, (iii) the gaps in recent research on the subject. We searched 7 databases for all studies inves
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tigating the representation of motherhood in media texts, in any geographical location, published after 31 December 2016. We identified 55 studies as relevant to the search criteria and undertook a thematic analysis of their findings. Our contribution is to offer a framework that summarizes and contrasts key themes of motherhood and tensions within and between motherhood ideologies as identified in different media domains." (Abstract)
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"Understanding the ubiquitous digitalization of everyday life and associated inequalities presupposes rich conceptualizations of the associated social dynamics. Accordingly, we investigate digital service domestication as a social dimension of people’s lives, building on concepts that center users
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’ everyday lives and agency. We adopt the perspective of people who find the use of digital services difficult and examine the hurdles they face when attempting access. Our data consists of semi-structured interviews with migrant women (N = 22) living in Finland, where most essential services are digitalized. The study highlights the societal boundedness of the participants’ agency, which we maintain is a key dynamic of inequality. We classify digital services in four categories, interactive communication services; information, media, and entertainment services; private customer services, and public health and social welfare services. The first two are voluntary digital services that did not create insurmountable barriers for the participants, but enabled them to conduct action they valued. By contrast, essential private and public services require mastering more complicated service technologies, a foreign language, and complex contents. Our results highlight how diversity-blind essential digital services produce and reinforce inequalities. Our analysis emphasizes the need for researchers to consider the coercive dimensions of digitalization." (Abstract)
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"This study investigates the participation of Iranian women in hashtag feminism on Farsi Twitter as a means of resistance against marginalization. Using frameworks of hashtag feminism and media solidarities, the research analyzes Bidarzani—a grassroots feminist campaign—tweets and online convers
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ations around these tweets in 2020. Key themes include naming sexual violence experience, the transition from victim-blaming to systemic condemnation, and affective digital witnessing of pain. This moment of accumulation of personal narratives and users’ affective attunement in a context where rape discussions are silenced provides the possibility for collective survival. However, despite Bidarzani’s efforts to offer an intersectional feminist approach, limitations in users’ participation suggest a hierarchy of solidarity and deservingness, where affective practices are not equally expressed across class and geographical lines. Through these findings, the research contributes to the ongoing dialogue about the implications of digital feminism in the Middle East." (Abstract)
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"The evaluations point to several dimensions of the strategic significance of joint work. Programmatically, joint programmes enable a more multidimensional and holistic approach to addressing gender inequality. They enhance the catalytic role of the UN by increasing the visibility of and advocacy on
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gender issues in national and global agendas. Normatively, they forge new partnerships for gender equality and combine the comparative advantages of multiple agencies in technical expertise and stakeholder networks. Operationally, they can enhance the effectiveness of intervention implementation by reducing duplication of efforts and ensuring a more efficient use of resources across UN agencies, although typically with a sizable increase in transaction costs in terms of human labour for coordination and communication for technical coherence and governance structures such as steering committees. The results of programming were typically measured in outputs rather than outcomes or impact, though inter-agency programmes for SDG 5 reported considerable accomplishments in multisectoral reach to beneficiaries and knowledge production." (Page 1)
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"Unser Trendreport zeigt zum einen, wie in regionalen und überregionalen Tageszeitungen, in Boulevardmedien sowie in den Meldungen der dpa und auf Spiegel Online über Gewalt gegen Frauen berichtet wird. Im Fokus der Analyse steht die Darstellung von Tat, Tätern und Opfern sowie die Verwendung von
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Begriffen wie „Familiendrama“ oder „Femizid“. Erfasst wurde, ob die Tat strukturell eingeordnet, ob Bezüge zu anderen Taten hergestellt und ob Hilfsangebote erwähnt wurden. Auch der Frage nach Unterschieden in der Darstellung deutscher und nichtdeutscher Täter wurde nachgegangen. Zum anderen ermöglicht das Studiendesign einen Vergleich der aktuellen Erhebung mit den Befunden der Studie von 2021. Das nüchterne Ergebnis: Einzelne Tendenzen weisen in die richtige Richtung, aber grundlegend hat sich wenig verändert. Die Berichterstattung bleibt selektiv und konzentriert sich auf extreme Einzelfälle wie Tötungsdelikte. Strukturelle Ursachen der Gewalt gegen Frauen und präventive Ansätze werden kaum thematisiert. Zudem stehen zu häufig die Motive der Täter im Fokus, die Konsequenzen für die Opfer kommen nur selten zur Sprache." (Vorwort, Seite 2)
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"Academic discourse frequently speaks of a gender violence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), suggesting a distinctive gender violence that is tied to a geographic location. Within the framework of a digital ethnography, this research examines whether gender activists operating in digital s
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paces themselves conceptualise and mobilise around their struggle using a regional lens, combining observations, a multimodal analyses of social media content, and interviews with 20 digital activists to do so. Challenging orientalist narratives, I centre the ontological agency of these (predominantly) young, (predominantly) women digital activists from and within the region in defining, contesting, and (re)producing the MENA within their resistance to gender violence. This timely intervention comes after a string of feminicides in June/July 2022 led to calls for a regional Women’s General Strike going viral across social media platforms. Following the strike’s slogan, ÊÖÇãä ÚÇÈÑ ááÍÏæÏ (Solidarity Across Borders), this research explores the potentialities and limitations of regional solidarities as a vehicle for building feminist public spaces. Contributing to debates within transnational feminist research regarding activism’s multiple spatialities, I examine how strike participants, through their framings of regional gender-based violence and the networks and identities built around said framings, navigate sameness and difference in dynamic and sometimes divisive ways. Within the strike context, we see a fragile regional public being formed that simultaneously challenges and reproduces narratives of gender violence in the MENA in ways that demonstrate both the salience of regionality and the importance of including activist voices in our regional constructions." (Abstract)
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"In February 2020, the Communist Youth League introduced two virtual idols, Jiangshanjiao and Hongqiman, on Weibo to gain political solidarity during COVID-19. However, the move sparked massive criticism for using an animated female idol while ignoring the needs of female medical workers in the pand
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emic’s epicenter who lacked essential menstrual supplies. One post, “Jiangshanjiao, do you get your period?” went viral and was retweeted more than 100,000 times in several hours before being censored. The pushback eventually led to the league deleting its original announcement. Based on 1,106 posts and 10 interviews, this study explores the emotions expressed through Jiangshanjiao and how they inform feminist online engagement in China. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s framework on emotions, the findings show that emotions expressed through Jiangshanjiao predominately circle around disgust and fear, which confront state propaganda, acknowledge the pervasiveness of sexual violence, and foster solidarity. Chinese feminism has been caught in the middle of misogyny and the strict control of activism. Reviewing Jiangshanjiao provides insights into how resistance has played out in the complicated gender politics in China." (Abstract)
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"En el primer eje -Memoria de la otra Comunicación- se compilan los aportes de mujeres que tempranamente trabajaron en experie ncias de comunicación alternativa, mujeres fundantes en la teoría y la praxis de la comunicación para el cambio social y que nos abrieron las puertas heredándonos el ca
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minar y la palabra. [...]
El segundo eje –Prácticas de Comunicación Popular y Oficio Periodístico– recorre los trayectos de experiencias emblemáticas en comunicación surgidas desde abajo, movidas por la reivindicación de derechos en la esfera política, social, cultural y ecológica. De ahí que visibiliza el aporte de las mujeres diversas -indígenas, negras, campesinas, entre otras- que desde el campo popular han tomado la palabra como un gesto político de resistencia y lucha. Este eje revela cómo se ha sostenido el legado de la otra comunicación, se ha logrado pluralizar las voces, así como democratizar la comunicación desde un ejercicio de soberanía y autorrepresentación. [...]
Docencia e Investigación: Este eje convoca a diversas mujeres cuyo principal campo de acción es la academia; pero también comparten su vida -en un habitar anfibio- entre la ciencia y la militancia. Algunas de ellas están vinculadas a las luchas de género y feminismos, y otras a la consolidación de la comunicación como derecho y a la política pública. En los últimos años ha existido un importante despunte de académicas en el ámbito de la comunicación, que, por su formación doctoral y sus publicaciones científicas, gozan de prestigio profesional; sin embargo, el texto es finito y queda sentada la deuda pendiente. En esta sección hicimos un esfuerzo por honrar a las académicas que con su labor anfibia han dado un giro en la institucionalidad de la comunicación, en la política pública y, por supuesto, en la consolidación del campo de conocimiento." (Prólogo, páginas 13-15)
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"This study examines the visual rhetoric and activism themes on #MahsaAmini through a quantitative content analysis of 520 visual tweets. The findings show massive support for the women’s movement in Iran through a predominantly visual pro-movement slant, which highlights the role of emotional vis
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ual tweets in mobilization. The study adds a unique dimension to Aristotle’s rhetorical framework in the context of state violence and women’s rights in the Middle East by exploring the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement. In addition, it provides valuable insights into how persuasion strategies shape feminist movements and encourage retweeting, especially amid cultural and contextual challenges in the region." (Abstract)
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"The abuse and harassment against women journalists has become increasingly frequent and more coordinated in Mexico. As demonstrated throughout this study, it aims to threaten, silence, and stigmatize women journalists, with the potential to keep them out of public spaces. Despite the importance of
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selfcare actions and collective care, State responsibility in Mexico and its institutions at national and local levels to guarantee journalistic work that is free of violence is vital for any democracy. Currently, there are no public policies based on an intersectional approach that would allow a proper and relevant response to the patterns of violence against women journalists. The shortsightedness with which institutional responses have been developed has failed to generate protections or reparation. It has not managed to change the context of violence to which women journalists are subjected, nor modify the structural inequality between men and women. Moreover, the levels of impunity in the country still lead to violence materializing into crime. The recommendations of this paper seek to share the best practices from civil society groups and networks working to enhance existing protocols while defending women journalist´s freedom of expression and freedom of the press." (Conclusions)
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