"The key findings suggest that Syrians continue to adopt social media and social messaging apps as the primary channels through which they access news. They appreciate the privacy of messaging apps for communication with friends and family, and check the credibility of news stories with friends, fam
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ily and other sources through these apps. In 2023, Syrians required news content about local issues, economic news and updates regarding basic services, all of which differed from the 2020 findings. Respondents also told us that they prioritise breaking news, and have minimal dependency on radio or print. They are adept at recognising partisan media and prefer news from familiar, credible media that are free from political bias. They have average levels of trust in most local, regional and international media, with very little differentiation between the most trusted and least trusted (only 10% difference). Residents of Ar-Raqqa have some of the lowest levels of trust across media providers. Syrians have medium/mixed levels of trust in a wide range of online and offline news and information sources, including independent media Over 74% of the survey respondents reported that they trust news that they receive on social media from friends and family." (Executive summary, page 1-2)
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"Eight months into the Russia-Ukraine war, Roma refugees in Moldova, continue to face significant barriers to accessing the information necessary to make decisions for themselves and their families and to access humanitarian services. This assessment shows that some barriers are well documented and
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have impacted their access to timely, verified, and actionable information long before their arrival in Moldova. These include a deeply ingrained distrust of authority figures (in particular, the government), poor access to education, and lower literacy skills than other refugee groups. Other barriers are more recent, resulting from the new structural inequities they are facing in Moldova." (Executive summary)
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"The report presents findings that pose both unique challenges and opportunities for programs seeking to provide humanitarian information to Syrian refugees in Lebanon. So far, according to the report, there is little evidence of any comprehensive strategy or investment in providing a humanitarian c
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ommunication strategy. Various agencies are employing piecemeal tactics to communication through counseling lines, SMS and face-to-face outreach, yet all of these have their limitations. Furthermore it is clear from Internews research presented here that all current outreach tactics are fundamentally undermined by a profound lack of trust and/or understanding on the part of the refugees about what they are being told, and by whom. Syria has a long history as one of the most media-oppressed countries in the world and the Syrians have a mistrust of media and officialdom in general." (Internews website)
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"The 52-page report summarised here is the result of the three-year partnership between UNDP Oslo Governance Centre and the Communication for Social Change Consortium in piloting the C4E approach in five least-developed countries: Mozambique, Madagascar, Ghana, Lao PDR, and Nepal. The report present
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s key learning from the information and communication needs assessments conducted in these five countries, funded by a grant from the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF). The implementation of the C4E approach consisted of: (i) information and communication assessments to identify the information and communication needs and identify gaps in meeting those needs; (ii) review of the media context based on the existing research at the national level; (iii) programme interventions informed by the findings of the assessment to ensure economically poor and marginalised groups' participation in decision-making processes. Experiences and lessons from testing the C4E approach in Madagascar and Mozambique in 2007-2008 enabled further refining of the C4E approach and informed the information and communication assessments carried out in Ghana, Lao PDR, and Nepal. As a result, the concept of C4E also widened: from an initial conception as part of UNDP's Access to Information work primarily geared to meeting the information and communication needs of the people through specific media strategies - to an approach that promotes inclusive participation, empowerment of economically poor and marginalised people, and accountability of the state to its citizens. These aspects of C4E, thus, make it an integral part of broader democratic governance and development work." (Summary at the "Communication Initiative" website)
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"CD-ROM publishing is evolving so fast that there is no way that African users can keep pace with the new developments. As a result, African universities are hard-pressed to make appropriate decisions concerning the best allocation of scarce resources, which means that many of them are subscribing t
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o databases that are inappropriate to their needs. These databases can be very expensive, taking the major share of a library's budget and leaving it little room to acquire other types of materials. Moreover, although database acquisition might be underwritten by donor funding at the outset, grants inevitably expire, leaving librarians with the dilemma of finding money to pay for subscription renewals - thus calling into question the long-term sustainability of CD-ROM utilization at their institutions. To meet these needs, the AAAS Sub-Saharan Africa Program decided to embark on an initiative to evaluate CD-ROM databases in the sciences and social sciences for their relevance to African teaching and research needs. The assessments were carried out in seven universities, two of which were in South Africa. An evaluation workshop was organized to assess the collected data. This book contains abridged versions of reports presented at the workshop and, although the book is about CD-ROM, it is not devoted to CD-ROM entirely. There are chapters on document delivery, current awareness services and on-line searching." (https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/47476)
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