"Many Voices, Many Worlds: Critical Perspectives on Community Media in India is a critical reflection on governance and policymaking, development, disability, knowledge and other social markers in the context of community media. Bringing together different modes of community media—such as video, r
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adio, theatre, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and new media—into a productive conversation with each other, the book focuses on how communities through their communicative practices, negotiate the politics of caste, class, gender, and access to funding and technology." (Publisher description)
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"This article critically explores the shortcomings of the West-centric theory of singular modernity. By focusing on the modern transformation of mass communication in Muslim countries, it argues that both traditional means of mass communication, such as manbars, and modern media, such as newspapers
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and tape recorders, have been used effectively for mobilization of masses by revolutionary Muslim groups. It also argues that Islam is not incompatible with modernity or democracy, and that Islamic groups have been an integral part of modern democratic developments in Muslim countries." (Abstract)
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"Depuis les années 1990, la généralisation des télévisions satellitaires et l’avènement d’Internet ont bouleversé le paysage médiatique et contribué à une modification profonde du rapport entre les populations et l’information. Désormais acteurs politiques à part entière, les méd
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ias entretiennent des liens à la fois conflictuels et ambigus avec les différents pouvoirs – politique, judiciaire, religieux, financier… – et pèsent directement sur les relations internationales. Interrogeant l’histoire, multipliant les approches et les exemples – de l’Italie au Liban, de l’analyse de la sociologie du Web au traitement médiatique du conflit israélo-palestinien –, sondant l’évolution des imaginaires politiques et religieux, cet ouvrage se propose de mieux situer la place et le rôle des médias dans les sociétés méditerranéennes, et singulièrement dans les pays arabes. Loin des amalgames et des raccourcis abusifs, ce livre offre des éléments précieux pour appréhender une réalité nouvelle et complexe." (Description de la maison d'édition)
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"Der Mainstream-Islam, der sich heute im arabischen Fernsehen und Internet präsentiert, hat [...] eine besondere Charakteristik: er hat eine moralische Botschaft, ist aber nicht vordergründig politisch und wird damit geduldet von den autoritären Regimes, die in populär-religiösen Formaten zumei
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st keine Bedrohung sehen, sondern glauben, die Hinwendung zur Religion vielleicht noch für die eigene Legitimierung nutzen zu können. Er ist alltagskompatibel, aber wertkonservativ, weil er durch transnationale SAT-Produzenten für ein breites Publikum in einer Vielzahl von arabischen Ländern konzipiert ist, ohne dabei Anstoß bei religiösen und politischen Autoritäten erregen zu wollen. Er ist äußerlich fragmentiert, bietet aber dennoch die Möglichkeit der (virtuellen) Vergemeinschaftung und erfüllt damit die Ansprüche von post-modernen Gesellschaften, deren Elemente auf unterschiedliche Weise nach Führung, Sinn und Halt suchen und deren Identität sich in einer globalisierten Moderne über den Islam scheinbar aufwerten lässt. Optimistisch kann man also zusammenfassend von einer Pluralisierung des religiösen Diskurses durch die Medialisierung sprechen sowie von einer verstärkten Alltagsbezogenheit des Islams. Den staatlichen Eliten und den strategisch an sie gebundenen orthodoxen islamischen Einrichtungen und Strömungen wurde mit den religiösen Formaten in den neuen Medien das Monopol der Verbreitung religiöser Wahrheiten prinzipiell entzogen. Aus einer eher pessimistischer Sichtweise lässt sich aber auch feststellen, dass durch die Medialisierung des Islams eine neue Orthodoxie Einzug hält. Denn auch in den ambitionierteren Formaten von Amr Khaled und Yusuf al-Qaradawi geht es nicht um eine Auseinandersetzung über religiöse Streitfragen oder die Gegenüberstellung verschiedener Positionen im Islam, sondern es wird eine individualisierte spirituelle Führung angeboten und von den Rezipienten auch gesucht, die kritisches Denken zugunsten von wertkonservativen Vorgaben vernachlässigt." (Seite 122-123)
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"Arab Media: Power and Weakness is comprised of research synopses (comprehensive overviews over the current academic literature and “blind spots” of research in one of the above mentioned fields); original empirical research; and theoretical papers. The result is a comprehensive handbook of up-t
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o date research and scholarship on this important and fast-changing subject, which will be of use to all students and researchers of the contemporary Arab world." (Publisher description)
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"This book explores people's everyday experience of the media in Asian countries in confrontation with huge social change and transition and the need to understand this phenomenon as it intersects with the media. It argues for the centrality of the media to Asian transformations in the era of global
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ization. The profusion of the media today, with new imaginations, new choices and contradictions, generates a critical condition for reflexivity engaging everyday people to have a resource for the learning of self, culture and society in a new light. Media culture is creating new connections, new desires and threats, and the identities of people are being reworked at individual, national, regional and global levels. Within historically specific social conditions and contexts of the everyday, the chapters seek to provide a diversity of experiences and understandings of the place of the media in different Asian locations. This book considers the emerging consequences of media consumption in people's everyday life at a time when the political, socio-economic and cultural forces by which the media operate are rapidly globalizing in Asia." (Publisher description)
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"The article explores the processes that have allowed Islam to gain great appeal as a community-building idiom in Mali since the introduction of multiparty democracy in 1991. Drawing on the mediatic performances of the charismatic preacher Sharif Haidara, the article analyzes how new media technolog
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ies facilitate and play into Islam’s new prominence and how they influence the particular ways in which Islam is presented in the public sphere. It examines the particular ways audio recording technologies intervene in and complicate the terms of interaction between political regimes and their critics, and thus change the place of religion in postcolonial state politics. Rather than interpret this process as a “resurgence” and threat of religion to secular nation state politics, the article emphasizes the paradoxical effects “small”, decentralized media have on the constitution of moral community. Audio recordings enable the move to public prominence of a variety of interpreters of Islam who seek to articulate an Islamic normativity as the basis of the common good. Paradoxically, the same processes that enhance the possibilities of Muslims of various backgrounds and pedigree to participate in public debate simultaneously undermine their appeal to Islamic scholarly consensus. While these processes strengthen these Muslims’ possibilities to speak in public, they weaken their capacities to speak as the public, a claim that is pivotal to their quest for collective moral renewal." (Abstract)
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"This book is the result of a research project covering eight countries in South and South East Asia examining the role and impact of alternative media. The definition of alternative media depends very much on the political, social, cultural and economic environment you live in. Thus, this book give
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s the reader an idea of the diversity of alternative media sources available across Asia, which is very much a result of the different media regulatory regimes in the countries we have included in this study. While Bangladesh has had alternative media, in the form of community theatre and other artistic expressions for a long time, yet, community radio, which is fast becoming one of the most effective forms of alternative media in Asia, is slow to take off, because the regulations still do not allow it. Meanwhile in Indonesia and Thailand, community radio has taken off rapidly, with regulators struggling to come up with a formula to help regulate the sector while not shutting it down. In the Philippine community radio has existed legally for many years and is thriving, thus, there may be lessons others can learn from this experience. In Malaysia, where legislation tightly controls the establishment of media outlets, there are yet, some interesting examples of how alternative media could be effectively operated via the Internet. Sri Lanka, offers an interesting model where elements of community broadcasting could exist within a public service broadcaster. Thus, this book, gives you interesting examples from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand of how people are getting their voices heard - or are struggling to make that happen - using a variety of media and methods of expression." (Publisher description)
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"A collection of 22 papers on the indigenous language press (and other media) in Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, primarily devoted to the activities of African language newspapers and periodicals. Some papers examine the significant and pioneering role religious publications
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– both Christian and Islamic – have played in the development of indigenous languages presses in Africa, while others examine some of the socio-political and economic changes that have greatly affected indigenous language media over the years, and have lead to its demise to some extent. Also included as an Appendix is a paper in Dutch by Honoré Vinck, “Het belang van de periodieke koloniale pers in Afrikaanse talen”, which examines the role of the African language press during colonial days in the Belgian Congo." (Hans M. Zell, Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3d ed. 2008, nr. 2135)
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"In this article, I take the highly successful Muslim preacher Cherif Haidara in Mali as a starting point to explore the conditions that, throughout the contemporary Muslim world, facilitate the rise to prominence of new types of religious leaders, who, by virtue of their media performances and in t
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heir roles as preachers, personal counselors, or legal advisers, attract broad constituencies of believers. I assess recent shifts in the normative, institutional, and economic conditions of religious debate in urban Mali that have changed the parameters of common understandings of the relevance of religion to daily life and politics. I examine how the adoption of new media technologies affects the contents and forms of religious reasoning, the subjective understandings and articulations of Islamic normativity, and thereby contributes to changes in the sources and forms of leadership. Finally, I investigate in what ways processes of commodification and commercialization are conducive to these changes in religious experience, community, and authority." (Abstract)
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"Written by both leading academic authorities and by Muslim media practitioners, 'Muslims and the Media' is designed as a comprehensive and critical textbook and is set in both the British and international contexts. The book clearly establishes the links between context, content, production and aud
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iences thus reflecting the entire cycle of the communication process and revealing the ways in which meaning is produced and reproduced in the news media. Looking closely at the circumstances and politics surrounding the representation of Muslims across a wide range of journalistic genres, at the presence and influence of Muslims in the processes of news production, and the ways in which audiences, both Muslim and non-Muslim, consume this media, the book brings together coherently a wide range of perspectives to provide crucial insights into the representation - and misrepresentation - of Islam and Muslims today." (Publisher description)
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"An essential aspect of what is now called the Islamic Revival, the cassette sermon has become omnipresent in most Middle Eastern cities, punctuating the daily routines of many men and women. Hirschkind shows how sermon tapes have provided one of the means by which Islamic ethical traditions have be
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en recalibrated to a modern political and technological order - to its noise and forms of pleasure and boredom, but also to its political incitements and call for citizen participation. Contrary to the belief that Islamic cassette sermons are a tool of militant indoctrination, Hirschkind argues that sermon tapes serve as an instrument of ethical self-improvement and as a vehicle for honing the sensibilities and affects of pious living. Focusing on Cairo's popular neighborhoods, Hirschkind highlights the pivotal role these tapes now play in an expanding arena of Islamic argumentation and debate - what he calls an "Islamic counterpublic." This emerging arena connects Islamic traditions of ethical discipline to practices of deliberation about the common good, the duties of Muslims as national citizens, and the challenges faced by diverse Muslim communities around the globe." (Publisher description)
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"Konfliktakteure setzen weltweit das Internet in zunehmendem Maße strategisch ein. Lokal ausgetragene Konflikte erhalten so eine neue Dimension: Die veränderte Medialisierung führt zu ihrer Ausdehnung in den globalen Cyberspace. Auf der Grundlage ethnographischer Forschungen zu den Online-Aktivit
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äten christlicher wie muslimischer Akteure im Molukkenkonflikt (1999-2002) untersucht die Studie Prozesse der Identitätskonstruktion und Gemeinschaftsbildung im Internet. Die Autorin leistet damit einen innovativen Beitrag zur Konflikt- und Internetforschung und ebnet methodisch den Weg für eine neue Cyberethnologie." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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