"PakVotes, a pilot project supported by the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), used social media platforms and a network of reporters located in areas outside of major cities in Pakistan to track violence during the 2013 elections. The project offers lessons that could guide future efforts to use socia
...
l media to record and publicize conflicts and the use of violence during elections and other major events. The hashtag #PakVotes trended for several days around elections, serving as a popular alternative news source to the mainstream media, which was not as diverse in its geographic coverage, sources or story types." (Page 1)
more
"In 2014 Malawi experienced its first-ever tripartite elections involving presidential, parliamentary and local government contests. The role of the media was monitored in a major operation covering radio, television, newspapers, news websites and social media. The results revealed that, with the ex
...
ception of state-controlled media, news outlets played a broadly positive role, providing fair coverage for the four leading candidates and reporting on a broad range of topics. Social media provided a lively platform for the views and opinions of mainly partisan participants (presumably mostly from the urban elite). On the negative side, coverage of the presidential and to a lesser extent the parliamentary contests dominated, so that the amount of news about local government issues was minimal. The most important negative aspect of the campaign was the one-sided coverage provided by the two state radio channels, the state television station and its online news service." (Abstract)
more
"This article will discuss recent trends in Malaysia’s media surrounding the 2013 general election (GE13). It will argue that the GE13 produced two important trends in the media industry. First, there was increased political-party participation in social media, citizen journalism and blogging. In
...
fact, it practically led to a ‘cyberwar’ between political parties, making the realm of the online and social media increasingly polarised and partisan. Second, many mainstream media outlets in Malaysia successfully pursued a platform of more ‘balanced’ coverage, suggesting an increased space of negotiation and contestation amongst the previously muzzled print, television and radio industry. This article will conclude with an assessment of the future trends in the media industry in Malaysia post GE13." (Abstract)
more
"This Course Handbook has been produced to accompany the USAID/NDI/IWPR Course in Election Reporting, which is being run for Malawian journalists in the run-up to the 2014 Elections. The Handbook, which follows the day-by-day course programme, contains copies of the slides used during the course plu
...
s a great deal more supporting material. In particular, given that the majority of the participants in the course come from radio stations, we have included detailed advice about radio journalism. However, it is important to note that the material presented in text boxes throughout the text represents PowerPoint presentations and can be best understood in the context of the course itself." (Introduction)
more
"For six months between November 2012 and April 2013, fifty citizen watchdog monitors carefully noted incidents of hate speech and dangerous speech broadcast by five radio stations in Kenya. It was part of Internews in Kenya’s Free and Fair Media (FFM) programme aimed at working with the media to
...
ensure that they covered the General Election of 2013 fairly and responsibly. Known as Citizen Watchdog, the exercise was not so much one of policing as one of accountability – to check incidents of hate speech and dangerous speech on air in the run-up to the 2013 General Election, during the election, and afterwards. Citizen Watchdog ran parallel to Internews’ support to the media through its Free and Fair Media journalism training activities focused on conflict sensitive journalism practices. The five radio stations included KBC Radio Taifa (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation), three vernacular radio stations, and one Swahili broadcaster based in the coastal region. The findings of Citizen Watchdog showed a sharp decline in cases of dangerous speech documented over the six month period: from 20 in November 2012 to zero in April 2013." (Executive summary)
more
"Somaliland has held several competitive and multiparty elections that have been cited by international election monitors as being ‘‘free and fair.’’ While political competition has been tolerated, or even encouraged by the governments in power, there has been a continued reluctance to allow
...
private radio stations. Citing the possibility of destabilizing Somaliland’s delicate peace, arguments against the liberalization of the media include concerns of radios used to further political polarization, mobilize groups to escalate simmering conflicts and violence, and the capacity of the government to regulate media outlets. This article locates these arguments against media liberalization in the context of Somaliland’s larger nation- and state-building project suggesting that in transitions from war to peace, no matter how prolonged, there are very real concerns about processes of institutionalization and the sequencing of democratic reforms." (Abstract)
more
"When violence broke out in the final days of 2007 after a bitterly contested election in Kenya, Internews responded within days, working with journalists who were trying and failing to make sense of the unprecedented post-election conflict that swept across their country. Five and a half years late
...
r, Internews has completed the last of its hugely popular projects aimed at training the media in conflict sensitive journalism approaches since 2008. From Mission Possible (2008) and Reporting for Peace (2008-2009), through Land & Conflict Sensitive Journalism (2010-2013), Free and Fair Media (2011-2013), and Talk Check (2013), the organization trained some 750 journalists, using its conflict sensitive journalism and follow-up mentoring methodology geared to the Kenyan context. The result, more than 5,500 conflict-sensitive stories on the peace, reconciliation and reform process published over the years." (Introduction)
more
"This article explores the links between transnational media flows and social and political change in authoritarian regimes through a conjunctural study of Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a Burmese exile media organization. Drawing on observation and interviews conducted at DVB's Oslo studio during
...
the 2010 elections in Burma as well as documentary research, the article explores how diasporic media may contribute to democratization in a military regime where press freedoms and political expression are severely curtailed. The first section draws on Appadurai's theory of global flows to scrutinize transnational flows of people, capital, media, ideas and technology contributing to DVB's operations from 1992 to 2010. The next section engages with theories of media and democracy in order to examine DVB's innovative satellite television coverage of the 2010 elections. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the ongoing relevance of opposition media based outside of Burma amid liberalization measures undertaken by Thein Sein's nominally civilian government in 2011." (Abstract)
more
"The Handbook of Comparative Communication Research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of comparative communication research. It fills an obvious gap in the literature and offers an extensive and interdisciplinary discussion of the general approach of comparative research, its prospect an
...
d problems as well as its applications in crucial sub-fields of communications. The first part of the volume charts the state of the art in the field; the second section introduces relevant areas of communication studies where the comparative approach has been successfully applied in recent years; the third part offers an analytical review of conceptual and methodological issues; and the last section proposes a roadmap for future research." (Publisher description)
more
"Covering elections is not just coverage of one “grand event,” and training must reflect that. Short-term training just in advance of election day has been mostly discounted as ineffective. More must be done to cast elections as part of a critical on-going political process and to equip journali
...
sts to understand, monitor, and report about that. Training journalists to cover elections must be paired with other legal and election infrastructure reform if meaningful change is the goal. International donors could have great influence by pushing harder for formation of election commissions with actual clout in countries where they work and for clear election laws, especially campaign finance transparency laws. Framing and passage of laws to protect journalists who cover politics also should be on donors’ agendas." (Conclusions, page 27)
more