"This paper is written for the purpose of creating a roadmap to support press freedom and freedom of expression in the Afghan reconciliation process. Afghan Journalist Safety Committee (AJSC) prepared the document in collaboration with Afghan media representatives. The sole purpose of the roadmap is
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to protect and preserve press freedom and freedom of expression as fundamental principles and values in Afghanistan and as two of the most significant achievements of the past two decades." (Page 2)
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"This chapter’s point of departure lies in its focus on how journalists and media organizations navigate through unsafe environments and avoid self-censorship. The study specifically explores the connection between safety and self-censorship and journalist’s deployment of social media in the Uga
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ndan context. Through interviews and focus group discussions, the study shows that journalists and media organizations (sometimes) use social media to avoid covering unsafe news scenes and to bypass suppression intended to drive them into self-censorship. Journalists and media organizations are able to overcome state-instigated censorship by using platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to obtain journalistic material, which may not be accessible through conventional means. Using the case of the Ugandan government closure of Daily Monitor newspaper in 2013, the chapter shows that the media organization heavily relied on social media to remain in operation during the period when it was under siege. The chapter concludes that employing social media in journalism practice is one of the mechanisms used by journalists and media organizations to surmount safety problems and repression. The author acknowledges the safety problems arising from digital tools and platforms but argues that exploiting the advantages they present, such as being alternative avenues for newsgathering, reporting and dissemination, contributes profoundly to the survival of independent journalism in non-democratic societies." (Abstract)
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"The definition of censorship denotes direct or overt restriction on free expression or freedom of the media. The popular understanding of self-censorship involves a person’s involuntary self-silencing. A journalist’s wilful, personal, intentional self-censorship, at times motivated by selfish m
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otives, is often overlooked especially when there is complicit acceptance of political perspective or financial interest, or normalization/naturalization of unethical practices. Systems and ideologies can condition individuals to self-censor using what Louis Althusser has termed Ideological State Apparatuses and Repressive State Apparatuses, including interpellation. The Zimbabwean Crisis that has resulted in the polarization of Zimbabwean media along political lines demands an evaluation of the notion of self-censorship. Instead of merely focusing on the involuntary nature of self-censorship, there is need to assess instances when journalists self-censor and selfishly comply with political and commercial interests at the expense of serving the lofty ideals of the public good and public interest. Numerous examples exist where Zimbabwean journalists were abused and their rights violated leading to the adoption of self-preservation by such journalists and others when faced with the choice of whether to write or not to write, to tell or not tell. However, journalists are systematically recruited into party and commercial systems, and they have comfortably adopted a cosy demeanour to the extent of collaborating with powerful interest groups and formations. When journalists self-censor not because of fear of violence or threats or other safety concerns, it undermines the transcendental ideal of providing information as a public good and in the public/national interest." (Abstract)
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"Pervasive media censorship in China is often seen as a strictly political issue. Although in past years reporters have had leeway to report on economic issues, the Chinese Party/state has moved to tamp down economic journalism, even arresting those who report on bad economic news. This shift brings
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to the fore an issue long ignored by social scientists – economic censorship. Economic censorship takes place when state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or large private companies pressure the state to censor negative reports or directly pay off media companies to quash such reports in favor of more positive ones. Such economic censorship distorts markets and shifts investor money away from new market entrants and towards large, well-resourced and well-connected SOEs. Using a database of Chinese newspaper articles from 2004 to 2006 and a separate database of newspaper articles, blog posts and micro-blog posts from 2010, and supplemented by secondary sources, this paper examines how media coverage is distorted by censorship and corruption to the benefit of China’s entrenched interests. In particular, I find that private and provincially owned companies receive much more press coverage than do their central government (SASAC) owned equivalents, controlling for a number of factors." (Abstract)
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"Although Nepal has entered a new era of democracy and press freedom since 2006, self-censorship still exists in the reporting/editing of many Nepali journalists. Nepal has more than 100 years of press history, most of it has faced pressure from the government if not censorship. Drawing upon intervi
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ews with journalists, the chapter demonstrates how self-censorship is being practised in Nepali media houses as a result of state power, the culture of impunity, commercial interests, and political inclination of journalists. While highlighting these agents, the chapter also aims to explain the difference in practices of self-censorship by gender and type of news media." (Abstract)
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"The Media Freedom Analyzer developed by Laura Schneider is a new way to measure global media freedom in a more objective, unbiased and transparent way. Grounded in the opinions of around 1000 experts from 126 countries, the index is the first empirically validated tool to assess free and independen
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t media across the world. The existing press freedom rankings are frequently criticized for being arbitrary and having a Western bias. This book tackles this very problem. In times of widespread populism, disinformation and mistrust in the media, it is vitally important to have an assessment tool that is accepted across cultures." (Publisher description)
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"Correspondents in nine countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and North Macedonia – have analysed how the pandemic has affected to their work environment. Lockdowns have caused print media sales and advertising revenue to collapse. Media w
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ith wealthy benefactors or state support are better placed to survive impending economic hardships. Various emergency laws and provisions allowed governments increased control over public information. In several cases, these enabled officials to evade scrutiny and attack journalists whose reporting challenged official statistics and the effectiveness of crisis measures." (Page 1)
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"On 26 February 1976, after almost a century of colonization, Spain withdrew from Western Sahara, throwing the territory wide open for Moroccan civil and military occupation and abandoning tens of thousands Sahrawis to their fate. More than four decades later, the Western Sahara, officially the last
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territory in Africa that remains to be decolonized, is still trapped in political limbo, divided into three parts: the areas occupied by Morocco, those held by the Polisario Front, and the refugee camps in Tindouf (Algeria). Journalism is one of the many victims of this conflict, which has been forgotten by the media spotlight and left as a virtual news “black hole”. Morocco, ranked 135th in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index, controls information in the territory with an iron fist, ruthlessly punishing the practice of local journalism and blocking foreign media access. Torture, arrests, physical abuse, persecution, intimidation, harassment, slander, defamation, technological sabotage, and lengthy prison sentences are daily fare for Sahrawi journalists. Despite the severity of Morocco’s repression and its policy of deporting foreign correspondents, and despite the silence on the conflict reigning in world media, Sahrawi reporters of a new generation are running extraordinary risks to keep the torch of journalism burning and to prevent Western Sahara from being buried under the sands of oblivion." (Abstract)
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"From a normative standpoint the media are usually seen as one of the pillars of a national integrity system, entrusted with the tasks of exposing and preventing acts of corruption and educating the public of the harm caused by corruption. Nevertheless, corruption continues to be one of the most sig
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nificant challenges that Europe faces, undermining citizens' trust in democratic institutions and weakening the accountability of political leadership. Evidence suggests that in fragile EU democracies such as Bulgaria, despite more than eight years of full membership and numerous preventive measures, corruption is rife and the press is hardly capable of exposing abuses of power or authority. On the contrary - drawing on in-depth interviews with 35 Bulgarian journalists - this paper argues that since communism collapsed in the late 1980s the media in post-communist societies such as Bulgaria has gradually become an instrument to promote and defend private vested interests, and is plagued by corruption. Senior journalists and editors cast serious doubt over the ability of the post-communist free press and journalism to act as a watchdog for society." (Abstract)
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"This report—based largely on interviews in Myanmar and analysis of legal and policy changes since 2016—assesses the NLD government’s record on freedom of expression and assembly in its more than two years in power. It updates Human Rights Watch’s prior report, “They Can Arrest You at Any
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Time”: The Criminalization of Peaceful Expression in Burma, issued in June 2016, focusing on the laws most commonly used to suppress speech. We conclude that freedom of expression in Myanmar is deteriorating, directly affecting a wide range of people, from Facebook users critical of officials to students performing a satirical anti-war play. Domestic journalists are particularly at risk." (Page 2)
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"Das Buch befasst sich mit der Rolle von Medien in einem politischen Ausnahmezustand. Bettina Haasen hat in Burundi Journalistinnen und Journalisten zu ihrem beruflichen Rollenselbstverständnis befragt und diese Aussagen unter Berücksichtigung ihrer sozialen Herkunft und den Zielen der internation
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alen Medienentwicklungszusammenarbeit (MEZ) kritisch in den Blick genommen. Mit dem gescheiterten Putsch im Jahr 2015 hat das Mediensystem in Burundi einen grundlegenden Wandel erlebt: Medienhäuser wurden vollständig zerstört, Hunderte von Journalisten leben im Exil und die Meinungsfreiheit wurde begraben." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The 2019 Europe and Eurasia Media Sustainability Index (MSI) saw another improvement in the combined average score for the 21 countries studied: In 2018, the combined average score was 1.84, and in 2019 this increased to 1.86. In comparison with the previous year’s study, there were modest gains
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at the regional level in Objectives 1 (Freedom of Speech), 2 (Professional Journalism), and 3 (Plurality); the largest increase happened in Objective 5 (Supporting Institutions), which moved from 1.99 in 2018 to 2.04 in 2019. Objective 4 (Business Management) saw a slight decline, reflecting the financial and economic challenges media across Europe and Eurasia continue to experience. At the country level, Armenia moved into the highest ranking position (by overall score) of all countries studied by the MSI with an overall score of 2.60 – powered by, in the words of the chapter’s author, “[a] momentous revolution, dubbed “velvet” by its leader, Nikol Pashinyan, [that] changed the Armenian political landscape, turned the media world upside down, and made 2018 a truly unprecedented year in Armenia’s modern history.” Following Armenia, the top five highest ranked countries included Kosovo (2.53), Albania (2.49), and Montenegro and Romania (tied at 2.45)." (Executive summary, page ix)
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"We present a classification of the types of censorship of media to frame the various issues that journalism and freedom of expression face in Mexico, which mainly include the role of the State in preventing or enforcing censorship, the monopoly of a few corporate groups that control most of the mas
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s media and dictate fixed editorial lines throughout all of them, the effect of violence on journalism and the issues that are emerging around the freedom of expression in social media." (Abstract)
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"My focus in this chapter is on civil society mobilization in Tanintharyi Region in southern Myanmar, and particularly in Kanbauk, a village of about 1,500 households in the Tanintharyi Hills, eighty kilometres north of the regional capital, Dawei. In recent years, Kanbauk villagers have contended w
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ith Delco Ltd, a Yangon-based company that runs a tin and tungsten mine in their area in a production-sharing agreement with the government-owned Mining Enterprise No. 2. Villagers have been seeking to assert some influence over company practices, especially regarding the release of wastewater into local streams. Tensions intensified after an accident in September 2015 in which a tailing pond embankment collapsed causing a flash flood that led to the death of a child and the destruction of many villagers' houses. I discuss the resistance effort that emerged in the village and the company's strategies to suppress and dismiss it. Specifically, I focus on the work of a Kanbauk writer and activist, Aung Lwin, and an evocative essay he wrote, published in May 2016 in Tanintharyi Weekly, a small regional publication. Written from the perspective of a fish dying in a stream polluted by mining waste, Aung Lwin's essay offers a sardonic view of events in the village and hints at a possible arrangement between the company and local government officials. As part of its larger effort to quash local resistance to the mine, Delco filed (and won) a lawsuit against Aung Lwin for criminal defamation under Article 500 of the Myanmar Penal Code. The case reveals the complexities of the current moment in Myanmar and the uncertain spaces in which actors in civil society are operating. It reveals as well the fraught dynamics of media, as authoritarian forces remain active and unpredictable. Although this particular lawsuit was brought against the writer rather than the publication, it has wider implications for Myanmar media, especially for smaller, more vulnerable, regional outlets." (Page 152)
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"A hostile takeover of Egypt’s media is under way, leaving the influence on public opinion to be controlled by the state, the secret services and a few wealthy owners loyal to the regime and with close ties to the former president Hosni Mubarak. In a move to gain influence over the State-owned med
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ia, the media giant Egyptian Media group signed several deals with the National Media authority on 20 January 2019 extending its control and increasing the influence of the General Intelligence over the Egyptian media landscape. The coordinated attack on media freedom and pluralism is facilitated by a set of new laws restructuring the media sector in 2018 and by the ongoing pressure on journalists and media workers by the state." (http://www.mom-rsf.org/en/countries/egypt)
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