"As founder of Internews, a leading non-profit organization dedicated to information access and independent media, David Hoffman has had a backstage pass to many of the seminal world political upheavals in recent years. In these pages we see how media have been used for good and bad—to trigger gen
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ocide, but also to effectively prevent conflict, facilitate free elections, expose corruption, promote nation-building, provide critical information amid natural disasters, and bring about massive social change such as free education and women’s rights. With the rise of digital technology, the power of media to intervene in global affairs is in the hands of everyone—including you. This book examines media’s historic impact and offers a roadmap to the future." (http://citizensrisingbook.com/book)
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"This article highlights the influence that new ICTs and Computer Mediated Communication is having on the newsroom cultures among community radio journalists in Africa, especially the use of mobile phones and the internet. The discussion is based on findings from a research study that investigated t
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he impact of ICTs on community radio using regional case studies from three African countries – Mozambique, Uganda, and Mali. We argue that the integration of ICTs impacted journalism practice positively as it improved information gathering, processing, distribution, storage, and engagement with the communities, particularly through the use of mobile phones and the internet. However, the synergy with rural community radios that tend to be located in remote areas is yet to be felt in the three countries. While the community radio stations in semi-urban areas or those situated in areas with fairly good infrastructure have better capacity for integration of ICTs and their sustainability, the rural-based community radio stations are greatly inhibited in their integration of new ICT due to lack of the electricity or regular power supply, the high fees charged by the service providers (internet and telephone), as well as the high cost for the ICT equipment, maintenance expenses and operational costs. The article calls for more support for infrastructural development to rural-based community radio stations to close the rural–urban gap and to enable the journalists working there to benefit from ICT integration like their counterparts in the semi-urban and urban community radios." (Abstract)
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"Examines the impact and reach not only of well-known bloggers such as Cuba’s Yoani Sánchez but also the independent Saudi journalist Ahmed Al Omran, who started writing the Saudi Jeans blog as a pharmacy student to improve his English skills and combat stereotypes about his country; Atiaf Alwazi
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r, the Yemeni activist and researcher who writes the “Women from Yemen” blog; Kajsa Hallberg Adu, a young Swedish political scientist who has become a leader of the blogosphere in her adopted country of Ghana, and Iris Cecilia Gonzales, a Filipina reporter whose desire to put a human face on economic stories helped her gain an international platform for her blogs about inequality." (Introduction)
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"This book sheds light on the growing phenomenon of cyberactivism in the Arab world, with a special focus on the Egyptian political blogosphere and its role in paving the way to democratization and socio-political change in Egypt, which culminated in Egypt's historical popular revolution." (Publishe
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r descripton)
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"The objective of this study is to look at how two prominent Arab-language news organisations, BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA), have used social media and user-generated content — photos, videos and comments — to provide coverage of the uprising in Syria. Due to the unique pressures in co
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vering Syria, especially in the early months of the uprising, how did these news organizations manage the heavy use of UGC and social media while being true to their editorial guidelines? How have the news organizations in this study verified this material? With activists playing a role in producing and distributing this material, how have the news organizations informed their audiences of the provenance of this material? In terms of UGC management both BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera Arabic publish information about their corporate-wide editorial guidelines that set out guidance for dealing with sources and assuring transparency for their audiences. In the case of the BBC generally, there is very detailed guidance about user-generated content for news. An investigation into the verification practices at BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera Arabic indicates that detailed guidance is in place." (Executive summary, page 3)
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"This report examines seven central areas of media development—funding, digital media, sustainability, media law, journalists' safety, journalism education, and monitoring and evaluation. It also delves in-depth into four areas deserving of greater attention: citizen journalism, investigative jour
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nalism, community radio, and media literacy. The report recommends to expand funding, to prioritise long-term commitment, to better coordinate and cooperate, to integrate digital media into all aspects of media development, to strengthen citizen journalists' capacities, to teach media business skills, to emphasize legal issues, to support investigative journalism, to address impunity for journalist attacks, to modernize journalism education, to invest in community radio and to embed evaluation into all projects." (commbox)
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"The present article discusses how the new categoryof “citizen journalist” fits into the overall media environment and how the Freedom House Freedom of the Press methodology has been changed to incorporate this category." (Abstract)
"To help improve the flow of information among marginalized communities of West Kalimantan Indonesia, where large palm oil companies wield tremendous power, the Internews Center for Innovation and Learning initiated a three-month pilot project in September 2011 that combined the power of mobile phon
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e technologies with citizen journalism. The project created a news service based on Short Message Service (SMS) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology. This report evaluates the project's success in capitalizing on existing mobile phone technology to provide needed information, in addition to empowering community members to report on issues of concern and make their voices heard by local government authorities and companies. Major successes, including high subscription rates and helping with the resolution of two local disputes with palm oil companies, were tempered by significant challenges, including low contribution rate among trained citizen journalists and limitations of the local media partner to maintain the news service. Technical challenges included West Kalimantan’s unreliable mobile phone network and the lack of locally available technical expertise." (Internews website)
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"Foundations of Community Journalism is the first and only book to focus on how to understand and conduct research in this ever-increasing field. With chapters written by established journalism scholars and teachers, this book provides students and researchers with an understanding of the multiple m
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ethods applied to the study of community journalism, such as historical, social-scientific, cultural/critical, and interdisciplinary approaches. It explains what community journalism is as a research concept and offers a range of different methods and theories that can be applied to community journalism research. Although there are numerous “how-to” community journalism manuals for students and newspaper editors, none focuses on how to conduct research into community journalism." (Publisher description)
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"Die Protestwelle nach der umstrittenen Präsidentschaftswahl im Iran vom Juni 2009 lenkte die Aufmerksamkeit der Weltöffentlichkeit auf die lebendige Internetkultur der Islamischen Republik. Das Internet, heißt es, befördert den gesellschaftlichen Wandel in Ländern wie dem Iran, doch inwiefern
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unterscheidet sich das Netz von den Printmedien? Stellt es tatsächlich eine neue öffentliche Sphäre dar? Welchen Einfluss haben soziale Netzwerke wie Facebook, Twitter oder YouTube auf die Organisation von Demonstrationen? Bringt die iranische Blogosphäre eine Kultur des Dissidententums hervor, die das islamistische Regime am Ende zu Fall bringen wird? Diese wegweisende Studie bietet Einblicke in die Internetkultur im heutigen Iran und untersucht die Auswirkungen der neuen Kommunikationsformen auf Gesellschaft und Politik. Die Autoren warnen davor, "Blogger" mit "Dissident" gleichzusetzen, denn auch das Regime hat längst mit der "Kolonisierung Blogistans" begonnen. Das Internet, so eine ihrer Thesen, bringt Veränderungen mit sich, die weder die Regierung noch die Demokratiebewegungen vorhersehen konnten und können. "Blogistan" ist nicht nur eine Fallstudie zur Internetaneigung in der islamischen Welt, sondern das Buch macht auch deutlich, welche Auswirkungen die Neuen Medien auf gesellschaftliche Strukturen und Prozesse haben." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"In the twenty-first century, community radio is fulfilling an increasingly important role in the world’s mediascape. This book documents the ways in which community radio broadcasters and activists are using the medium in countries around the world to challenge political corruption, aid the trans
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ition to political democracy and broadcast voices that are otherwise unheard. The contributors to the volume are academics and practitioners from five continents, many with first-hand experience of community radio. Each chapter demonstrates the pivotal role that small radio stations can play in developing, sustaining and invigorating communities. The book charts campaigns for the legalisation of community radio and relates them to a theoretical context, while providing illustrations and examples from community radio stations around the world." (Publisher description)
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"Citizen journalists across the globe are using blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other new tools to spread articles, blog posts, videos, and photos of news happening in their countries. The new video journalists use these broader tools as well, taking full advantage of social media to share th
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eir videos and tell their stories to a wider audience. This report traces the dramatic rise in the use of crowd-sourced video and examines how this is affecting the international news media landscape. It offers recommendations for the media development community for harnessing the power–while mitigating the dangers–of citizen-shot video." (CIMA website)
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"This book is based on a collaborative research project by a team of journalism scholars from Europe, North America and Israel. It provides insights into how journalists at websites affiliated with leading national newspapers in ten Western democracies are thinking about, and dealing with, the inclu
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sion of content produced and published by the people once viewed simply as 'the audience.' The journalist's control over media space, which was based to a large extent on their access to the means of disseminating information, has evaporated, and the space is now open to everyone. Participatory Journalism goes right to the heart of what journalists do, what journalism is, and what the role of news is in contemporary democratic society that has gone digital." (Publisher description)
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"This report is based on an extensive analysis of several nonprofit news sites conducted by Community Wealth Ventures (CWV), a management consulting firm that focuses on innovative approaches to the growth and sustainability of nonprofit organizations. Knight Foundation commissioned the review as pa
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rt of its broader programmatic efforts to explore how journalism that informs local communities and holds institutions accountable might survive and thrive in the digital age. The study examined the state of eight organizations in 2009 to early 2010 with particular emphasis on social impact, business strategy, economic viability, adaptability and capacity – all components of long-term sustainability. The sites reviewed were The Bay Citizen (San Francisco), Crosscut (Seattle), MinnPost (Minnesota), New Haven Independent, St. Louis Beacon, The Texas Tribune and Voice of San Diego. An eighth site, Chi-Town Daily News, closed in 2009 while the study was under way." (About the report)
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