"According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), half of the media in the country is owned by the government or affiliated with the intelligence services. The rest are owned by pro-government businessmen. The few independent press websites that are still open have been blocked. Their owners and editor
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s were arrested and then released shortly after, as happened to Mada Masr and Al-Manassa. More than 500 websites have been blocked in Egypt, and more than 100 journalists have been arrested since 2014. The adoption of new regulations like the anti-terrorism law and cyber crime law and the creation of the Supreme Council for Media Regulation suppressed the freedom of expression and shut down the way to a free press. These new laws and regulations have affected the work of journalists who are at risk of charges such as belonging to a terrorist group or spreading false news. To the international community, Egypt denies imprisoning journalists for their work, which is true to some extent because Egyptian security is trying and imprisoning journalists on charges such as belonging to terrorist groups, without directly linking it to their journalistic work. The Airtable analysis undertaken in this project attempts to reflect the situation around monitoring technology through online content over the past few years. We can see a repeated goal of restricting the freedom of online spaces and banning any narrative parallel to the official one. This can be seen in the Attorney General's orders to establish a unit to monitor and monitor social media platforms and activities, contrary to constitutional articles that protect people's privacy and their right to freedom of expression." (https://advox.globalvoices.org)
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"Radio remains overwhelmingly the most common source for news in Africa. On average across 34 surveyed countries, two-thirds (68%) of respondents tune in at least a few times a week. Digital media use for news is growing quickly. Between 2014/2015 and 2019/2021, the share of Africans who get news fr
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om social media or the Internet at least a few times a week almost doubled, from 24% to 43% across 31 countries included in both survey rounds. Urban residents, better-educated citizens, men, and youth are most likely to use digital media in Africa. While use has increased among other groups as well, demographic gaps in digital media use have remained roughly the same since 2014/2015, and even increased with regard to urban/rural residence and education. Africans express broad support for the media's ro in fostering government accountability, and majorities support media freedoms in every country except Mozambique, Tunisia, Cameroon, Morocco, and Tanzania. But most Africans support their government's right to place limits on the dissemination of hate speech, false information, and messages that are insulting to their president. A majority (57%) of Africans see social media as having mostly positive effects on society, while just one-fourth (24%) see its impact as mostly negative. However, while Africans value social media's ability to inform and empower citizens, they also see distinct threats in its ability to spread false information and hate speech." (Key findings)
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"Cest la Vie!" (CLV) is a serial drama that entertains, educates, and promotes positive health behaviors and social change for West African audiences. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if watching the CLV Season 2 series online had an impact on people’s health knowledge, attitudes, and nor
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ms, focusing on populations in francophone West Africa. Between July 2019 and October 2019, viewers of CLV and non-viewers were recruited from Facebook and YouTube. We conducted an online longitudinal cohort study that assessed changes in health knowledge, attitudes, and norms (KAN) between these groups. Participants completed a baseline survey prior to the online airing and up to three follow-up surveys corresponding to specific health stories in the series, including sexual violence, emergency contraception, and female circumcision. We used descriptive statistics to describe viewers and non-viewers, and an item response theory (IRT) analysis to identify the effect of viewing CLV on overall KAN. A total of 1674 respondents participated in the study. One in four participants had seen one of the three storylines from CLV Season 2 (ie, CLV viewers). At follow-up, viewers were more likely than non-viewers to know when to correctly use emergency contraception and to believe that the practice of female circumcision should end. Compared to people who did not see CLV, viewers of the series had 26% greater odds of answering pro-health responses at follow-up about sexual assault, emergency contraception, and female circumcision. Further, the level of engagement with specific storylines was associated with a differential impact on overall outcome questions." (Abstract)
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"This article is an outcome of an actionresearch project that gathered community members, farmers, technologists, agroecologists and community network practitioners to make possible a community network in the quilombo of Ribeirão Grande/Terra Seca, located in Barra do Turvo city, São Paulo state,
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Brazil. The quilombos emerged as refuges for Black people who escaped repression during the entire period of slavery in Brazil, between the 16th and 19th centuries. The inhabitants of these communities are called quilombolas. With the 1988 Constitution, they gained the right to own and use the land they were on, but not without plenty of political struggles. Today Brazil has more than 15,000 quilombola communities. Within quilombo Ribeirão Grande/Terra Seca there is a group of women that takes part in a network called Agroecological Network of Women Farmers (RAMA in Portuguese – Rede Agroecológica de Mulheres Agricultoras), and one of the issues they faced collectively related to difficulties of communication [...] This essay explores positive and negative aspects of our practices in the design and nurturing of the Ribeirão Grande/Terra Seca community network, the use of feminist and popular education methodologies, respect and appreciation of local knowledge, and the importance of considering gender, race and colonialism as oppressions present in the places where community networks operate and are needed. We share these reflections so that they can be useful for other community network activists, advocates and groups when it comes to their technological practices and methodologies. In our search for socially, culturally, ethically engaged and responsible definitions of technology, we come across our own gaps and prejudices: especially how to see and work on racial relations and, crucially, how community network practitioners ignore their own prejudices." (Pages 1-2)
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"In your day to day work you notice changes that others are making, influenced by WIEGO. How do you capture these to support WIEGO’s learning? This tool provides an explanation of what to look for, and a template for documenting outcomes, why they matter (their significance) and how WIEGO or WIEGO
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partners contributed towards them." (The Focus of this Tool)
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"CDAC's core vision focuses on ensuring people and communities are central to identifying solutions to the problems they face in a crisis. The 2022-2027 vision is: 'that communities will have the information and resources they need to determine their own solutions and be central stakeholders in huma
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nitarian and development decision making'. This document outlines the common advocacy statements of the CDAC Network in support of this vision. It aims to support CDAC Network's collective influence to promote a common vision of the growth and change needed in CCEA, so that the drive for effectiveness is efficient and well targeted." (Introduction, page 1)
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"In 2021, the GxR metric registered two of the most dramatic declines ever seen: both Afghanistan and Myanmar dropped more than 30 points, plummeting two categories, as democratic governments were driven out and people were brutally attacked as they resisted the takeover of their governments. Countr
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ies working towards democracy and slowly shaking themselves free of embattled pasts found progress undermined, and years of work opening up the space for expression disappeared. Non-democratic changes in power rarely bode well for freedom of expression: the violence with which regimes immediately target journalists, activists, and populations shows that repressive regimes – militia and military alike – are keenly aware of the power of information and expression. Polarisation and disinformation continue to characterise many media environments, often serving those in power and sometimes driven by leaders and ruling parties like Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro. These types of content, by design of algorithms, thrive on social media platforms. With five coups in 2021 (plus another in Burkina Faso in January 2022), leaders act against democracy in increasingly brazen ways, both in power grabs and within democratic government, eroding systems and institutions from the inside." (Page 11)
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"A new generation of Afro-Brazilian media producers have emerged to challenge a mainstream that frequently excludes them. Reighan Gillam delves into the dynamic alternative media landscape developed by Afro-Brazilians in the twenty-first century. With works that confront racism and focus on Black ch
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aracters, these artists and the visual media they create identify, challenge, or break with entrenched racist practices, ideologies, and structures. Gillam looks at a cross-section of media to show the ways Afro-Brazilians assert control over various means of representation in order to present a complex Black humanity. These images--so at odds with the mainstream--contribute to an anti-racist visual politics fighting to change how Brazilian media depicts Black people while highlighting the importance of media in the movement for Black inclusion." (Publisher description)
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"Providing detailed case studies, this book explores the vibrant digital expressions of diverse groups of Muslim cybernauts: religious clerics and Sufi mystics, feminists and fashionistas, artists and activists, Hajj pilgrims and celebrities. Together, these stories span a vast cultural and geograph
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ic landscape, including Indonesia, Iran, the Middle East, and the United States. These case studies are contextualized within the backdrop of broader social trends, including racism and Islamophobia, gender dynamics, celebrity culture, identity politics, and the shifting dynamics of contemporary religious piety and practice. Authors examine a wide-range of digital multimedia technologies as primary ''texts." These include websites, podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube channels, online magazines and discussion forums, and religious apps." (Publisher description)
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"Africa's Voices Foundation in partnership with Rift Valley institute (RVI)'s Somali Dialogue Platform implemented a 3-month project between February 8th - May 7th 2022. The project promoted public dialogue around elections so as to understand citizens' perspectives on Somalia's national elections.
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It also amplified citizen voices in political processes and promoted peaceful messaging by using media spaces to contribute to the prevention - of violence. AVF utilized its existing Common Social Accountability Platform (CSAP) to deliver the project. The project aimed to contribute to RVI's Somali Dialogue Platform program by facilitating dialogue amongst Somalis on contentious political issues. At the end of the radio programming, AVF analyzed the rich audience engagement that emerged from the six interactive radio shows to generate insight from public opinion on the election and political processes from different demographic groups. The insights were synthesized to generate actionable recommendations for our partner, RVI, based on citizens' experiences and feedback on elections." (Executive summary)
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"Daily news consumption via social media (11%) and the Internet (9%) has doubled in Uganda since 2015, though these platforms still lag far behind television (27%) and radio (54%) as daily news sources. Six in 10 Ugandans (60%) say they are aware of social media. Awareness is less widespread among w
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omen, rural residents, and older and less educated citizens. Among Ugandans who have heard of social media, large majorities say it makes people more aware of current happenings (89%) and helps people impact political processes (74%). On the other hand, majorities also say it makes people more likely to believe false news (70%) and more intolerant of others with different political opinions (58%). Overall, 58% of citizens who are aware of social media rate its effects on society as positive, while only 13% see them as negative. A majority (56%) of Ugandans “agree” or “strongly agree” that access to the Internet and social media helps people to be more informed and active citizens, and should be unrestricted. A quarter (26%), however, say the government should be able to regulate access." (Key findings, page 2)
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"We can see that the number of countries with concentrated foreign media strategies has increased substantially and that their range of activities and strategies is substantial. Also visible is a decline in spending from Western nations (with count
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ries Austria, Canada, and the Neth-erlands severely cutting services) while non-Western nations (like Turkey, Qatar, and China) increase their investments. Despite massive financial support from new ECP players, foreign broadcasters are far from a panacea to achieve global influence. In reality, this spending often happens without a dedicated and localized strategy. Indeed, “the risk of expanding initiatives in fields such as international broadcasting and film co-productions with little attention being given to reception contexts of cross-cultural communications is that nation states will be committing significant resources to these cultural initiatives to little tangible effect, as has arguably been occurring with the international expansion of CCTV services by the Chinese government over the last decade, at least in the advanced industrial nations” (Flew 2016, page 291). Even among resurgent powers, strategies vary. Compared to Russia, China employs a more diffuse strategy to increase understanding and improve China’s image, while also limiting the inflow of information. By contrast, Russia mainly targets Western narratives without expending much effort to portray Russia itself in a positive light and has done relatively little to restrict information flow (although it has considered targeting US social media). Turkey’s approach is somewhat of a mix of the two. As countries experiment with different foreign media strategies, we can expect the range of approaches to increase in the coming years, with some countries adopting a “trial and error” method as particular methods succeed or fail." (Pages 12-13)
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"Information Visualization: Perception for Design, Fourth Edition explores the art and science of why we see objects the way we do. Based on the science of perception and vision, the author presents the key principles at work for a wide range of ap
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plications--resulting in visualization of improved clarity, utility and persuasiveness. This new edition has been revised and updated to include the latest relevant research findings. Content has been updated in areas such as the cognitive neuroscience of maps and navigation, the neuroscience of pattern perception, and the hierarchy of learned patterns. New changes to the book make it easier to apply perceptual lessons to design decisions. In addition, the book offers practical guidelines that can be applied by anyone, including interaction designers and graphic designers of all kinds." (Publisher description)
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"Your goals should always follow the SMART heuristic: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-Bound. From that list you can see how “fixing everything that’s wrong in the world,” though noble, isn’t a SMART goal. Instead you’ll
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want something far more manageable, like stopping a single bill from passing in a specific vote or enacting a new policy by a specific date. SMART goals are incredibly important when planning grassroots advocacy campaigns. Because the main actors in grassroots advocacy campaigns are regular people instead of nonprofit or advocacy professionals, they need specific guidance, reinforcement, and measurable benchmarks to stay on track. Without breaking down your goals into attainable steps and tackling them one at a time, your grassroots supporters will get discouraged by the lack of visible progress." (Page 5)
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"Rights advocacy has become a prominent facet of South Korea’s increasingly transnational motion picture output, especially following the 1998 presidential inauguration of Kim Dae-jung, a former political prisoner and victim of human rights abuses who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. Today
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it is not unusual to see a big-budget production about the pursuit of social justice or the protection of civil liberties contending for the top spot at the box office. With that cultural shift has come a diversification of film subjects, which range from undocumented workers’ rights to the sexual harassment experienced by women to high-school bullying to the struggles among people with disabilities to gain inclusion within a society that has transformed significantly since winning democratic freedoms three decades ago. Combining in-depth textual analyses of films such as Bleak Night, Okja, Planet of Snail, Repatriation, and Silenced with broader historical contextualization, Movie Minorities offers the first English-language study of South Korean cinema’s role in helping to galvanize activist social movements across several identity-based categories." (Publisher description)
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"This eBook provides a follow-up conversation with key contributors from The Distanced Church, published in April 2020, which explored how church leaders were responding and adapting to the need move their traditional services online during the first lockdown of the covid-19 pandemic. Revisiting the
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Distanced Church offers not only a "then and now" reflection on how pastors and scholar see the evolving relationship between the church and digital media one year later after the global migration of the church online. It also provides a unique look into the long term implications of these technology choices and experimentation on the church, how leaders and scholars are reflecting on the present-future of digital ministry, and the areas in need of further theological reflection due to these changes." (Abstract)
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"The theory and practice of constructive journalism is based on the following three-pillar model developed by the CI, which is seen to ensure journalism's contribution to democracy: focus on solutions: do not only expose the problems, but also look for possible solutions; cover nuances: strive for t
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he best-obtainable version of the truth, see the world from different perspectives; promote democratic conversation: facilitate and engage in debate including the community. Each chapter in the handbook examines the use of the three-pillar model at every stage of the reporting cycle. Guidance notes are supported by a list of key questions to ask, as well as group- or pair-focused exercises." (https://www.comminit.com)
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"The Courage Against Hate initiative has been brought together by Facebook for the purpose of sparking cross-sector, pan-European dialogue and action to combat hate speech and extremism. This collection of articles unites European academic analysis with practitioners who are actively working on coun
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tering extremism within civil society. Hate and extremism have no place on Facebook and we have been making major investments over a number of years to improve detection of this content on our platforms, so we can remove it quicker - ideally before people see it and report it to us. We’ve tripled - to more than 35,000 - the people working on safety and security at Facebook, and grown the dedicated team we have leading our efforts against terrorism and extremism to over 350 people. This group includes former academics who are experts on counterterrorism, former prosecutors and law enforcement agents, investigators and analysts, and engineers. We’ve also developed and iterated various technologies to make us faster and better at identifying this type of material automatically. This includes photo and video matching tools and text-based machine-learning classifiers. Last year, as a result of these investments, we removed more than 19 million pieces of content related to hate organisations last year, over 97% of which we proactively identified and removed before anyone reported it to us." (Introduction, page 2)
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"An online survey was conducted in which participants were exposed to one of 16 mock emergency warnings about either a bushfire or a riverine flood and were then asked a series of questions relating to their demographic characteristics, message comprehension and effectiveness, threat appraisal, copi
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ng appraisal, protection motivation and maladaptive coping behaviour. Mock emergency warnings were developed using existing end-user emergency warnings to improve realism and maximise the usefulness of the findings, as well as building on previous QUT-conducted BNHCRC research (see Greer et al., 2019). A total of 2,482 Australians living across all states and territories were recruited to participate in the research. Participants were recruited by the Market Research firm Dynata. Approximately 150 participants responded to each of the 16 stimuli. Overall, the research results show that adding colours and/or icons to the Evacuate Now (Bushfire) message creates improvements, albeit small ones, in message comprehension, effectiveness, perceived probability and perceived self-efficacy. The other three messages showed no improvement (or loss) in message comprehension, effectiveness, threat appraisal, or coping appraisal as a result of adding colours and/or icons." (Abstract)
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"The objective of this case study is to analyse the current institutional and regulatory framework of Tanzania to understand how it reflects the principles and nature of collaborative regulation. The case study also highlights areas of strength and possible improvements as Tanzania journeys towards
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digital transformation and collaborative regulation, enabling it to seize opportunities and address challenges. The analysis and results are based on publicly available information (reports, legal acts, studies) and information obtained during interviews with stakeholders from Tanzania (see Box below on the methodology of the ITU Collaborative Regulation Case Studies). Gathering information from different perspectives spotlights strengths and opportunities for the country, while identifying areas for further consideration that could bring Tanzania into the group of G5 countries." (Page 2)
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