"Radio has been called ‘Africa’s medium’. Its wide accessibility is a result of a number of factors, including the liberalisation policies of the ‘third wave’ of democracy and its ability to transcend the barriers of cost, geographical boundaries, the colonial linguistic heritage and low l
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iteracy levels. This sets it apart from other media platforms in facilitating political debate, shaping identities and assisting listeners as they negotiate the challenges of everyday life on the continent. Radio in Africa breaks new ground by bringing together essays on the multiple roles of radio in the lives of listeners in Anglophone, Lusophone and Francophone Africa. Some essays turn to the history of radio and its part in the culture and politics of countries such as Angola and South Africa. Others – such as the essay on Mali, gender and religion – show how radio throws up new tensions yet endorses social innovation and the making of new publics. A number of essays look to radio’s current role in creating listening communities that radically shift the nature of the public sphere. Essays on the genre of the talk show in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa point to radio’s role in creating a robust public sphere. Radio’s central role in the emergence of informed publics in fragile national spaces is covered in essays on the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. The book also highlights radio’s links to the new media, its role in resistance to oppressive regimes such as Zimbabwe, and points in several cases – for example in the essay on Uganda – to the importance of African languages in building modern communities that embrace both local and global knowledge." (Publisher description)
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"The impact of mass media on individuals and society is to a great extent based on human emotions. Emotions, in turn, are essential in understanding how media messages are processed as well as media's impact on individual and social behavior and public social life. Adopting an interdisciplinary appr
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oach to the study of emotions within a mass media context, the Handbook of Emotions and Mass Media addresses areas such as evolutionary psychology, media entertainment, sociology, cultural studies, media psychology, political communication, persuasion, and new technology. Leading experts from across the globe explore cutting-edge research on issues including the evolutionary functions of mediated emotions, emotions and media entertainment, measurements of emotions within the context of mass media, media violence, fear-evoking media, politics and public emotions, features, forms and functions of emotions beyond the message, and provide the reader a glimpse into future generations of media technology." (Publisher description)
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"Acting on HIV offers a sustained and relatively systematic inquiry into drama as an approach to discussion of HIV/AIDS and related attitudes and behaviors. A distinctive feature of the research that is presented in Acting on HIV is the emphasis on the potential for and value of using drama to promo
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te vital social change in addition to individual behaviour change. It has a strong theoretical foundation and seeks to interrogate the ethical, theoretical and practical complexities of using drama to address issues HIV & AIDS. The research that is communicated through the book is original and timely and will make a significant, trans-disciplinary contribution to scholarly conversations about the role/s and significance of drama in addressing issues of HIV & AIDS." (Publisher description)
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"A significant contribution to memory studies and part of an emergent strand of work on global memory. This book offers important insights on topics relating to memory, globalization, international politics, international relations, Holocaust studies and media and communication studies." (Publisher
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description)
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"Although practice theory has been a mainstay of social theory for nearly three decades, so far it has had very limited impact on media studies. This book draws on the work of practice theorists such as Wittgenstein, Foucault, Bourdieu, Barth and Schatzki and rethinks the study of media from the per
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spective of practice theory. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from places such as Zambia, India, Hong Kong, the United States, Britain, Norway and Denmark, the contributors address a number of important themes: media as practice; the interlinkage between media, culture and practice; the contextual study of media practices; and new practices of digital production. Collectively, these chapters make a strong case for the importance of theorising the relationship between media and practice and thereby adding practice theory as a new strand to the study of anthropology of media." (Publisher description)
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"Media, Development, and Institutional Change investigates mass media's profound ability to affect institutional change and economic development. The authors use the tools of economics to illuminate the media's role in enabling and inhibiting political-economic reforms that promote development." (Pu
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blisher description)
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"Following an initiative of the Committee on Economic Co-operation and Development, the Office of Technology Assessment (TAB) at the German Bundestag (i.e. the German parliament) has carried out a project on the relevance of the Internet and other new information and communication technologies (ICTs
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) for social advancement in developing countries. This final report documents the results of the project. [...] In the first place, the report analyses and discusses the use of ICT and how it can contribute to social development in the context of the situation in developing countries. Secondly, a more detailed examination is undertaken of contributions relating in particular to the areas of democracy, good governance and civil society, of industry and trade, and of education, research and technological development. Thirdly, the results of these analyses are used to draw conclusions about concrete and strategic courses of action and challenges for German development co-operation within the context of general issues relevant to research and education policy." (Preface)
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"This study claims to be one of the first attempts to explore the field of radio economics in rural Africa. Based on in-depth questionnaires filled in by 15 radio stations in Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Ghana and Mali, it found that the costs vary widely according to the type of ownership, i.e. public
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, commercial or community radio. The average start-up costs fluctuate between $50,000 and 100,000. The annual operating costs range between $20,000 to $540,000 for public broadcasters, $2,500 to $930,000 for commercial stations and $2,500 to $286,000 for community stations. The costs of programming are largely dependant on the level of interactivity of the programme format, the accessibility of additional resources to produce specialised programmes, and the type of station producing the programme. The study found that community stations tended to invest more resources in interactive programming with community involvement and less on in-studio formats. The sale of airtime is important revenue for most stations. There is no shortage of investment for starting up radio stations (in particular community radios), but the common challenge remains the sustainability beyond the initial investment." (CAMECO Update 1-2009)
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"Entwicklungsländer und moderne Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IKT): Wie geht das zusammen? Dieses oft diskutierte, aber selten detailliert untersuchte Thema wird in diesem Buch vor allem anhand Afrikas südlich der Sahara behandelt, einer Weltregion mit erheblichen Entwicklungshemmn
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issen. Im Fokus steht dabei die besonders voraussetzungsreiche Internetnutzung. Tatsächlich sind die Hürden für einen entwicklungsförderlichen Einsatz moderner IKT und speziell des Internets dort weiterhin sehr hoch. Die Ergebnisse der materialreichen Studie, für die auch Forschungen vor Ort durchgeführt wurden, verweisen indes nicht bloß auf Potenziale der IKT für Entwicklung, sondern sie zeigen auch, dass sich die Internetnutzung in Subsahara-Afrika bereits vielfältig darstellt und derzeit dynamisch entwickelt. Nicht nur mit Blick auf die schwerpunktmäßig untersuchten Felder (Demokratisierung, Wirtschaft, Bildung und Forschung) bestehen erhebliche Chancen und Bedarfe für einen Ausbau der Informationsgesellschaft in dieser Weltregion. Vorschläge, wie darauf politisch reagiert und Entwicklung durch Vernetzung gefördert werden kann, bilden einen weiteren Schwerpunkt des Bandes." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"This paper reviews the public positioning of official development assistance (ODA) pr ograms of selected donor countries, as well as that of multilateral development institutions. It compares and contrasts their communications objectives, messages, strategies, practices and products. It also discus
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ses the organizational structures that governments and multilaterals have established to manage public information and communications on development aid. Based on this review and the Concept Paper for Russia's International Development Assistance, it suggests issues for discussion towards developing a communications strategy and plan for Russia's ODA program." (Purpose, page 1)
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"Part I presents general categories for thinking about the intersection between religion and film, as well as an argument for an emerging line of theoretical inquiry. The chapters in Part II examine the use of film in teaching religious traditions, whether movies are seen from the critical perspecti
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ve of particular religious traditions or are used to teach the traditions themselves. Part III focuses on the use of film in the religious studies classroom, where religion or theories of religion are more generally addressed. Part IV considers the promise and challenge of using films to teach critical perspectives on fundamental human values, whether films are seen as vehicles for bringing stories into the classroom or as powerful indicators of a culture's core values." (Publisher description)
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"This paper investigates occupational stressors amongst media personnel assigned to work on covering the Iraq War via interviews with 54 journalists from the BBC and Reuters, who worked in Iraq between February and April 2003. A range of stressors were identified that could be categorized into three
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main themes, control over the situation, support from management and grief from the death of colleagues. Journalists not embedded with military units were more likely to report negative physical and emotional health outcomes. The study concludes that hazardous work environments do not, by themselves, cause stress and poor job satisfaction. Rather, organizational factors, the imbalance between the ability to make decisions about how to carry out their job effectively and the perceived rewards of working in such environments appear to have a greater impact on work related stress." (Abstract)
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"This book, a first in its kind, offers a survey of the present state of affairs in media accessibility research and practice. It focuses on professional practices which are relative newcomers within the field of audiovisual translation and media studies, namely, audio description for the blind and
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visually impaired, sign language, and subtitling for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing for television, DVD, cinema, internet and live performances. Thanks to the work of lobbying groups and the introduction of legislation in some countries, media accessibility is an area that has recently gained marked visibility in our society. It has begun to appear in university curricula across Europe, and is the topic of numerous specialised conferences." (Piublisher)
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