"Younger audiences are different from older groups not just in what they do, but in their core attitudes in terms of what they want from the news. Young people are primarily driven by progress and enjoyment in their lives, and this translates into what they look for in news. They still need and want
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news to connect their world to the world – and fulfil an array of different social and personal needs – but they don’t necessarily see the traditional media as the best or only way to do that. News media is now competing for attention with myriad other distractions, and there is a high level of ‘background’ or ‘indirect’ exposure to news (through social media, other online conversations, documentaries and TV shows, etc.). They don’t need to seek it out, news comes to them. Finally, much of the excitement and gravitas for younger people is on the periphery of the news space (infotainment, lifestyle, cultural, grassroots, bloggers and vloggers). All this means there is a disconnect; traditional news media no longer seems as relevant or as dominant when it comes to news content. In a simplified way, how news brands and young people view the role and value of news is different: Traditional news brands see news as: what you should know. Young audiences see news as: what you should know (to an extent), but also what is useful to know, what is interesting to know, and what is fun to know. And the role of news for young people appears primarily individualistic; it’s about what it can do for them as individuals – rather than for society as a whole. While it’s true that the industry is moving towards producing more content of this kind, most traditional news brands are still not associated with being useful, interesting or fun. The study also revealed that the differences in the relationships young people have with the news depend on three key areas: the moment, the person and the medium. Four key news moments (dedicated, updated, time-filler, and intercepted) are described in detail, as are four types of news consumer (Heritage News Consumers, Dedicated News Devotees, Passive News Absorbers, and Proactive News Lovers). The impact of the various media is also investigated, revealing key roles, usage, pros and cons of platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and podcasts." (Publisher description)
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"Even at the most audience-informed organizations, journalists recognize the immense difficulty in making sense of what audience members and relevant experts know, particularly without presently available tools and ample staff. This work is hard, yet there is an increasing amount of interest in it.
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We hear more reporters, editors, and audience development staff around the world asking: how can this work be operationalized? With this report you see what we have learned so far about memberful routines. We close by highlighting some of the limits and cautions of working closely with members. We do this not to dissuade you from pursuing these routines, but to help as you undertake your own projects with members, donors, subscribers, and contributors: not every story can have, and not every story should have, reader involvement; make it crystal clear to community members: Everyone has opinions. Your opinions will not run our newsroom; member engagement is hard work. Staff need to be identified, trained, and given time to do it right; be ready to handle the incoming traffic if your callouts and other outreach succeed and you have plenty of takers. Design for potential over-supply of information!; project management is a discipline unto itself. Without it, news sites will find it hard to succeed at establishing memberful routines; members in their natural state do not necessarily know what news organizations need from them. We have to teach them that part." (Conclusion, page 53)
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"About 10 years ago we started sending each other images, back and forth, via email. Each photograph had to respond to the one just received. We have so far exchanged over 260 photographs, sharing snippets of family life, abstraction, travels, loss and humor. When we started, we had no particular pl
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an but rather we were curious about the idea of photography as dialogue and we wanted to see how our visual conversation would develop. A similar sense of open-ended inquiry informs this special issue which does not present a single resolved idea but explores the emergent, messy and indeterminate ways that images and image-making serve to facilitate – and obscure – dialogue. It is concerned with the potential and limits of photography as a dialogical medium and proposes an idea of dialogic photography that centres around the encounters, exchanges and negotiations that happen with, through and around images." (Abstract)
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"Local fixers are becoming increasingly important for international media due to escalating security threats to international journalists, budget cuts within international media organizations, and the disappearance of long-stay correspondents. Local fixers give local color and context to news storie
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s, but their work in conflict regions is extremely dangerous. Making things worse, fixers are at the bottom of the international correspondence totem pole. This paper approaches the situation from the perspective of fixers using qualitative in-depth interviews made in northwestern Pakistan, whereby we see fixers’ problems in a wider context of post-colonial relationships. The role of Western international journalists is discussed within a cultural context of hegemony, primarily drawing on theories of Edward Said and Antonio Gramsci." (Abstract)
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"At the heart of the challenges to democracy posed by digital media are three core problems: 1. Platform monopolies: two or three corporations control not only our means of communication, but also the content which is distributed, both of which are core aspects of our democracy. Whilst the market po
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wer and global mobility of these companies make it possible for them to avoid national regulatory measures, either by moving operations elsewhere or simply ignoring them; 2. Algorithmic opacity: algorithmic engines are using huge quantities of personal data to make ever more precise predictions about what we want to see and hear, and having ever increasing influence over what we think and do, with little transparency about how they work or accountability for their impact; and 3. Attention economy: the dominant business model of digital media prioritises the amplification of whatever content is best at grabbing our attention, while avoiding responsibility for the impact that content has on our collective wellbeing and our democracy. The negative impact is brutally clear from both the literature and the world around us." (Introduction, page 14)
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"In the wake of progress in underlining international norms for protection of journalists, UNESCO in 2017 initiated a global consultation on how to strengthen implementation of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. The results of this consultation are relevant
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to the context of securing progress in terms of Sustainable Development Goal indicator 16.10.1, which is a measure for both a global and a national assessment of the state of safety of journalists. Against this backdrop, this article analyses the potential at country level to develop norms about monitoring, as well as creating practical monitoring mechanisms for systematically tracking threats against journalists. A positive scenario would see these contribute to an elaborated normative climate as well as the existence of effective institutions and systems to ensure the protection of journalists on the ground." (Abstract)
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"With this guide, I aim to help journalists navigate the ethical dilemmas they encounter as they interview people who have experienced harm. While there are numerous practical guides on such interviewing, especially on trauma journalism, I have yet to find a guide that explores the deeper ethical qu
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estions of what conditions, if any, make such journalism morally justifiable and not purely extractive or voyeuristic. I’ve also encountered little public record of journalists discussing these ethical questions though I am confident that such conversations happen, whether at conferences or in private. This guide aims to bring those conversations to the wider public so that journalists and non-journalists alike can see how some of us are thinking through these questions and trying new approaches in search of a more mutually beneficial journalism." (Introduction, page 2)
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"Religious matters are much more present in standard media coverage than many people think. This paper discusses eight of the most relevant issues and events about the Catholic Church that made news headlines in 2018. The highlights, listed in chronological order, are: Pope Francis’ January trip t
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o Chile and Peru; the fifth anniversary in March of the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope; the release of Wim Wenders’ documentary film Pope Francis - A Man of His Word; Pope Francis’ August trip to the World Meeting of Families in Dublin, Ireland; the global clergy sexual abuse crisis and the Viganò affair; the agreement between the Holy See and China on appointment of bishops in September; the canonization of Archbishop Romero and Pope Paul VI in Rome in October; and the Synod of Bishops on Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment also in October. The selection is inevitably subjective, but the author has chosen these topics mainly because they received substantial coverage from international mainstream media." (Abstract)
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"The traditional financial models for news are dying. Could churches, environmental movements, and open source communities hold clues to its survival? We’re at a moment of profound transition and successive crisis for news. Our mission is to explore how membership models might help. A key takeaway
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from our research over the past 12 months is that membership models are fundamentally different from subscription or product models–and that they require whole new methods and mindsets to be successful. Membership isn’t just “subscription by another name” (though it’s often referenced that way), or about giving consumers access to a product. It’s participation in a larger cause that reflects what they want to see in civil society. In membership, there’s a different “social contract” or “value proposition” between the site and its members. At the basic level of: What do you give? What do you get? Subscribers pay their money and get access to a product. But members join the cause and participate because they believe in it." (Executive summary)
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"Popular support for media freedom continues to decline, dropping to below half (47%) of respondents across 34 countries. More Africans (49%) now say governments should have the right to prevent publications they consider harmful. Twenty-five of 31 countries tracked since 2011 experienced declines i
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n support for media freedom over that period, including steep drops in Tanzania (-33 percentage points), Cabo Verde (-27), Uganda (-21), and Tunisia (-21). Yet more Africans see the media’s freedom to investigate and criticize government as increasing (43%) than declining (32%). Countries vary widely in their assessments, from 80% of Gambians who see more media freedom to 66% of Gabonese who see less. Africans are generally dissatisfied with the state of the media. Of those who say freedom is increasing in their country, a majority (54%) support increased government regulations. However, among those who assess freedom as decreasing, a majority (54%) support media freedom over government regulations. Radio remains the top source for mass-media news, though its dominance is declining: 42% report using it every day, down 5 percentage points from 2011/2013. Television is a daily news source for about one in three Africans (35%), and is the top source for news in nine countries. Only 7% read newspapers daily. Reliance on the Internet and social media for news is increasing rapidly. Almost one in five Africans say they use the Internet (18%) and/or social media (19%) daily for news. Use of the Internet and social media for news is significantly higher among younger, urban, and better-educated populations, and there are important differences between countries and regions regarding access." (Key findings)
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"Following a summary of secondary and primary sources on the subject of film production in Burma, I will present an overview of the history of the Burmese film industry, from the British colonial period, to independence, to the years of the Burmese Socialist Program Party, and then the SLORC/SPDC ye
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ars of strict censorship. I will then turn to the 2000s, the advent of the Yangon Film School, and finally the blossoming of film festivals in the past decade. With the public presentation of films, which no longer require the same level of approval from the censor board as they did in years past, filmmakers have increasingly been able to openly discuss social issues in the country, though some circumstances will curtail that openness, and controversial topics can still be off-limits. Through recent interviews with contemporary filmmakers, this chapter will discuss the ways in which they see the relationship between film, documentary, and social change in Myanmar." (Page 288)
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"The innovative research in Video Games and the Global South focuses on a range of topics including art games and serious games from the global south, postcolonialism and cultural representation, player communities, software modification (modding), intercultural communication online, racism and sexi
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sm in game culture, the global growth of eSports, social media use in relation to gaming and the use of games to connect users and communities across the globe. Some fifteen years ago, Uruguayan theorist and game developer Gonzalo Frasca spoke of the possibility of creating “video games of the oppressed,” using the medium as a tool for education, socio-political awareness and consciousness-raising. In short, Frasca advocated for the appropriation of the means of game production by actors in the global south, and the repurposing of these technologies in ways that would benefit the region’s inhabitants. A decade and a half later, we can see that many gamers and game developers from across the global south have taken up this challenge, contributing to game cultures and creating games that respond to the obstacles and affordances of their particular geographical, socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts. Video Games and the Global South brings together perspectives from a range of disciplines, critical methodologies and theoretical approaches. Together, the 20 contributing essays advance the critical methodology for analyzing the relationship between games and culture, as well as historically contextualized insight into the cultural impact of video games and the development of games and game cultures across Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America, the Indian subcontinent, Oceania and Asia." (Publisher description)
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"This toolkit is for all journalists and communicators who would like to approach and delve into the topic of sustainable lifestyles. In here you will find advice from people working in the field who shared their perspective on finding the most compelling stories, visually representing them, and rea
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ching out to editors. Additionally, professional communicators shared in this toolkit their experience on how to talk to broad audiences about sustainable lifestyles, how to catch their attention, and raise awareness. This document was developed by CIDSE, the international family of Catholic social justice organizations, in the framework of the sustainable lifestyles campaign “Change for the Planet - Care for the People”. CIDSE has been involved in climate justice for years, but only more recently we started focusing more closely on sustainable lifestyles. It seemed more and more urgent to stress that, additionally to the changes needed at the political level, we also need to radically shift our behaviors and personify that change that we want to see and communication plays a crucial role in supporting and provoking such a shift. While still being active at global level and lobbying for justice in the political system managing climate, we also believe in the power of people to create massive change with their coordinated personal efforts." (Introduction)
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"This book gives an overview of public service media in South East Europe; referring to the ten countries, which the Media Programme of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung covers. From Croatia to North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the Republic of Moldova, liberalised media markets have emerged following the c
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ollapse of socialism and its state-controlled media systems. State broadcasters have become public service media. For the first time, essential information about individual public broadcasters is being gathered. Media experts from the respective countries write, among other things, about the history, the legal framework, the financing model and organisational structures in place. The chapters are supplemented with the results of a recent representative opinion poll commissioned by the Media Programme and conducted by the research institute Ipsos. We have asked the same six questions in all ten countries. In the results summarised for the entire region, two answers are very clear: almost 70 percent of respondents say that public service media are important for democracy. Unfortunately, almost 65 percent see these channels under political influence. In South Europe, in particular, this discrepancy becomes visible and audible at demonstrations when people take to the streets against their government. Then usually public service media are focus of protests and have been criticised as mouthpieces of the government." (Preface)
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"This thesis involves an analysis based on the theory of peace and war journalism to show how these theories express themselves in a conflict area. By taking two major media outlets during the war in Bosnia – Borba (Struggle) and Open Broadcast Network (OBN) – as case study this thesis will expl
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ore the way war and peace journalism and the Galtung dichotomy function in practice. In order to better understand the substance of peace journalism, a qualitative content analysis of articles and reports was conducted. The local newspapers and TV broadcasts in the beginning of the war displayed a powerful war journalism framing whereas toward the end of the conflict the coverage of OBN – established with the assistance of international community – exposes a more hopeful peace journalism framing. The most outstanding peace journalism signs are: an unbiased approach, all-parties coverage, and avoidance of dehumanizing language. The war journalism frame is driven by a present focus orientation, a separation of good and evil and an elite angle. The literature on peace and war journalism puts forward the fact that the current media are a key concern to the media and public experts, combatants and contain a perceptive impact on shifting the focus to the conflict field. By using Galtung’s (1998) peace and war journalism frames indicators, Borba and OBN were tested to help see the difference between war and peace journalism in practice. Findings suggest that a third possibility exist, considering that both OBN and Borba have often shown merely objective-reporting signs without making themselves a good fit to Galtung’s dichotomous model of peace journalism. The belief that there is a clear distinction between peace and war journalism is theoretically derived, which was proved in the Bosnian case where the lines are blurred." (Abstract)
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"In the last decade, the Chinese media have imposed themselves in the global arena and have started to become a reference point, in business and cultural terms, for other national media systems. This book explores how the global media landscape was changed by this revolutionary trend, and why and ho
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w China is now playing a key role in guiding it. It is, on the one hand, a book on how the Chinese media system continues to take inspiration and to be shaped (or remapped) by American, European and Asian media companies, and, on the other, a volume on the ways in which recent Chinese media’s “going out” strategy is remapping the global media landscape. Organised into two sections, this book has eight chapters written by American, Chinese and European scholars. Focusing on different markets (such as the movie industry, the press, broadcasting, and the Internet), different regions and different actors (from Donald Trump to the Tanzania-Zambia Railway to journalists), this book provides a fresh interpretation on the main changes China has brought to the global media landscape." (Publisher description)
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"For more than two decades, Uzbekistan has been a country with severe restrictions on free speech and media and some of the longest-imprisoned journalists in the world. There are now tentative signs of change in Central Asia’s most populous country. Opportunities for more open debate and independe
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nt reporting are increasing, but politically-motivated prosecutions and measures of state censorship still impose pressure and a chilling effect on media outlets, journalists and other government critics. “You Can’t See Them, But They’re Always There:” Censorship and Freedom of the Media in Uzbekistan examines the situation for journalists, media outlets, and the exercise of free speech since Uzbekistan’s second president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, assumed the presidency in 2016. Although Mirziyoyev’s government has taken some positive steps including the release of long-held journalists from prison, it has more to do to demonstrate meaningful reform in the area of free speech. It should immediately end powers of censorship, drop ongoing prosecutions against journalists, and allow effective access to information, including online. Advances for media freedom will be fleeting unless the government fully embraces freedom of speech and sends a message that peaceful criticism of government policies will be respected and protected in Uzbekistan." (Back cover)
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"What this chapter does is to see critical disourse analysis (CDA) as a method of critical enquiry in communication research that is beyond traditional academic analysis. The chapter looks at CDA as a Western-originated paradigm of social enquiry w
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ith a difference. As I will discuss in subsequent sections, CDA is concerned with the issues of inequality, management of power relations among elites, ideology and dominance expressed in linguistic forms. Following Fairclough (2016), Van Dijk (1993) and Resigl and Wodak (2016), CDA seeks to correct the ills of the society. It is a social movement that aims to correct the injustice meted against the poor and the powerless by deploying the power of language to draw attention to the issues of inequality, injustice and exploitation. As a method of critical enquiry, CDA is a level above a theory or research methodology. Why is this important for communication research in sub-Saharan Africa? Sub-Saharan Africa is faced with challenges related to governance, poverty, corruption and a host of other areas. The media itself is not insulated from these challenges. Studies by Williams (2014), Wasswa and Kakooza (2011), Ladamo and Skjerdal (2010), Yusha’u (2009, 2010a) and Skjerdal (2010), have shown how corruption, “freebees” and other forms of bribery plague the media industries in sub-Saharan Africa. To understand the causes of these challenges and how to solve them, CDA is a major platform." (Page 466)
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"Can the stories people tell influence the way they see the world? This book seeks to address that question through a study of the viability of movie making as a critical pedagogy activity. Positioned at the intersection of education and communicat
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ion for social change, it explores the relationship between the generation of subjective knowledge through storytelling and analysis, and systemic change. Central to the book is a case study from Nepal. By using video as the action element and analytical material of coursework, youth participants generated a new critical awareness, engendered by themes arising from group discussion. Through the analysis of these themes participants initiated an emergence known as conscientization. Led by two critical educators, participants used the production, screening, and analysis of their own movies to propel the course, or praxis, forward. This book seeks to inform the practice of critical pedagogy both practically and theoretically, and also offers a contribution to the fields of participatory action-research and communication for social change." (Publisher description)
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