"The book evaluates unique civic challenges, responsibilities, and opportunities for media worldwide, exploring pandemic social norms that media promote or discourage, and how media serve as instruments of social control and resistance, or of cooperation and representation. These chapters raise sign
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ificant questions about the roles mainstream or citizen journalists or netizens play or ought to play, enlightening audiences successfully about scientific information on COVID-19 in a pandemic that magnifies social inequality and unequal access to health care, challenging popular beliefs about health and disease prevention and the role of government while the entire world pays close attention." (Publisher description)
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"New technologies have opened several risks to safety of journalists. More importantly, in the state of emergency caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, journalists and media actors have shifted their activities online more than ever, which also made them more prone to digital threats and attacks. In some
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regimes there are even organized intimidation campaigns against political opponents causing chilling effect and self-censorship, and jeopardizing freedom of expression in general. Hungary as a member of the European Union since 2004 and Serbia as a leading candidate to join the EU are two countries where the problems and concerns about media freedom is growing every day. The fear from the unknown during the international pandemic gave opportunity to some governments to hide their real political agendas and cover their desire for the 'good-old-fashioned' censorship. The number of countries where some kind of censorship could be found is growing every day. The authors will show two country-case-studies from Hungary and Serbia, where the leaders and the political situations are very similar and could show a (good or bad) example to other countries that would like to follow the illiberal views on media issues." (Abstract)
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"Both media organizations and the organization of media in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been profoundly affected by ethnocentrism, political clientelism, the withdrawal of international donors, and the financial crisis. As a result, the country’s march towards digitization has been protracted and u
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neven. Nevertheless, there have been recent signs of progress, with the installation of digital transmitters developing apace in 2012. Advances in the rest of Europe have put pressure on authorities to get their act together and the new deadline of 2014 for analog television switch-off may yet be achievable. This report proposes a series of compelling policy recommendations aimed at catalyzing the digitization process, improving the function of public service broadcasting, and enhancing the stability and independence of both media markets and the regulatory institutions that oversee them. These include a call for new legislation on media ownership; ensuring efficient work of the Digital Terrestrial Television Forum with a view to expediting switch-over; a new system of funding for the Press Council; a range of measures to protect the autonomy of the Communications Regulatory Agency; and greater coordination between public broadcasters and adherence to their mandates." (Website Open Society Foundations)
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