"Established in 1957, the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) has facilitated international exchanges and research collaborations among academics, journalists, and other practitioners, addressing media and communication problems and influencing theory and practice
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through research and participation in global, regional, national, and local debate. The chapters focus on prominent areas of research that have attracted the interest of scholars; political struggles of a membership engaged in research across East and West, global North and global South divides; selected country and regional contributions to the association; and reflections on significant scholarly and institution-building contributions to the association by George Gerbner, James Halloran Stuart Hall, Herbert I. Schiller, and Dallas W. Smythe. Readers will find a history of an academic professional organisation and insights into the controversies, conflicts, failings, and achievements of IAMCR members who developed the field of media and communication research and journalism practice." (Publisher description)
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"This collection covers the major trends of the media environment of the post-Communist world and their recent development, with special focus on Russia and the post-Soviet space. The term ‘media environment’ covers not just traditional print and electronic media, but new media as well, and rang
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es from the political to entertainment and various artistic spheres. What role do market forces play in the process of media democratization, and how do state structures regulate, suppress, or use capitalism toward their own gain? What degree of informational pluralism has been achieved in the newly independent republics? What are the prospects for transparency and the participation of civil society in Russian and Eurasian media? To what degree do trends in post-Communist media reflect global trends? Is there a worldwide convergence with regard to both media formats and political messaging? Western observers usually pay their keenest attention to the role of media in Russia and Eurasia during national elections. While this is a valid focus, the present volume [...] aims at understanding the deeper overall ‘media philosophies’ that characterize post-Soviet media systems and environments, and the type of identity formation that they are promoting." (Publisher description)
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"Press freedom is a key component of the general level of democracy in a country. Most often, changes in the state of media freedom have happened in tandem with changes in broader freedoms, therefore making it a sensitive indicator of the overall health of a democracy. In some cases, its deteriorati
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on might even warn us about bigger forces at work and point to an emerging or consolidating regime that is moving in the direction of restricting both political rights and civil liberties. Overall data on the global trends in the past five years–as shown in the global average overall and subcategory scores in the Freedom in the World report–reinforces this assertion." (Conclusion)
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"Advocates for media freedom have consistently argued that corruption goes down when journalists operating in a free media environment are able to expose the excesses of governmental leaders. An evolving body of research finds evidence to support this assertion. Measurement of corruption is a compli
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cated undertaking, and it has received little attention in this literature. This paper focuses on perceptual measures of corruption based on public opinion surveys. It attempts to replicate the finding of a negative relationship between media freedom and corruption using multiple measures of media freedom. The findings challenge the general argument that media freedom unambiguously is associated with lower levels of corruption." (Abstract)
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"The vast majority of IFEX members say it is more difficult now than a year ago to find project funding. Half say it is more difficult now than five years ago to find project funding. The dominant source for project funding is foundations outside the country of the member. A majority of IFEX members
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also say it is more difficult now versus a year ago to raise core funding. Half say it is more difficult now versus five years ago. The dominant source for core funding is foundations outside the country of the member. Members say that half of their budgets comes from projects, and about a quarter comes from core funding. They say this is pretty much unchanged from five years ago. Open Society Institute dominates the list of funders for IFEX members - five years ago and now - with the National Endowment for Democracy figuring prominently as well. Almost all IFEX members say they face challenges in finding funding. About half say funders are requiring them to do things that they did not require five years ago. Members say that funding sources that had supported their work in the past were no longer supporting them. Five IFEX members have neither a full-time nor a part-time person for budget and finance. Twenty-two do not have anyone handling fundraising full-time." (Executive summary)
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"Almost entirely rewritten and updated, Global Journalism addresses the most pertinent issues and problems in today's global journalism and media environments, whilst providing an extensive overview of journalism throughout the world. This new edition recognizes the vast and rapid changes taking pla
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ce in international journalism. Its three interlinking parts first offer a thorough discussion of global media theoretical approaches; then survey the main issues confronting journalists, media organizations, audiences, and others in the media world, and thirdly focus on the media of the world's eight major regions." (Publisher description)
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"In the last two decades, western governmental and nongovernmental organizations have invested heavily in the development of media in countries outside their borders in an effort to foster the development of democratic institutions and liberalized economic regimes. This paper examines the assumption
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s behind those investments in media assistance as well as the dominant views of the donors about democratization itself and the operation of market forces. It also examines the empirical work that either supports or contradicts these assumptions." (Abstract)
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"This study confirms the findings in our previous study (Jacobsson, et al., 2006) that more media competition does not always lead to increases in the level of media quality, captured by the IREX measure of professional journalism, thus challenging the dominant argument in the literature. The data s
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uggest that high levels of media competition can at best produce a very limited increase in professional journalism while, at worst, as in Africa, the opposite relationship prevails. Looking at the full population, there is some, but weak evidence of a curvilinear relationship indicating that more media competition can be a good thing up to a point." (Conclusions)
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