"This state-of-the-art Handbook provides unique insights into the governance practices and institutions shaping digitalized public spheres. Focusing on the power relations involved, it presents diverse approaches to key debates in media and communication governance, showcasing groundbreaking advance
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s in the field. Contributing authors explore the impact of long-standing trends such as commercialization, digitalization and transnationalization on media and communication governance, highlighting urgent new developments including algorithmization and datafication. Combining theoretical inquiry with cutting-edge empirical analysis, they address governance challenges at the regional, national and global levels to provide a broad view of the social ordering of media systems. Ultimately, the Handbook explores how to protect the public sphere in the digital age and ensure that media organizations and platforms meet democratic expectations." (Publisher description)
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"In this report, developed with support from Facebook, we focus on an approach to extract public value from social media data that we believe holds the greatest potential: data collaboratives. Data collaboratives are an emerging form of public-private partnership in which actors from different secto
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rs exchange information to create new public value. Such collaborative arrangements, for example between social media companies and humanitarian organizations or civil society actors, can be seen as possible templates for leveraging privately held data towards the attainment of public goals. Existing research on data collaboratives is sparse, but a number of recent examples show how social media data can be leveraged for public good. These include Facebook’s sharing of population maps with humanitarian organizations following natural disasters; predicting adverse drug reactions through social media data analysis in Spain; and the city of Boston’s use of crowdsourced data from Waze to improve transportation planning. These examples and 9 additional cases are discussed in the full report. By assessing these examples, we identify five key value propositions behind the use of social media data for public goals: 1. Situational awareness and response; 2. Knowledge creation and transfer; 3. Public service design and delivery; 4. Prediction and forecasting; 5. Impact assessment and evaluation." (Pages 6-7)
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"Recent years have witnessed considerable speculation about the potential of open data to bring about wide-scale transformation. The bulk of existing evidence about the impact of open data, however, focuses on high-income countries. Much less is known about open data’s role and value in low- and m
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iddle-income countries, and more generally about its possible contributions to economic and social development. Open Data for Developing Economies features in-depth case studies on how open data is having an impact across the developing world-from an agriculture initiative in Colombia to data-driven healthcare projects in Uganda and South Africa to crisis response in Nepal. The analysis built on these case studies aims to create actionable intelligence regarding: (a) the conditions under which open data is most (and least) effective in development, presented in the form of a Periodic Table of Open Data; (b) strategies to maximize the positive contributions of open data to development; and (c) the means for limiting open data’s harms on developing countries." (Publisher description)
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"Given the distributed and open nature of the Internet, it is reasonable to assume that a distributed and open approach to governance may prove most effective. The multistakeholder efforts examined in this paper have sought to respond to this reality by creating institutions and processes that aim t
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o be more inclusive, participatory and transparent. However, one of the main challenges they have confronted is a lack of systematic analysis or evidence regarding what works, and what doesn’t. Despite over two decades of efforts to develop a new model of governance—despite all the models that have been tried, with varying degrees of success—the field of Internet Governance lacks an evidentiary basis upon which it could continue to innovate." (Conclusion)
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"In the process of drafting new media laws for states emerging from violent confl ict, or transitioning towards more democratic governments, the role of customary law is often overlooked. While “best practices” or international standards draw on widely accepted norms of international human right
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s law, they also focus on the experience of media regulation that has emerged in Western countries promoted by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international actors in the name of “freedom of expression.” The adoption of these norms and regulatory institutions is encouraged, often wholesale, with little attention to the local context." (Page 237)
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"Featuring specially commissioned chapters from experts in the field of media and communications law, this book provides an authoritative survey of media law from a comparative perspective. The handbook does not simply offer a synopsis of the state of affairs in media law jurisprudence, rather it pr
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ovides a better understanding of the forces that generate media rules, norms, and standards against the background of major transformations in the way information is mediated as a result of democratization, economic development, cultural change, globalization and technological innovation." (Publisher description)
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"This collection of essays by internationally-acclaimed scholars from around the world aims to stimulate a debate about the imperatives for internationalizing media studies by broadening its remit, including innovative research methodologies, taking account of regional and national specificities and
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pedagogic necessities warranted by the changing profile of students and researchers and the unprecedented growth of media in the non-Western world." (Publisher description)
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"'Media Reform' examines a complex process: the reform of media and its role in promoting democratic practices. Using examples of media from a range of countries in Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa including Uruguay, Poland, China, Indonesia, Jordan and Uganda, Media Reform considers the socia
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l and cultural implications of a free and independent media." (Publisher description)
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