"This report presents findings from the third wave of the Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS3), conducted between 2021 and 2025. In this iteration, we focused on journalists’ perceptions of risk and uncertainty in their profession and sought to identify key factors that shape how journalists navigate
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journalism’s changing environment. These risks and uncertainties arise from four partially overlapping domains: politics, economy, technology, and news consumption. Accordingly, the WJS3 questionnaire addressed journalists’ safety, editorial freedom, professional roles, news influences, and labor conditions. Our survey confirms that journalism is under pressure. Journalists worldwide are often undercompensated, and more than one-third engage in secondary employment. Economic pressures on news organizations have intensified in most countries. Nearly half of journalists have been targeted with hate speech, while psychological, physical, and digital threats are more prevalent in the Global South than in the Global North. More than 300 researchers from 75 countries participated in WJS3. This report provides a concise overview of key global findings. Subsequent publications will analyze specific topics in greater depth; please visit worldsofjournalism.org for more information." (Foreword, page 4)
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"1. Un asunto de identidad: No existe una única definición de lo que es una radio católica y esa circunstancia que puede ser sana también genera división en los medios. [...]
2. Medios para la comunión: Una conclusión que se desprende de las entrevistas aquí realizadas es que los medios poc
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o se comunican entre sí. [...]
3. La financiación: No existe un solo medio en la región que pueda decir que sus finanzas son las más sanas, que no necesita inyección económica alguna o que no desea mejorar sus ingresos. [...]
4. El limbo de la legalidad: Todo medio de comunicación católico se caracteriza, de acuerdo a las conversaciones sostenidas para realizar este libro, por tener una concesión o permiso dentro de la legalidad y si carece de ello es claro que el silencio de los entes reguladores constituye un “permiso” para emitir. [...]
5. La formación y capacitación: Algunos medios de comunicación son robustos en la formación eclesial pero débiles en la capacitación radial. Otros, los menos, son sólidos en lo radial pero flácidos en lo eclesial. [...]
6. Hacia la creatividad: Las radios católicas, en general, proponen a sus audiencias contenidos de fondo, interesantes, formativos, etc. sin embargo su profundidad no se compadece con las formas de presentarlos. [...]
7. La incidencia: Los medios católicos no son protagonistas en la vida de sus regiones y no lo hacen porque no quieren tener problemas con nadie. [...]
8. El sueño de hacer red: Una tarea aplazada en las frecuencias regionales es el trabajo en red del cual se habla, pero no se cristaliza. [...]
9. Evangelizar en una nueva cultura: La experiencia de los medios eclesiales en el entorno digital es concluyente, son más las necesidades que las fortalezas que se tienen. [...]
10. La importancia de las audiencias: Evangelizar al pueblo de Dios ya evangelizado es un círculo vicioso y quizá hasta nocivo para cualquier medio en la medida en que él solo se va cerrando a nuevas posibilidades de escucha. [...]" (Conclisiones, páginas 245-256)
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"El presente informe detalla la información aportada durante la audiencia regional temática "Afectaciones al derecho a la libertad de expresión por medidas estatales de censura en las Américas" liderada por 25 organizaciones de la sociedad civil durante el 190° Período Ordinario de Sesiones de
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la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (en adelante, “CIDH” o “la Comisión”). Las 25 organizaciones de la sociedad civil trabajan en siete países de América Latina: Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, México y Nicaragua. En distintos niveles, cada uno de estos países ha enfrentado en la actualidad o historia reciente contextos de limitación al ejercicio de los derechos fundamentales de libertad de prensa, libertad de expresión, el acceso a la información y el derecho a defender derechos humanos en relación con tales derechos. A pesar de las diferencias de contextos, hemos verificado una misma hoja de ruta diseñada y ejecutada para socavar la participación pública y la difusión de información relevante sobre los poderes públicos. Son estrategias de censura indirecta que se identifican y sirven a prácticas autoritarias que debilitan a los sistemas democráticos. En este contexto de mayor tendencia hacia gobiernos antidemocráticos, se evidencian tres tipos de censuras indirectas que generan preocupación y agudizan la amenaza de ejercicio libre de libertades básicas en un Estado democrático: i) estigmatizaciones; ii) formas de control social facilitadas por las nuevas tecnologías con capacidad de vigilancia; iii) la judicialización de la libertad de expresión sobre asuntos de interés público." (Introducción)
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"The El Salvador Digital Ecosystem Country Assessment (DECA) report presents the findings and recommendations of the El Salvador DECA. It outlines the key aspects of El Salvador’s digital ecosystem and provides 10 recommendations for creating a more inclusive, safe, and enabling environment. Guide
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d by USAID/El Salvador priorities, which include i) security increased for likely migrants; ii) jobs and income potential increased for likely migrants; and iii) government responsiveness, accountability, and transparency improved, the DECA process included desk research, consultations with USAID/El Salvador technical offices, and 101 key informant interviews with stakeholders from civil society, academia, and the private and public sectors. Key findings include: digital transformation is a priority for El Salvador; a weak regulatory environment and the lack of clear government strategies have held back digitization efforts; stakeholders frequently cite improving digital connectivity and citizens’ digital literacy skills as recommendations for greater digital adoption; cybersecurity policy and initiatives are underdeveloped and the awareness of effective defense measures is low across the digital ecosystem; most Salvadorans are still unbanked. Sixty-four percent of Salvadorans have no financial institution (traditional bank or mobile money) account. Only 11 percent of Salvadorans had a mobile money account as of 2021; GOES embraced bitcoin in September 2021, spotlighting El Salvador on the world stage; the COVID-19 pandemic spurred digital uptake among micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs)." (https://www.usaid.gov/digital-development)
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"This report analyses two major incidents: the disclosure that Pegasus spyware has been used against journalists from independent media outlets and representa tives of civil society, and Bukele’s legal advisor’s threats against two women journalists for not revealing anonymous sources included i
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n a news story. The second event represents a trend of online harassment and threats against women journalists promoted by President Bukele and public officials and replicated by Bukele’s supporters, troll centres, and pro-government influencers on social media. Through the analysis of these two main events, this report attempts to respond to the key research question: What are the main motives for, methods of, and responses to digital authoritarianism in El Salvador? Thus, this research identifies the major characteristics, strategies, and narratives interplaying in the configuration of digital authoritarianism in El Salvador. In conclusion, there is substantive evidence that Bukele and Bukelism are constructing a political project based on populism and authoritarian practices, and within this process, one key objective is to discredit the role of independent journalism, and, using spyware technologies such as Pegasus, to legally establish a monitoring system of critical voices and political opponents." (Executive summary)
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"On average in the 16 countries surveyed, 56% of internet users frequently use social media to stay informed about current events, far ahead of television (44%). However, it is worth noting that differences exist among population groups: television is the primary source in the most developed countri
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es (55% compared to 37% for social media), while it lags significantly in countries with high (42% vs 63%) or medium/low levels of Human Development Index (HDI) (37% vs 68%) [...] The significance of social media as a source of information, especially during election campaigns, is even more crucial given that citizens believe disinformation is highly prevalent there. Across all 16 countries, 68% of internet users told us that social media is the place where disinformation is most widespread, far ahead of groups on online messaging apps (38%) and media websites/apps (20%). This sentiment is overwhelmingly prevalent in all countries, age groups, social backgrounds, and political preferences. This is even more important and citizens feel that the issue of disinformation is a real threat: 85% express concern about the impact and influence of disinformation on their fellow citizens." (Analysis of key results)
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"This paper analyzes how presidential candidates Fabricio Alvarado and Nayib Bukele used Facebook during the elections in Costa Rica (2018) and El Salvador (2019) respectively to develop a particular style of communication that blended populist elements and religious discourse. This style of communi
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cation extended traditional modes of populism that have prevailed in Latin America since the turn of the century (emphasizing the notion of the hero who comes to rescue “the people”) but expressed them in an explicitly religious way (stressing the role of a “messiah” who comes to alter the established political order). We conducted both content and multimodal discourse analyses of 838 posts made by these candidates on Facebook during their respective electoral campaigns. We argue that the study of these campaigns would be incomplete without accounting for the relationship between populism, religion, and social media. While populism gave political validity to religious discourse, a religious imaginary provided populism with charismatic and messianic authority. This populist/religious reason found an ideal expression in Facebook and, simultaneously, was resignified by this platform’s affordances. In this way, we assess how fundamentalist Christianity has become a legitimating force of knowledge and politics in the context of epistemic tensions that shape contemporary Latin-American societies." (Abstract)
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"Esta publicación presenta información sobre el mercado actual de los medios de comunicación en El Salvador, sobre cómo la población percibe estos medios y cuáles son los hábitos de la audiencia en el consumo de la información. Además, ofrece recomendaciones para mejorar la viabilidad de lo
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s medios [...] Los resultados presentados abajo se refieren a las respuestas obtenidas de las 1074 personas que participaron en la encuesta. Los periódicos digitales y las redes sociales son los medios más preferidos para informarse, seguidos por la televisión. Las notas nacionales, internacionales y de política son la información más consumida. Un 68.5 por ciento manifiesta leer noticias varias veces al día; ocho de cada diez no tienen preferencia en cuanto al día. El celular es el dispositivo preferido para leer noticas con el 73 por ciento de respuestas. Los medios más consumidos son El Faro, La Prensa Gráfica y El Diario de Hoy. La televisora mejor posicionada en el ranking es TCS. El periódico más confiado es El Faro. Las principales razones para confiar en un medio son la imparcialidad, objetividad y su capacidad de investigar y transmitir noticias reales. El Faro, Gato Encerrado y Revista Factum son considerados los más independientes de grupos de poder político o económico, aunque 16.4 por ciento opina que ningún medio es independiente." (Resumen ejecutivo, página 4-6)
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"Este artículo forma parte de las investigaciones sobre la concentración de la radio y la televisión en El Salvador y sus efectos en la construcción de lo nacional. Frente a la dependencia cultural, la televisión en El Salvador experimenta cambios en los flujos de su programación. Cada vez exi
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ste una tendencia a incrementar la producción local frente a la internacional; sin embargo, las mediciones de rating demuestran que la concentración de audiencia sigue favoreciendo a las industrias creativas globales en alianzas con las locales. En un escenario de transformaciones de los consumos de la televisión, emerge la necesidad de competir con más horas de producción propia, pero los datos demuestran que las posibilidades de una propuesta con identidad, frente a la foránea, se encuentran en la periferia de las corporaciones nacionales, lo que también pone en evidencia lo que en otros estudios identifican como la falta de políticas públicas para la radio y la televisión." (Resumen)
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"Este relatório fornece transcrições resumidas de consultas nacionais sobre a viabilidade da mídia com as partes interessadas no setor dos meios de comunicação. As consultas nacionais são baseadas nas trocas de conhecimento e pesquisas proporcionadas pela UNESCO e pela The Economist Intellige
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nce Unit (EIU) e visam explorar a viabilidade de possíveis soluções para preservar a viabilidade da mídia sem comprometer a independência editorial e a integridade do jornalismo. As consultas nacionais foram organizadas e resumidas pela Free Press Unlimited (FPU)." (Introdução)
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"(No) es la comunicación… es la política cuenta cómo los gobiernos han dejado la dirección de la política, la economía y la sociedad a la comunicación. 24 autores en 13 países del continente americano escribieron sobre el uso de la comunicación en tiempos de pandemia. Los textos señalan
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cómo, durante la pandemia, las estrategias de comunicación priorizaron “vender” los atributos y personalidades de los líderes que gobernaban por encima de construir ciudad y ciudadanos. Aunque queda claro que la comunicación es fundamental en el manejo de las crisis de gobierno es realmente la política la que dirige la estrategia pública y construye la vida colectiva de un país. No todo puede ser comunicación. En este libro se argumenta que es la política la que hace a la democracia. Creer que 'comunicar es gobernar' es un error." (Cubierta del libro)
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"El Salvador’s experiment, though mired with fiscal and political issues from before, has shown that the adoption of public blockchain assets like Bitcoin are not taken in good regard by legacy financial multilateral institutions and are seen with great skepticism and concern. Although the adoptio
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n of Chivo has been impressive as a platform, bitcoin payments even for remittances are still not the majority. The separation of state and money, if it happens, will be an uphill and contradictory battle, especially if El Salvador’s government fails to properly manage the experiment. Central America is interestingly home to a wide array of financial systems as of the writing of this paper. Four of its countries have their own currency and Central Banks: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras. El Salvador has a Central Bank of Reserve which does not issue money but does manage the country’s reserves, serves as lender of last resort, and now has anointed Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the dollar. Panama does not have a central bank at all, uses the USD as subsidiary legal tender with substantial monetary freedom and is considering cryptoassets in general as means of payment and not legal tender. El Salvador’s results in the next 5-10 years and possible steps by other countries in the region will determine whether non-state-issued crypto assets could viably become functional legal tender in countries and whether relatively poor and small countries can lead the way in financial and regulatory innovation or if they will have to remain followers of the rest of the developed world." (Conclusion)
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"The Citizen Lab and Access Now have conducted a joint investigation into Pegasus hacking in El Salvador in collaboration with Frontline Defenders, SocialTIC, and Fundación Acceso. We confirmed 35 cases of journalists and members of civil society whose phones were successfully infected with NSO’s
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Pegasus spyware between July 2020 and November 2021. We shared a sample of forensic data with Amnesty International’s Security Lab which independently confirms the findings. Targets included journalists at El Faro, GatoEncerrado, La Prensa Gráfica, Revista Digital Disruptiva, Diario El Mundo, El Diario de Hoy, and two independent journalists. Civil society targets included Fundación DTJ, Cristosal, and another NGO. The hacking took place while the organizations were reporting on sensitive issues involving the administration of President Bukele, such as a scandal involving the government’s negotiation of a “pact” with the MS-13 gang for a reduction in violence and electoral support. While evidence linking a particular infection to a particular Pegasus customer is often unavailable, in this case we identified a Pegasus customer operating almost exclusively in El Salvador since at least November 2019 that we call TOROGOZ, and have connected this operator to an infection attempt against El Faro." (Key findings)
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"Los medios investigados en este estudio llegan más que todo a una población de mayor poder adquisitivo y niveles académicos que buscan un periodismo serio, investigativo, de calidad. Es una audiencia bastante involucrada con el medio. Le gusta a esa audiencia sentirse parte del medio de comunica
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ción, colaborarle y tener contacto directo con sus periodistas. En específico, les gusta participar en diálogos y debates mediante eventos presenciales y webinars, sugerir temas de investigación, recibir información mediante boletínes informativos personalizados, y tener acceso a podcasts, videos, EBooks. El acceso a este tipo de servicios y productos puede ser incluso una razón de que se empiece a apoyar económicamente a un medio. El reto está en llegar a más y nuevas audiencias, más diversas, de segmentos distintos a las que actualmente no apelan por sus investigaciones con textos eruditos largos, porque más bien buscan noticias más populares o formatos más entretenidos (como los videos que son preferidos por la población joven)." (Relación con las audiencias, página 37)
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"The pandemic made inequality, discrimination, exclusion and structural inequity more palpable, and rather than stagnating in indignation, it reactivated a sense of rebellion and contestation. The strength and sharpness with which we connect social justice, gender justice, environmental justice, eco
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nomic justice and racial justice with the potentials and limitations of digital technologies is undeniable. Using this intersectional lens, we need to document and build our own narratives about the challenges that we face related to the impacts of the pandemic and reflect on how our advocacy priorities as well as the ways we do advocacy are changing and keep being modified and adjusted. At APC we have strengthened capacity to design and implement collective and contextual community responses to the multiple challenges and crises that we face, while having a greater awareness of the kind of global responses that should be prioritised, based on shared but differentiated responsibilities [...] GISWatch 2021-2022 focuses on responses to some of the fundamental questions brought by the pandemic to inform civil society’s advocacy around digital technology issues and their potential to shape future horizons. As illustrated on our cover, a sustained struggle will be necessary in the years ahead, but not only in the public spaces. A nuanced approach to advocacy will be essential to open multiple ways to bring about positive change." (Preface, page 6)
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"The reach of the media outlets researched in this study extends above all to a population with greater purchasing power and educational attainment, who are looking for serious, investigative, quality journalism. This audience likes to feel part of the media outlet, collaborate with it, and have dir
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ect contact with its journalists. They specifically like to participate in dialogue and debates through in-person events and webinars, suggest topics for investigation, receive information by means of personalised newsletters, and have access to podcasts, videos and e-books. Access to this type of service and product may even be a reason to begin lending economic support to a media outlet. The challenge is to reach more and new audiences, of greater diversity and different segments, to whom their current investigations with long, erudite texts do not currently appeal, because they are instead looking for more popular news items or more entertaining formats (such as the videos preferred by the younger population." (Lessons learned, página 18-19)
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"The intersection between media and politics remains very strong in several countries under study. In these conditions, there is often little transparency on media ownership and a lack of transparency on local funding sources of media. Relatedly, in some cases, a change in government policies was ra
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ised as an important precondition to possibly change the negative discourse towards the (public) media. A different political climate may benefit the financial conditions of a media outlet, for instance by lifting difficulties in acquiring media licenses or access to (governmental) funding by independent media. The advertisement markets for media are, in many of the countries under study, still controlled by a few large, more traditional media outlets. Generally, the advertising market is driven by a number of factors, including a network, political patronage, and the ability of media owners to utilise relationships with the corporate sector. Due to the digitalisation of media and the advertising market, the market has further changed over the past years. There is limited to no regulation in the distribution of advertisement funding based on quality standards for journalism. Some media practitioners proposed to address this problem by stimulating national governments to support regulatory bodies for media advertisement. While digital advertisement is on the rise, most revenue of online (media) advertisement is directed to big tech companies. An increased amount of advertising money is flowing towards social media platforms, and Internet advertising has been rising exponentially, as observed in all countries under study. The media sector as a whole is suffering from this trend, particularly the more traditional print media who are struggling to make the transition to online media. In some countries under study, media are not even eligible to generate an income on the large social media platforms. Policies to regulate online advertisement is imperative to strengthen the competition position of traditional media." (Global trends, page 9)
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