commbox Syria

Syria Audience Research 2016

Anke Fiedler, Bart Veenstra, Dirk Spilker

Media in Cooperation and Transition (MiCT);Free Press Unlimited (2016), 82 pp.

"In Syria, television is the dominant media type with high usage and availability rates in all areas studied. Television is followed by online media, print media, and finally radio. Media aligned with the Syrian government are leading in government-controlled areas, and opposition-aligned media are ... more

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Mediated Identities and New Journalism in the Arab World: Mapping the "Arab Spring"

Aziz Douai, Mohamed Ben Moussa (eds.)

London: Palgrave Macmillan (2016), xiii, 214 pp.

"This book looks into the role played by mediated communication, particularly new and social media, in shaping various forms of struggles around power, identity and religion at a time when the Arab world is going through an unprecedented period of turmoil and upheaval. The book provides unique and m ... more

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Syria’s Post-Uprising Media Outlets: Challenges and Opportunities in Syrian Radio Startups

Rima Marrouch

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2016), 31 pp.

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YouTube and Evidencing Warcrimes: The Role of Digital Video for Transitional Justice in Syria

Josepha Wessels

Tidskriftet POLITIK, volume 19, issue 4 (2016), pp. 30-52

"The enormous collection of user-generated content (UGC) in the form of YouTube videos from the Syrian war provides an unprecedented and diverse collection of shared digital memories of conflict and violence. The central question of this article asks what the value is of UGC on YouTube for legal evi ... dence of war crimes and future Transitional Justice. It is beyond doubt that the surge of uploaded videos from the Syrian uprisings revolutionized the way in which contemporary wars are observed and documented. The sheer amount of user-generated content online has given rise to manifold ways of interpreting what is happening on the ground, inspired creative resistance, led to a surge of professional and independent Syrian documentary films and increased the connectivity between those who undergo the war inside the conflict zone and those who are observing the situation from a safe distance. Many YouTube clips from Syria are likely to be rejected as stand-alone legal evidence though, as it often lacks sourced information about meta-data, date, time, geographical coordinates, identity of the participants, the identity of the perpetrator, and other contextual information crucial to establishing judicial facts for war crimes prosecution. The everexpanding body of videos from Syria will give rise to a wide and varied landscape of interactive media that has surpassed the old approach of political mainstream media to inform and possibly manipulate their audiences for their own agendas, whatever those may be. As a platform of digital memory and space to express moral outrage, YouTube served a crucial and important role in the Syrian crisis and the UGC is of immense value for digital memorialisation and historicization of the Syrian crisis. The vast amount of UGC on YouTube was categorized in 8 different types of footage and we can conclude that only small number of videoclips on YouTube can in fact function as crime-based evidence for war crimes. This does not mean that the UGC on YouTube has no value, however as a legal evidence it can be problematic to use YouTube videos if not corroborated and verified properly. The main issue is the lack of meta-data in many of the UGC on YouTube. The YouTube video revolution in Syria did bring to the surface many brave video activists who are now professionally involved in producing high quality footage for international news broadcasters, the most recent example of that is the important work of Waad al Kataeb inside eastern Aleppo with the British Broadcaster Channel Four News (Channel 4 2016). Through a series of edited 5-6 minute mini stories from the ground, Al Kataeb’s work provides a credible and important source of evidence." (Conclusion, page 22-23) more

Distract, Deceive, Destroy: Putin at War in Syria

Maksymilian Czuperski, John Herbst, Eliot Higgins, Frederic Hof, Ben Nimmo

Washington, DC: Atlantic Council (2016), 24 pp.

"This paper sets out how Russia built up its disinformation campaign, by analyzing what was said and comparing it with what was done. Using open source and social media intelligence (OSSMINT), it exposes the false claims that Russia targeted ISIS or defeated international terrorism. It reveals that, ... more

Information to Go: How Do Refugees from Syria and Iraq Find the Right Information, Before, During and After Their Journeys to Germany?

Berlin: Media in Cooperation and Transition (MiCT) (2016), 10 pp.

"Between November 2015 and February 2016, MICT conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups with a total of 88 Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Berlin. The central aim of the interviews was to investigate which sources of information refugees were using, before, during and after their transit, in orde ... more

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Bullets and Bulletins: Media and Politics in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings
Top Insights

Mohamed Zayani, Suzi Mirgani (eds.)

London: Hurst (2016), xi, 254 pp.

"Bullets and Bulletins takes a sobering and holistic look at the intersections between media and politics before, during, and in the wake of the Arab uprisings. It is a multi-disciplinary approach to the topic, with the research backed up by in-depth and rigorous case studies of the key countries of ... more

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Global Information Society Watch 2016: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Internet

Association for Progressive Communications (APC);International Development Research Centre (IDRC) (2016), 269 pp.

"The 45 country reports gathered here illustrate the link between the internet and economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs). Some of the topics will be familiar to information and communications technology for development (ICT4D) activists: the right to health, education and culture; the socioec ... more

Kurdish Region of Northern Iraq: Humanitarian Information Needs of Syrian Refugees

International Media Support (IMS) (2015), 18 pp.

"The assessment concludes that there is not ‘one magic answer’ to the question of which media channel is the most effective – rather a variety of channels must be used to reach as many people as possible. While TV scores high among both refugees and host population as a preferred media channel ... more

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Wer köpft, dem glaubt man: Der "Islamische Staat" und die Medien

Christoph Reuter

In: Die schwarze Macht: der "Islamische Staat" und die Strategen des Terrors

Christoph Reuter

Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) (2015), pp. 230-248

"Die Medienstrategen des IS wissen, was das Publikum von ihnen erwartet. Ihr hämmernder Text, der Statements, Tweets, Videos, Bilder übertönt, wie hermetisch abgeriegelt ihr Reich ist. Sie bestimmen unser Bild vom "Islamischen Staat". Dafür etikettieren sie ihre Opfer um, leihen sich Tote und l� ... more

Freedom on the Net 2015: Privatizing Censorship, Eroding Privacy

Sanja Kelly, Madeline Earp, Laura Reed, Adrian Shahbaz, Mai Truong (eds.)

Washington, DC; New York: Freedom House (2015), 986 pp.

"Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fifth consecutive year, with more governments censoring information of public interest and placing greater demands on the private sector to take down offending content. State authorities have also jailed more users for their online writings, wh ... more

Humanitarian Broadcasting in Emergencies: A Synthesis of Evaluation Findings

Theodora Hannides

London: BBC Media Action (2015), 64 pp.

"This synthesis of evidence suggests that BBC Media Action interventions have an important role to play in assisting people affected by crisis, and is consistent with other literature that highlights the role of media in providing accurate and reliable information in crisis. It highlights that, as w ... more

Online Media Overview: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia

Laurent Giacobino

Paris: CFI Coopération Médias (2015), 27 pp.

"This document is an abridged version of a wide-ranging survey conducted between July 2014 and January 2015, which attempts to provide an overall view of the complex, ever-changing and fluid landscape of the online media in the Arab world. It is based on over 45 in-depth interviews, 130 applications ... more

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Civil War in Syria: The psychological effects on journalists

Anthony Feinstein, Stephen Starr

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, volume 7, issue 1 (2015), pp. 57-64

"Purpose: More journalists died in Syria during 2013 than in any other country experiencing conflict. This statistic raises concerns about the psychological wellbeing of journalists covering the internecine violence. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach: The study sample ... more

The ISIS Twitter Census: Defining and Describing the Population of ISIS Supporters on Twitter

J. M. Berger, Jonathon Morga

Washington, DC: Brookings Institution (2015), 65 pp.

"From September through December 2014, we estimate that at least 46,000 Twitter accounts were used by ISIS supporters, although not all of them were active at the same time [...] Typical ISIS supporters were located within the organization’s territories in Syria and Iraq, as well as in regions con ... more

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Bravery or Bravado? The Protection of News Providers in Armed Conflict

Nina Burri

Brill (2015), xviii, 450 pp.

"During the last decade, the image of war correspondents in the news has shifted dramatically. Reports are no longer full of cheerleading stories of embedded journalists. Instead, stories of war reporters being attacked, kidnapped or injured prevail. Sadly, the former heroic witnesses to war have be ... more

Area of Origin: Communication Channels and Social Media Report Syria

REACH (2015), 8 pp.

"With 4 million refugees in neighbouring countries and six and a half million Internally Displaced Persons within Syria, communication tools have become critical for the Syrian population to maintain contact with their family and friends both inside and outside the country. The costs associated with ... more

A Call for Effective Support to Syrian Independent Media as a Key Component in Mitigating and Resolving the Syrian Conflict

Brussels: Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) (2015), 14 pp.

"Experience in conflicts, in former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past twenty years has shown that citizens with access to reliable, professional, and independent news and information must be a key element in any effort to support a sustainable resolution to conflict ... more

Mass Communications in Azraq Refugee Camp, Jordan. Assessment Report

UNHCR;REACH (2015), 53 pp.