commbox Afghanistan

Filter

296

Sort by:

Direction:

Solidarity and Survival: The Story of South Asia. Afghanistan Country Report

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) (2022), 5 pp.

"An independent media is essential to tell the world the complex unfolding story of Afghanistan. Journalists remaining in Afghanistan, as well as those who have left, desperately need support from the international community. There is need for solidarity and interventions on several fronts. The Afgh ... more

Download (64)

Brief No.1: Media Restrictions and the Implications for Gender Equality in Afghanistan

Michelle Gehrig

Kabul: UN Women (2022), 29 pp.

"After nearly 20 years of international investment and successful efforts to build a diverse media landscape and strengthen journalism standards, the Afghan media sector has fundamentally changed for the worse since the Taliban (also referred herein to as the de facto authorities) takeover on 15 Aug ... more

External Link (182)

Policy Paper: Unpacking Content Moderation in Pashto and Dari

Shmyla Khan et al.

Meedan; Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) (2022), 25 pp.

"Content moderation at scale is an extremely complicated issue, however by looking at specific examples such as the case studies and data highlighted in this study, the conversation can start to take into account more diverse experiences and context that is normally overlooked. Emerging from these e ... more

Download (58)

Afghanistan's media developments and challenges in the past two decades: A short glance at media freedom

Masom Jan Masomy

Reality of Politics, issue 19 (2022), pp. 64-77

"Media, during Taliban five years period from 1996–2001, had been totally suffocated. Only limited number of print media would publish to spread the propaganda of Taliban Emirate under Sharia Law. Post-Taliban era, media landscape obtained new image with the establishment of democratic government. ... more

Download (85)

The Evolution in the Taliban’s Media Strategy

Weeda Mehran

George Washington University, Program on Extremism (2022), 8 pp.

"In the mid-1990s, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan for the first time. They banned photography, TV, music, and all forms of entertainment. Soon after, the Taliban banned the internet in early 2001, and then-Foreign Minister Mawlavi Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil famously stated, “We want to establ ... more

External Link (234)

Google Scholar (199)

WorldCat (210)

Transformations in Afghan Media and Culture Through Cycles of Upheaval

Wazhmah Osman

Current History, volume 121, issue 834 (2022), pp. 135-140

"This article traces how the Afghan cultural, media, and arts sectors have gone through cycles of boom and bust in tandem with the country’s tumultuous history in recent decades, starting with the prewar golden era in the 1960s and 1970s, then focusing on the post-9/11 internationally funded media ... more

External Link (219)

Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition Project: Reach and Engagement Survey Afghanistan

London: BBC Media Action (2021), 4 pp.

"BBC Media Action is helping to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus in Afghanistan by using a media campaign to encourage uptake of preventive behaviours. Informed by research the project’s media outputs aim to help reduce the transmission of the coronavirus by encouraging take up of the fo ... more

External Link (235)

Afghanistan Media Landscape: Key Results

London: BBC Media Action (2021), 1 p.

"TV is the most popular media platform. Majority of TV viewers and radio listeners watch and listen to those media weekly. Urban, educated and younger people watch TV more than rural, less educated and older people. Men listen to radio and use internet more than women [...] A nationally representati ... more

External Link (179)

The Pen Vs the AK-47: The Future of Afghan Media Under the Taliban

Samiullah Mahdi

Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy (2021)

"Written just prior to the Taliban's rapid takeover of Afghanistan, this new report from Shorenstein Center Fellow Samiullah Mahdi provides an overview of the media landscape in Afghanistan, and the threats to and opportunities for press freedom in the region." (Introduction)

Download (57)

Afghanistan: August 2021. A Tentative Reassessment of Cultural Foreign Policy and Civil Society Support

Asiem El Difraoui, Caspar Berges

Stuttgart: Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) (2021), 22 pp.

"[...] If Afghanistan is to avoid a renewal of civil war, there is no viable alternative to Taliban rule and Taliban dialogue. Engagement with the Taliban in terms of urgently needed humanitarian aid opens avenues for cooperation in the field of cultural foreign policy and civil society support. Her ... e, the Taliban are especially open to support in the educational sector. Education, including for women, is a widespread demand in Afghanistan, even in the rural areas. As a member of civil society stressed, the Taliban are not ready to accept political activities but seem so far result-oriented in what concerns practical improvements for the Afghan population. Under seemingly non-political activities, for example competitions about daily life concerns like waste or water management, independent thinking and the respect of human rights can still be fostered. Generally, activities can be promoted with Afghan and Islamic references acceptable to the Taliban mindset. Fostering women’s rights, for example, can be done by giving the examples of the wives of the prophet Mohammed and of the relative freedoms of women in Saudi Arabia and Iran, who have more rights than those under the previous Taliban regime. As one participant states “the only progressive ideas which can be ingrained in Afghan society need to be somehow referring to internal cultural heritage Afghan and/or Islamic”. In this context, a lot of venues can be explored. Herat, for example was a major cultural centre over centuries. Afghans know also very little of the significance of historically important Islamic cities like Bukhara or Samarkand in neighbouring Uzbekistan, despite the fact that a sizable proportion of the Afghan population are Uzbek. Even more significant is the fact that Afghans who are very attached to their religion know very little of the achievement of the golden age Arabo-Islamic culture in science like mathematics, geography, astronomy, medicine or architecture or literature. There are also some classical art forms through which we can engage with the Taliban, such as poetry, as well as opportunities in contemporary comedy, where a certain criticism can be voiced and tolerated. The interplay of new and traditional media also provides unique opportunities in terms of education and human rights. Here DW-TV, Radio and internet activities can play an important role. Independent initiatives should also be promoted. These can offer considerable opportunities to connect regional civil society actors, which for one of the interviewees is one of the most effective ways of engagement “for example, feminist groups of neighbouring countries which supported feminist groups in Afghanistan”. (Conclusion, page 17) more

Download (84)

Connecting with Homeland: Media Consumption of Afghan Diaspora in India

Farooq Gowhar

International Journal of Communication and Media Science, volume 8, issue 2 (2021), 5 pp.

"Afghan presence in India dates back centuries. It exists in the form of goods, language, cultural and political influences, and other subtler yet significant forms. The influx of Afghan students, traders, and medical tourists in India, especially post the 2001 regime change in Afghanistan, has give ... more

External Link (207)

The Fall of Kabul: When Platforms Enable Propaganda

Marie Lamensch

Centre for International Governance Innovation, August 27 (2021)

"Social media companies face an increasingly urgent ethical dilemma about the use of their platforms by Taliban officials and supporters." (Introduction)

Download (69)

Let Free Media Thrive: Stories of Impact of the Multi-Donor Programme on Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists

Paris: UNESCO (2021), 18 pp.

"The collection of stories presented here aims to highlight the impact of the MDP's (Multi-Donor Programme on Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists) MDP’s actions over the course of this challenging year. Through testimonies from beneficiaries and partners who aspire to improve freedom o ... more

External Link (216)

In Their Own Words: Afghan Women Journalists Speak

Annie Philip, Laxmi Murthy, Yirmiyan Arthur, Jane Worthington, John Troughton

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ); Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) (2021), 18 pp.

"Comprising several interviews with women journalists both inside and outside of Afghanistan, the report highlights the threats to life and livelihood imposed by the new regime. As the Taliban imposes new restrictions on the media, including a dress code on women journalists, there is continued resi ... more

External Link (150)

Google Scholar (146)

WorldCat (170)

Post-regime-change Afghan and Iraqi media systems: Strategic ambivalence as technology of media governance

Mohammed A. Salih

Media, War & Conflict, volume 16, issue 2 (2021), pp. 228-245

"This article investigates the governance of post-US invasion Afghan and Iraqi media systems by analyzing provisions pertinent to public broadcasting, licensing, and defamation in 14 laws and policy documents in the two nations. The author argues that the results point to a regime of regulatory ambi ... more

External Link (217)

Google Scholar (192)

WorldCat (198)

Medium-Specific Threats for Journalists: Examples from Philippines, Afghanistan and Venezuela

Saumava Mitra, Marte Høiby, Mariateresa Garrido

Journalism Practice, volume 5, issue 1 (2021), pp. 80-98

"Between 2012 and 2016, UNESCO registered 530 deaths of journalists. They also published a statistic showing that television journalists were the most killed, followed by print media, radio and online journalists. Hinted in this statistics is the need to understand the relationship between the mediu ... more

Download (86)

Slowing Transmission: Language Challenges in Community Radio Relay of COVID-19 Risk Communication in Afghanistan

Translators Without Borders (2021), 16 pp.

"In 2020 Internews launched the Rooted in Trust project to counter rumors and misinformation about COVID-19. They commissioned Translators without Borders (TWB) to map community radio stations and investigate the language and translation challenges community radio broadcasters face when relaying off ... icial COVID-19 risk communication to their audience. To better understand these challenges, TWB conducted a survey and interviews with 65 community radio broadcasters, representing a quarter of all community radio stations across Afghanistan. Based on our survey, we mapped community radio stations and the reach of each radio signal to estimate overall radio coverage across the country. Where possible, we triangulated our findings with data from Internews’ Information Ecosystem Assessment in Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat. Community radio stations remain an important source of information, especially for rural populations, less literate individuals, and in remote provinces. During public health emergencies, broadcasters can turn into health communicators and support the relay of risk communication, but they face several challenges. • Radio signals don’t cover all provinces: Based on the radio signals we were able to map, radio coverage doesn’t reach people equally across the country. Speakers of marginalized languages have especially limited access to radio broadcasts. Relative to population density, speakers of Turkmeni, Brahui, Balochi, and Uzbeki have especially limited access to radio broadcasts. • Few broadcasts are in languages other than Dari and Pashto: Dari and Pashto are the main broadcasting languages, but not everyone understands them. Broadcasts in other languages are largely limited to adverts, short audio clips, and sporadic language mixing in talk shows and call-in shows. Dedicated programs providing in-depth information in another language are rare. • Language barriers reduce the quality and timeliness of broadcasts: Community radio stations lack resources and translation capacity to broadcast in languages other than Dari or Pashto. As a result, some important information is delayed, and some is never broadcast at all. The quality and level of detail of broadcasts in other languages is also reduced. • Broadcasters face difficulties accessing available information: Most community radio stations have limited access to the internet and experience electricity failures. This makes accessing and validating available information on COVID 19 extremely difficult. Also, background information is often passed to broadcasters in English, but with limited internet access this information can’t readily be translated. • Information needs to be provided in plain language: Broadcasters don’t relay information that uses complicated language or technical and medical terms. New terms and complex new information around medical issues need to be rewritten and presented in plain language for a general audience. Yet community radio stations often can’t provide plain-language editing, so don’t relay more complex information." (Overview, page 1) more

Download (51)

The relationship between social media addiction and depression: A quantitative study among university students in Khost, Afghanistan

Rahmatullah Haand, Zhao Shuwang

International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, volume 22, issue 1 (2020), pp. 780–786

"This study examined the relationship between social media addiction and depression among students of the universities in Khost province of Afghanistan. Stratified random sampling was used and a 46-items self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 384 students of three universities Shaikh Zay ... more

Download (75)

Meta-Review of Evaluations of Development Assistance to Afghanistan, 2008-2018

Christoph Zürcher

Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) (2020), 39 pp.

"Overall, one finding stands out: the international community has repeatedly overestimated its own capacity and the capacity of its Afghan partners to bring about rapid social change. What has worked best are modest, locally embedded projects with immediate, tangible benefits. What has rarely worked ... are complex projects aimed at building capacity and changing behaviour. More specifically, interventions in basic health and education, and in improving basic livelihoods, led to results. Interventions in building capacity for the administration, or in sectors such as the rule of law or gender, rarely worked. In reading these 148 reports, one also realizes that the international aid community is often not good at learning. Monitoring and evaluation systems are weak, and have hardly improved since 2002. Back in the early 2000s, many donors pointed out that, in order to achieve meaningful and sustainable development, more time was necessary. Fifteen years later, few sustainable results have been achieved, but many donors continue to suggest that better results will still require more time. Few donors appear to have changed their fundamental strategic approach, despite the fact that their own evaluations strongly suggest that many aid programs are neither e cient nor e ective in the Afghan context. In all fairness, the Afghan context is an incredibly challenging one, as these 148 reports vividly remind us on almost every page. The situation on the ground was and still is characterized by a lack of basic security; Afghan partners in government and in civil society lack basic capacities; many entrenched political actors have little interest in real reforms. Despite these challenging conditions, there was since the early days of the international engagement in Afghanistan tremendous political pressure on development actors to rush in and to provide quick results. An additional layer of complexity was added by the fact that the international engagement was from the beginning both a civilian and a military intervention, and planners in headquarters as well as practitioners on the ground had to learn how to cope with the task of civil-military cooperation. Under such circumstances, designing e ective aid programs is a herculean task." (Introduction, page 8) more

Download (65)

"When the Battle's Lost and Won:" Narratives of Peace in the Afghan Film 'A War'

Axel Heck

Peace & Change, volume 45, issue 1 (2020), pp. 101-125

"This article examines the ways in which cinematic film underscores the latency of structural violence in its visualization of peace, specifically through the juxtaposition of the life world of the two main protagonists in the Danish film A War (2016): Captain Claus Pedersen who serves as a Danish s ... more