"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
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onomic empowerment of women using the internet; the inclusion of rural and indigenous communities in the information society; and the use of ICT to combat the marginalisation of local languages. Others deal with relatively new areas of exploration, such as using 3D printing technology to preserve cultural heritage, creating participatory community networks to capture an “inventory of things” that enables socioeconomic rights, crowdfunding rights, or the negative impact of algorithms on calculating social benefits. Workers’ rights receive some attention, as does the use of the internet during natural disasters. Ten thematic reports frame the country reports. These deal both with overarching concerns when it comes to ESCRs and the internet – such as institutional frameworks and policy considerations – as well as more specific issues that impact on our rights: the legal justification for online education resources, the plight of migrant domestic workers, the use of digital databases to protect traditional knowledge from biopiracy, digital archiving, and the impact of multilateral trade deals on the international human rights framework. The reports highlight the institutional and country-level possibilities and challenges that civil society faces in using the internet to enable ESCRs. They also suggest that in a number of instances, individuals, groups and communities are using the internet to enact their socioeconomic and cultural rights in the face of disinterest, inaction or censure by the state." (Back cover)
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"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
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ile criminal and terrorist groups have made public examples of those who dared to expose their activities online. This was especially evident in the Middle East, where the public flogging of liberal bloggers, life sentences for online critics, and beheadings of internet-based journalists provided a powerful deterrent to the sort of digital organizing that contributed to the Arab Spring. In a new trend, many governments have sought to shift the burden of censorship to private companies and individuals by pressing them to remove content, often resorting to direct blocking only when those measures fail. Local companies are especially vulnerable to the whims of law enforcement agencies and a recent proliferation of repressive laws. But large, international companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have faced similar demands due to their significant popularity and reach." (Page 1)
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"This report examines self-regulation in challenging times. Journalism is increasingly a single stream of information disseminated simultaneously across different platforms of media, but its regulation remains dominated by old-fashioned notions of how media work. Usually there are two ways of regula
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ting journalism at national level: a voluntary system for the press and legal controls over broadcasting. These structures were created for yesterday’s media landscape and are increasingly out of date. Today’s digital journalists work on video, print and audio simultaneously. That’s why it makes sense to have only one national regulator, and one that covers all platforms of journalism. Another testing issue is the question of funding. Ideally, journalists and media should pay the bills for press councils, but in these cash-strapped days can media continue to afford it? Increasingly, the answer is no. So who will pay in future? Perhaps we should think about using public funds, after all, independent regulation of media is a public interest activity. But if we use taxpayers’ money how do we ensure it won’t compromise editorial independence? Finally, as this report shows, making self-regulation work at enterprise level is perhaps what counts most. Building trust with the audience should be an issue in every newsroom and the growth in the number of in-house ombudsmen or readers’ editors is a welcome sign that more media are taking the issue seriously. However, in the face of editorial cuts some managements still question money being channelled into cleaning up the mistakes of the newsroom. But as this report illustrates, keeping journalism honest is money well spent for media and, for the public at large, it’s a good investment in democracy." (Introduction, page v)
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"This report surveys the changing patterns of media consumption in 65 countries across the world, and forecasts how the amount of time people allocate to different media will change between 2014 and 2017. It measures the amount of time spent reading newspapers and magazines, watching television, lis
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tening to the radio, visiting the cinema, using the internet, and viewing outdoor advertising while out of the home. Note that the extent of information available varies considerably from market to market. For some countries we have a full breakdown of consumption figures across all media, with separate figures for desktop and mobile internet, with historical figures back to 2010 and forecasts to 2014, plus monthly breakdowns for consumption across the year, and hourly breakdowns for consumption across the day. For a few countries there is very little research on media consumption trends, so we are able to present only a limited set of figures. We expect the scope of the report to expand in future editions, both by adding new countries and by providing more details for countries where information is currently sparse." (Introduction)
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"Esta nueva publicación compila, analiza y socializa información socio demográ ca sobre las poblaciones indígenas de los países del SICSUR. Además, contribuye a difundir las politicas culturales relativas a los pueblos indígenas, que han sido adoptadas por los diversos paises del SICSUR. El S
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istema de Información Cultural del Mercosur (SICSUR) es un espacio dedicado a la construcción de metodologías estandarizadas y datos válidos sobre el campo cultural en América del Sur." (Tapa posterior)
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"In 2014, Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, Colombia and Argentina, in that order, were the top five countries in the production of national fiction hours. Once again, Brazil and Mexico, despite the drop suffered by the latter, continued to be the largest producers of fiction in the Ibero-American region. I
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n contrast, Peru and Ecuador had the lowest offer of national fiction hours, while Uruguay did not produce hours of national fiction during 2014." (Page 39)
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"Video games have become a global industry, and their history spans dozens of national industries where foreign imports compete with domestic productions, legitimate industry contends with piracy, and national identity faces the global marketplace. This volume describes video game history and cultur
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e across every continent, with essays covering areas as disparate and far-flung as Argentina and Thailand, Hungary and Indonesia, Iran and Ireland. Most of the essays are written by natives of the countries they discuss, many of them game designers and founders of game companies, offering distinctively firsthand perspectives. Some of these national histories appear for the first time in English, and some for the first time in any language." (Back cover)
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"This Global Information Society Watch tracks the state of communications surveillance in 57 countries across the world – countries as diverse as Hungary, India, Argentina, The Gambia, Lebanon and the United Kingdom. Each country report approaches the issue from a different perspective. Some analy
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se legal frameworks that allow surveillance, others the role of businesses in collecting data (including marketing data on children), the potential of biometrics to violate rights, or the privacy challenges when implementing a centralised universal health system. The perspectives from long-time internet activists on surveillance are also recorded. Using the 13 International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance as a starting point, eight thematic reports frame the key issues at stake. These include discussions on what we mean by digital surveillance, the implications for a human rights agenda on surveillance, the “Five Eyes” inter-government surveillance network led by the US, cyber security, and the role of intermediaries." (GIS website)
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"Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fourth consecutive year, with a growing number of countries introducing online censorship and monitoring practices that are simultaneously more aggressive and more sophisticated in their targeting of individual users. In a departure from the pa
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st, when most governments preferred a behind-the-scenes approach to internet control, countries are rapidly adopting new laws that legitimize existing repression and effectively criminalize online dissent." (Page 1)
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"This dissertation explores the role of community media in democratic civil society governance through an examination of participatory communications under socialist administrations in Latin America, with a primary focus on the Bolivarian government of Venezuela. In so doing, it seeks to establish a
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theoretical framework that will facilitate publicly supported democratic media systems capable of displacing hegemonic commercial and state models. One major axis of investigation is the utility of public sphere theory for the structuration of participatory media institutions that function within a system of civil society governance." (Abstract)
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"La cultura es la riqueza de los pueblos que defienden su identidad y que tratan de reinventarse en un mundoglobalizado, multicultural y diverso. Es imprescindible, pues, impulsar la reflexión sobre el papel de la cultura en su desarrollo. Esta segunda edición del estudios "Cultura y desarrollo ec
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onómico en Iberoamérica" aborda el efecto de la cultura en el desarrollo económico de nuestros paíse, y llega a una conclusión impactante: los aportes de la cultura al desarrollo económico de los países son muy superiores a los presupuestos que los mismos países beneficiados invierten en el desarrollo de la cultura. Finalmente, el estudio pon en relieve que aún falta mucho camino por recorrer para que todos los países lleguen a destinar al menos el 1% de su presupuesto a la inversión cultural, tal como se aprobó en la Conferencia de Ministros de Cultura celebrada en Chile, en Julio de 2007." (Tapa posterior)
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"Media Systems and Communication Policies in Latin America proposes, tests and analyses the liberal captured model. It explores to what extent to which globalisation, marketization, commercialism, regional bodies and the nation State redefine the media's role in Latin American societies." (Publisher
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description)
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"This is the first collection to de-Westernize the scholarship on women, politics and media by: 1) highlighting the latest research on countries and regions that have not been ‘the usual suspects’; 2) featuring a diverse group of scholars, many of non-Western origin; 3) giving voice through pers
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onal interviews to politically active women, thus providing the reader with a rare insight into women's agency in the political structures of emerging democracies. Each chapter examines the complex women, politics and media dynamic in a particular nation-state, taking into consideration the specific political, historic and social context. With 23 case studies and interviews from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Russia and the former Soviet republics, this volume will be of interest to students, media scholars and policy makers from developed and emerging democracies." (Publisher description)
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"The structure of this Yearbook is divided in three parts. The first part is an introduction chapter that makes a comparative synthesis of fiction in Obitel countries. This comparison is made from a quantitative and qualitative perspective that allows us to observe fiction development in each countr
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y, pointing out its main products as well as the topic of the year: transmedia production strategies in television fiction. The second part includes 12 chapters (one for each country) with an internal structure in which sections of the Yearbook are usually constant, although some are more specific than others." (Pages 19-20)
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"Through the methodological framework of the Networked Readiness Index (NRI), the report measures the extent to which 144 economies, from both the developed and developing worlds, take advantage of ICTs and other new technologies to increase their growth and well-being. The NRI identifies the most r
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elevant factors driving ICT readiness and impacts, providing policymakers, business leaders, and civil society at large with a useful tool for designing national strategies for increased networked readiness and for benchmarking their country’s performance against other relevant comparators. The Global Information Technology Report 2013 features the latest computation and rankings of the NRI, and in referring to this year’s theme, dives deeper into the connection between ICTs and economic growth and job creation. As in previous years, it also showcases a number of ICT development stories of particular interest. In addition, the report includes detailed profiles for the 144 economies covered this year together with data tables for each of the 54 indicators used in the computation of the NRI." (Back cover)
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"John Sinclair and Joseph D. Straubhaar provide a comprehensive account of television production, distribution and reception in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Latin American countries, showing how Mexican and Brazilian programmes have dominated in the region, and placing regional output in the con
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text of the global television industry." (Publisher description)
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