"With regards to professional role orientations, journalists in El Salvador found it most important to report things as they are, to monitor and scrutinize political leaders, to educate the audience, and to let people express their views. The relevance of these roles was fairly undisputed among the
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interviewed journalists as the relatively low standard deviations indicate.
Still, a majority of journalists in El Salvador found it important to support national development, to promote tolerance and cultural diversity, to advocate for social change, to provide information people need to make political decisions, to influence public opinion, and to set the political agenda. Political roles like supporting government policy, conveying a positive image of political leadership, and acting as an adversary of the government were supported by only a minority of respondents." (Journalistic roles, pages 1-2)
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"CTA’s ICT4Ag project (2014–15) enabled seven organisations in Africa and the Caribbean to develop, test and promote information services for smallscale farmers and fishers, traders and lobbying groups. Key recommendations: Understanding users’ needs requires intensive interaction with potenti
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al clients before designing the app. Pilot testing can fine-tune the app and introduce it to the users. Simple or fancy? Many users still lack a smartphone needed to display graphics, but have a “feature phone” that can send and receive text messages. Offering a text-based service is cheaper and easier than developing and maintaining a graphical interface. Face-to-face promotion and training familiarise users with the app and help build a large client base. In the medium term, however, user fees are unlikely to sustain such services; they will still depend on other sources of income, espcially donor funds. Partnerships are vital – both as a source of data to analyse and disseminate, and for support in promoting the app among clients." (Page 1)
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"The survey establishes that from 2010 to 2014, copyright industries in Ecuador experienced rapid growth and increased their share of GDP from 3.65 per cent to 4.47 per cent, or 3,116 million US dollars in monetary terms. In 2014, the creative sector generated 3.47 per cent of national employment (2
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40,497 jobs), a decline from the 4.03 per cent generated in 2010. During this period, Ecuador remained a net importer of creative goods and services. While the Ecuadorian economy expanded during this period by 23.5 per cent, the valueadded in constant prices generated by the creative sector rose by 51 per cent, suggesting a sustained positive trend and considerable growth. The largest contribution was generated by the core copyright industries, which accounted for 57 per cent of the total value-added by the sector and themselves grew by 76.3 per cent, cementing their status as the most dynamic component of the creative sector. Among the core copyright industries, the main drivers were software and databases (33.8 per cent with a growth rate of 196 per cent), followed by advertising services (32.1 per cent with a growth rate of 102.5 per cent). The traditionally strong publishing industry (press and literature) saw its share decrease from 30.3 per cent to 16.8 per cent, but remained the largest employer in the creative sector with 28 per cent of total employment, followed by advertising (17 per cent), software (12 per cent) and radio and television (11 per cent). Collecting societies experienced remarkable growth – 215.3 per cent – in the collection and distribution of copyright royalties." (Executive summary, page 7)
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"Letters to the editor published by two Colombian newspapers during 1999–2008 were examined. Most addressed themes, domestic politics and the citizens’ affairs, were analyzed herein to describe emotions from a qualitative perspective. Findings showed that the internal armed conflict was the main
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driving force to express the individual’s emotions and judgments. Significant events triggering a wide range of emotions were identified. Two units of meaning emerged: patriotism under siege, to account for people’s love for the nation regardless of their affliction; and fear, the predominant emotion, to explain public distress caused by this intractable conflict. Being aware of the public’s emotional condition questions whether it is worth considering the paradigm of objectivity as an ethical ideal in the journalistic field. It also encourages reporting conflicts through the perspective of peace journalism, emphasizing possible solutions. Since Colombia is currently moving to a post-conflict phase, this could help to heal the social issue." (Abstract)
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"Governments around the world have dramatically increased their efforts to manipulate information on social media over the past year. The Chinese and Russian regimes pioneered the use of surreptitious methods to distort online discussions and suppress dissent more than a decade ago, but the practice
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has since gone global. Such state-led interventions present a major threat to the notion of the internet as a liberating technology. Online content manipulation contributed to a seventh consecutive year of overall decline in internet freedom, along with a rise in disruptions to mobile internet service and increases in physical and technical attacks on human rights defenders and independent media. Nearly half of the 65 countries assessed in Freedom on the Net 2017 experienced declines during the coverage period, while just 13 made gains, most of them minor. Less than one-quarter of users reside in countries where the internet is designated Free, meaning there are no major obstacles to access, onerous restrictions on content, or serious violations of user rights in the form of unchecked surveillance or unjust repercussions for legitimate speech." (Page 1)
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"This chapter aims to introduce the concept of an information intervention as an example of humanitarian action. Typically associated negatively with government efforts to incite conflict and tension, two case studies are explored-Haiti and Syria-to better understand how state-led information interv
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entions can contribute to the restoration of normalcy (Haiti) and the development of community-led civil society (Syria). Of course, both Haiti and Syria remain in flux, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions on the efficacy of these efforts. That said, in both cases, there is evidence of effectiveness. Reports from Haiti indicate that the information intervention provided a crucial backbone for additional humanitarian relief, without which Haitians would have faced far worse devastation. In Syria, the emergence of a robust civil society sector, despite the fact that nearly half of Syrians are now internally or externally displaced, speaks to the capacity for open communications mediums and technologies to facilitate productive storytelling and information sharing." (Conclusion)
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"In Latin America, the role of the media in democratic societies has recently become the subject of public debates, struggles and political mobilizations that have denaturalized the existing media order and established a distinct policy agenda oriented towards media democratization. This region-wide
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trend – a counter-tendency to the globally dominant market-driven orientation of media and telecommunication policies – requires explanation. This article stresses that it cannot be attributed to a spontaneous reaction to market concentration or media elitism, just as it cannot be reduced to a top-down process driven by populist leaders seeking to control the media. Drawing on social movement literature, the article traces four interacting processes – domestic network mobilization, reframing processes, transnational activism and changes in political elite alignments – that have brought about the unprecedented politicization of the Latin American media order." (Abstract)
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"The idea of rules limiting concentration of media ownership is often cast by media owners as a restriction on their right to freedom of expression. Unfortunately, the behaviour of States in Latin America has often lent support to this perspective, especially when States abuse for political ends the
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ir power to provide for regulation of the media. International law has a clear answer to both of these problems. By protecting the rights of both the speaker and the listener, international law provides an alternative view of the claim that limits on media ownership are simply restrictions on freedom of expression. Instead, by promoting a plurality of voices in the public sphere, such limits enhance the right of listeners to receive a diversity of information and ideas, which is essential to the exercise of full citizenship, political participation, robust cultural expression and many other important values in society. Thus what at first blush may appear as a restriction on the expressive rights of speakers is also a form of protection for the freedom of expression rights of listeners." (Conclusion)
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"Frente a la tendencia regional y global que lleva a gobiernos y a proveedores de servicio a acumular una cantidad cada vez mayor de información sobre sus usuarios, este estudio intenta una aproximación comparada a la manera en que las legislaciones de México, Brasil, Colombia, Perú, Argentina y
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Chile abordan la retención de datos y el registro de teléfonos móviles, de cara a sus obligaciones y compromisos internacionales en el marco interamericano, y en particular en relación a los proyectos legislativos que en Chile buscan realizar cambios al actual marco regulatorio de las telecomunicaciones." (Resumen)
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"This paper aims to understand the motivations, decision-making processes, and missions of the producers of new Cuban media using interviews with journalists recruited from the wider group of twenty non-governmental publications. In ten semi-structured interviews, participants described their person
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al and professional motivations and their understandings of the missions of their publications. Through conversations with participants, I also investigated the problem of operating media on the margins of legality in Cuba, and how this influences decisions about management, agenda setting and news coverage. Ultimately, the visions of new media producers about what they are doing and why they are doing it sometimes overlap, and at other times, contradict one another. However, to understand Cuba’s emerging new media landscape, it is important to understand the plurality of visions among the risk-taking innovators who produce new media content for Cuban citizens. I interviewed ten individual producers working for independent new media publications in the spring of 2017." (Methodology, page 5)
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"In this volume of essays edited by Anya Schiffrin, media capture is shown to be a growing phenomenon linked both to the resurgence of authoritarian governments as well as to the structural weaknesses presently afflicting media markets. In this environment, political figures and economic elites are
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colluding to undermine the independence of privately-owned media, and efforts to stop this collusion by activists, regulators, and the international community have proven to be ineffective." (Publisher description)
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According to the executive summary "Facebook’s Free Basics program aims to help bridge the digital divide through a mobile-based platform that allows users to connect to a handful of online services free of charge [...] This paper highlights the following findings: Language: Free Basics does not m
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eet the linguistic needs of target users [...] Content and usability: Free Basics features an imbalance of sites and services [...] Net neutrality: Free Basics violates net neutrality principles [...] Privacy: Facebook is accessing unique streams of user metadata from all user activities on Free Basics, not just the activities of users who are logged into Facebook." The Free Basics app was tested in six countries, with programs from five different operators: Colombia (Tigo), Ghana (Tigo), Kenya (Airtel), Mexico (Virgin Mobile), Pakistan (Telenor), and the Philippines (Globe).
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"Power in Brazil means family business, both traditionally and to this very day. Dynasties of landowners known as “Colonels” extend their territorial claims to the airwaves, combining economic and political interests with tight control of public opinion. Neither digital technology and the rise o
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f the internet nor occasional regulatory efforts seem to pose a serious challenge to these oligopolies. A joint investigation by the Brazilian NGO Intervozes and Reporters Without Borders between July and October 2017 now shows who are the key players and what are their respective other interests. The investigation comprises the 50 most important media outlets in Brazil and the 26 corporate groups owning them. Transparency about ownership of media companies remains low as there is no legal obligation for companies to disclose their shareholder structure." (http://www.mom-rsf.org)
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"Los jóvenes constituyentes del estudio -hombres y mujeres, estudiantes de primer año de licenciatura de la universidad pública y universidades privadas de la ciudad de La Paz- alcanzan el grado de competencia mediática Desfavorable, en la escala adecuada para la investigación. La categoría De
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sfavorable es el rango en el que se ubica el puntaje total logrado: 31,73 puntos, producto de la suma de los conseguidos en las ocho dimensiones. Ese puntaje total corresponde al 31,73% del 100% posible. Esto desvela un limitado nivel en la competencia mediática que poseen estas personas, dentro de los criterios establecidos para la presente investigación." (Balance y análisis, página 92)
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"El uso lúdico y libertario de las tecnologías digitales, iniciado por los primeros programadores y hacktivistas, se ha profundizado en las últimas décadas a partir de experiencias concretas que sorprenden en su irrupción y que contrastan con el desarrollo de estrategias tecnológicas para el c
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ontrol social y el provecho económico. A mediados de los noventa, el surgimiento espontáneo de una red de solidaridad con el EZLN fue un ejemplo inaugural del poder distribuido y transnacional de las redes activistas, agregaciones ad hoc, capaces de actuar e irrumpir a nivel global desde contextos diversos. El devenir de estas redes activistas en todo su esplendor dio lugar al movimiento altermundista. Al alimentar estas potencias, el activismo comunicativo y hacker cobró enorme relevancia en los albores del nuevo siglo, poniendo en escena formas de hacer que rompen códigos y los moldes de lo establecido." (Cubierta del libro)
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