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Les transformations postsoviétiques des médias et du journalisme russes

Elena Vartanova

Paris: L'Harmattan (2020), 232 pp.

"Existe-t-il un chemin particulier d’ouverture d’un système médiatique à l’économie, aussi épineux soit-il ? C’est justement le fil rouge de cette monographie, qui examine, sur la base de données empiriques et théoriques, les processus de transformation du journalisme et des médias d ... more

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Freedom of Expression in Times of Covid-19: Chilling Effect in Hungary and Serbia

Kristina Cendic, Gergely Gosztonyi

Journal of Liberty and International Affairs, volume 6, issue 2 (2020), pp. 14-29

"New technologies have opened several risks to safety of journalists. More importantly, in the state of emergency caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, journalists and media actors have shifted their activities online more than ever, which also made them more prone to digital threats and attacks. In some ... more

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Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories

Michael Butter, Peter Knight (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2020), xx, 680 pp.

"Taking a global and interdisciplinary approach, the Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories provides a comprehensive overview of conspiracy theories as an important social, cultural and political phenomenon in contemporary life. This handbook provides the most complete analysis of the phenomenon ... more

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Das ist keine Propaganda: Wie unsere Wirklichkeit zertrümmert wird

Peter Pomerantsev

Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb), Sonderausg. (2020), 295 pp.

"Auf der ganzen Welt nutzen unterschiedlichste Akteure die Wirkungsmechanismen der digitalen Medien aus, um durch gezielte Desinformationskampagnen die öffentliche Meinung zu beeinflussen. Dies, so lautet die zentrale These von Peter Pomerantsev, bedrohe Demokratien und Demokratisierungsprozesse. W ... more

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The Public Sphere in Russia Between Authoritarianism and Liberation

Tatiana Weiser, Greg Yudin (eds.)

Javnost: The Public, volume 27, issue 1 (2020), pp. 2-96

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World Entertainment Media: Global, Regional and Local Perspectives

Paolo Sigismondi (ed.)

New York; London: Routledge (2020), xvi, 210 pp.

"There are still opposing and restraining forces to globalization processes taking place in media, and the global mediascape comprises international, regional and local markets, and global and local players, which in recent years have evolved at an uneven pace. By analyzing similarities and differen ... more

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Digital Inequalities in the Global South

Massimo Ragnedda, Anna Gladkova (eds.)

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (2020), xvii, 372 pp.

"This book discusses how digital inequalities today may lead to other types of inequalities in the Global South. Contributions to this collection move past discussing an access problem - a binary division between 'haves and have-nots' - to analyse complex inequalities in the internet use, benefits, ... more

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Media Influence Matrix: Slovakia

Marius Dragomir

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS), 2nd, updated ed. (2020), 110 pp.

"Seemingly, Slovaks have access to a wealth of news sources. In reality, though, the market is concentrated in the hands of a few large players. Powerful financial groups such as Penta Investments and J&T, and a handful of magnates including Ivan Kmotrik and Andrej Babis (who is also Czech Republic� ... ��s prime minister) exert decisive influence in the ownership of most major media companies. They are also close to politicians (if they are not themselves one), which means big leverage in regulatory affairs. The entry on the Slovak market of PPF, a Czech financial group led by another wealthy oligarch, Petr Kellner, which bought Markiza TV in 2019, is further cementing the oligarchic control in the country’s media. The Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic known as PMU is much responsible for the shape of the Slovak media market. It has been the PMU that approved a spate of merger cases allowing the expansion of some media owners. Decisions by the PMU in 2015-2016 allowed Penta Investments to take over several major publishers. It was one of these deals that prompted journalists from the daily Sme (acquired by Penta) to leave and set up DennikN. Civil society exerts little influence. International groups are not effective either. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a Vienna-based intergovernmental group, has some political leverage, but that does not materialize in any earth-shattering policy changes or palpable improvements for journalists. For example, in early March 2018, Harlem Desir, the head of media at OSCE, called on Slovak authorities in a meeting in Bratislava to investigate the killing by unknown assaulters in February 2018 of the Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak. Instead, two months later, Slovak police began to harass Pavla Holcova, a Slovak journalist who was trying to help with the police investigation. It was only after massive pressures from citizens and journalism groups from abroad that four people were finally charged in October 2019 over Kuciak’s killing. Besides regulation, tightly controlled by authorities and highly politicized, the government plays also a direct role in the Slovak media market. Funding from license fees collected from all Slovak households and state budget makes the public broadcaster RTVS the largest player in the country’s media with a budget in excess of €115m. That is not necessarily bad. For some years, the Slovak public got its money’s worth. The station earned a feather in its cap for improved programming." (Key findings, pages 6-7) more

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Countering Russian & Chinese Influence Activities: Examining Democratic Vulnerabilities & Building Resiliency

Cyrus Newlin, Heather A. Conley, Amy Searight, Tim Kostelancik, Rachel Ellehuus, Jeffrey Mankoff, Devin Stewart

Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) (2020), v, 31 pp.

"With their heavily censored and restricted civil societies at home, China and Russia exploit the asymmetry of democratic systems by targeting open information environments, freedom of expression, participatory civic discourse, and pluralistic and fluid politics. Democracies have unique vulnerabilit ... more

Digital News Report 2020

Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Anne Schulz, Simge Andi, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2020), 111 pp.

"The bulk of this report is based on data collected by a survey of more than 80,000 people in 40 markets and reflects media usage in January/February just before the coronavirus hit many of these countries. But the key trends that we document here, including changes in how people access news, low tr ... more

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Der Buchmarkt in Russland: Infrastruktur und die wichtigsten Branchenentwicklungen

Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurter Buchmesse (2020), 36 pp.

More-Troll Kombat: French and Russian Influence Operations Go Head to Head Targeting Audiences in Africa

Graphika (2020), 83 pp.

"On December 15, Facebook announced that it had taken down three separate networks that it had discovered for “coordinated inauthentic behavior” that targeted communities across Africa. One, centered on the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali, was linked to individuals associated with the Fr ... more

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Media Capture

Russian Analytical Digest, issue 258 (2020), 16 pp.

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Counterpublics, Attitudes, and Social Change in Authoritarian Regimes: An Analysis of Digital Communities on Russian YouTube

Eduard Anaskin

Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) (2020), 31 pp.

"By examining Russian YouTube, this article has attempted to show how in this particular digital environment a shift in social attitudes and the emergence of counterpublics are likely to occur, thus advancing a bottom-up approach to social change. The paper has proceeded in three steps. The first se ... more

"Big Changes Start Small": Stories of People Making a Difference. An Impact Report

Bonn: Deutsche Welle DW Akademie (2020), 97 pp.

"DW Akademie collects and documents the impacts of its projects through a range of methods. There are three approaches that are currently standard in development cooperation: Applied studies, which enable new insights on impacts, impact-oriented monitoring performed with local partners in the course ... more

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Journalism and Communication in China and the West: A Study of History, Education and Regulation

Bing Tong

Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan (2020), xxi, 366 pp.

"This book sheds new light on the study of journalism and communication, considering why and how journalism is studied in the 21st century. It notably offers both an international and interdisciplinary comparison of journalism and communication, examining the history of Chinese and Western journalis ... more

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A Lockdown for Independent Media? Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Media Landscape and Press Freedom in Central and Southeast Europe

Maxim Edwards (ed.)

Budapest: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES);N-ost Netzwerk für Osteuropa-Berichterstattung (2020), 37 pp.

"Correspondents in nine countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and North Macedonia – have analysed how the pandemic has affected to their work environment. Lockdowns have caused print media sales and advertising revenue to collapse. Media w ... more

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Routledge Handbook of Environmental Journalism

David B. Sachsman, JoAnn Myer Valenti (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2020), xx, 421 pp.

"An increasing number of media platforms - from newspapers and television to Internet social media networks - are the major providers of indispensable information about the natural world and environmental risk. Despite the dramatic changes in the news industry that have tended to reduce the number o ... more

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How to lose the information war: Russia, fake news, and the future of conflict

Nina Jankowicz

London: Tauris (2020), xxvii, 259 pp.

"Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, however, have be ... more