"The current five-year Ukraine Media Project (U-Media) runs from October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2016 and is implemented by Internews. U-Media builds on the previous eight years of the Strengthening Independent Media in Ukraine Project, also known as U-Media and also implemented by Internews. The p
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roject has four objectives, with varying degrees of Level of Effort (LOE) prioritization included in parentheses: 1) Support and Promote Freedom of Speech and Media Independence (30%), 2) Increase the Variety of News Sources and Improve News Quality (40%), 3) Improve the Enabling Environment for Media and Freedom of Speech (20%), and 4) Improve Organizational Capacity of Ukrainian Media CSOs (10%) According to the original Request for Applications, at least 55% of the U-Media budget, originally $14 million (which has since increased to $15.85 million), should be used to fund local Ukrainian media organizations. U-Media provides grants to three types of beneficiaries— institutional partners, core partners, and emerging and short-term partners—to achieve these four objectives." (Project background, page vi)
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"Internet freedom has declined for the sixth consecutive year, with more governments than ever before targeting social media and communication apps as a means of halting the rapid dissemination of information, particularly during antigovernment protests. Public-facing social media platforms like Fac
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ebook and Twitter have been subject to growing censorship for several years, but in a new trend, governments increasingly target messaging and voice communication apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. These services are able to spread information and connect users quickly and securely, making it more difficult for authorities to control the information landscape or conduct surveillance. The increased controls show the importance of social media and online communication for advancing political freedom and social justice. It is no coincidence that the tools at the center of the current crackdown have been widely used to hold governments accountable and facilitate uncensored conversations." (Page 1)
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"Ukrainian mass media outlets are mostly driven by their owners’ individual interests and thus serve as instruments to securing political and economic power. Corruption and lack of financial transparency further inhibit the healthiness of the country’s media landscape. The Media Ownership Monito
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r Ukraine, carried out from July to October 2016 together with the Institute of Mass Information (IMI), showed that the Ukraine media is prone to power plays, more than ever. The Media Ownership Monitor pinpoints that concentration is especially high within the audio-visual and radio markets. The major four TV owners – StarLight Media, 1+1 Media, Inter Media and Media Group Ukraine – represent an audience share of more than three quarters. The top four radio groups even combine a reach of 92% of the audience in Ukraine: Tavr Radio Group, Ukrainian Media Holding, Business Radio Group and TRK Lux. Those media groups mainly belong to some of the richest in Ukraine, amongst others Viktor Pinchuk, Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Dmytro Firtash and Rinat Akhmetov. The print media and online sectors are less concentrated. Online media in particular offer much more pluralism and choice to Internet savvy Ukrainians." (http://www.mom-rsf.org)
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"Ukrainian journalists find it hard to remain neutral and independent when covering the conflict in their country. Many are torn between feelings of patriotism and their role as detached observers, new research has found. Of the 47 Ukrainian journalists, representing 42 different media outlets, inte
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rviewed for the study, most said they tried to adhere to ethical and journalistic standards when reporting the war in the Donbas region, eastern Ukraine, but added they did not want to ‘hurt’ the Ukrainian side through their reporting. The research found that few Ukrainian newsrooms offer guidance or support to journalists on how to cover the conflict. There are no written rules or agreed ethical standards and professional judgments are usually left to the journalists themselves. Ukrainian reporters working in the conflict zone tend to rely on their ‘gut instinct’, rather than instructions, the study revealed." (Publisher description)
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"Of the 939 identified main media literacy stakeholders, over a third were categorised as “civil society” (305), followed by “public authorities” (175) and “academia” (161). Over two-thirds of them do not have a statutory responsibility in this area and base their involvement on a differ
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ent motivation. 189 networks were identified and the vast majority of them (135) are operating at national level. Since the level of activity differs a lot between countries, of the maximum of 580 projects (20 possible projects for each of the 29 respondents, but not all of them were able to detect 20), only 547 were identified. The most common project type is “resources” (173); the second is “end-user engagement” (107). These two together account for more than half of all analysed projects, showing that providing frontline support to citizens is a priority. As to the a ddressed media literacy skills, “critical thinking” was the clear winner, being dealt with by 403 of the 547 projects, followed by “media use” (385). This trend is also confirmed by the case study analysis of the most significant 145 projects, which also feature projects on “intercultural dialogue” (46 of 145), including skills around challenging radicalisation and hate speech online." (Executive summary, page 3-4)
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"In Belarus more than 70 percent of those working in the media are women. The number of women producing media content is increasing. Women are well represented in middle management positions, but men still dominate positions at the highest level, with the highest wages. Journalism is a low-income pr
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ofession in Belarus. Many journalists, both men and women, must take on extra jobs in order to provide the necessities for their families. Journalism is not considered a prestigious profession – wages are low and it is difficult to realize ambitions. This is why men are leaving this area; journalism is becoming an industry in which mostly women work. In Belarus, both men and women have equal possibilities to study journalism. However, it is women who mainly study journalism, further promoting the feminization of the profession." (Key findings, page 7)
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"Das Thema Medien und Krieg wird in diesem Buch aus einer vierfachen Perspektive heraus behandelt. Es geht zum einen um die Frage nach der Berichterstattung über Kriege, zum zweiten um die Rolle von Medien im Krieg, drittens geht es darum, welche strukturellen Bedingungen von Krieg und Gesellschaft
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die Inhalte der Medien wie prägen und viertens um eine friedensstiftende Sicht auf diese Zusammenhänge. Das Fazit: Definitorisch gibt es kaum noch einen Unterschied zwischen medialer Kommunikation und Krieg." (Publisher description)
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"Conventional wisdom views globalization as a process that heralds the diminishing role or even 'death' of the state and the rise of transnational media and transnational consumption. Global Media and National Policies questions those assumptions and shows not only that the nation-state never left b
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ut that it is still a force to be reckoned with. With contributions that look at global developments and developments in specific parts of the world, it demonstrates how nation-states have adapted to globalization and how they still retain key policy instruments to achieve many of their policy objectives. This book argues that the phenomenon of media globalization has been overstated, and that national governments remain key players in shaping the media environment, with media corporations responding to the legal and policy frameworks they deal with at a national level." (Publisher description)
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"Considering both retrospective memories and the prospective employment of memories, Memory in a Mediated World examines troubled times that demand resolution, recovery and restoration. Its contributions provide empirically grounded analyses of how media are employed by individuals and social groups
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to connect the past, the present and the future." (Publisher description)
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"The world wars, genocides and extremist ideologies of the 20th century are remembered very differently across Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, resulting sometimes in fierce memory disputes. This book investigates the complexity and contention of the layers of memory of the troubled 20th ce
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ntury in the region. Written by an international group of scholars from a diversity of disciplines, the chapters approach memory disputes in methodologically innovative ways, studying representations and negotiations of disputed pasts in different media, including monuments, museum exhibitions, individual and political discourse and electronic social media. Analyzing memory disputes in various local, national and transnational contexts, the chapters demonstrate the political power and social impact of painful and disputed memories." (Publisher description)
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"In this issue we discuss some of the arguments and debates related to the highly charged and topical issue of Russia’s strategic narrative and how it is disseminated. Propaganda, in numerous forms, creates a barrier to more constructive engagement and dialogue. This issue’s contributors find th
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at Russia’s narrative is based on notions of encirclement by the West as part of a deliberate containment strategy that Russia feels duty bound to resist if it is to remain a great power. The West, for its part, acknowledges Russia’s power status and its legitimate right to seek such status, but questions the means it uses to that end. Propaganda constructs an artificial information reality and sows doubt by questioning the very existence of objective, reliable and credible facts. It can mobilize popular support against an external threat, as well as toward a positive goal. Propaganda thrives when notions of journalistic objectivity are sacrificed. The notion that there must be two sides to any given issue or event can undermine rational conclusions when one side relies on the power of implausible denials and direct lies. “You have your truth, and I have mine” is the mantra and motto of contemporary Russian information warfare." (Director's letter, page 4)
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"With well-organised and far-reaching weapons of information Russia has succeeded in sowing doubt about the need for democratic values and is therefore also undermining faith in democratic countries, weakening it. Russia government uses lies, concealment, and the manipulation of anything that can se
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rve their purpose—to turn citizens toward the ‘preferred’ direction. We are now faced with new and cunning forms of propaganda; a go-to source of information may turn out to be a false news outlet or a false Facebook ‘friend’. In the new information age, where borders between media fact and fiction are blurred, agents of propaganda seek to access citizens with messages presented in formats that discourage critical thinking. The main objectives of such attacks are to undermine democratic values—tolerance, minority rights, freedom of expression, the rule of law, and also loyalty to one’s country. In this war, democratic states are faced with unprecedented difficulties; in order to protect themselves they cannot fight the enemy using the same weapons the enemy uses, because then democracy would be no different than authoritarian rule. Democracies must choose mechanisms to counter hostile propaganda that comply with the rule of law and our fundamental values. This is difficult, but not impossible. In this publication, we have collected a number of expert opinions on what national governments, the EU, relevant institutions, and the media can do to win this war for the hearts and minds of the people." (Foreword)
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"The authors outline the topic of visuality in the 21st century in a trans- and interdisciplinary theoretical frame from philosophy through communication theory, rhetoric and linguistics to pedagogy. As some scholars of visual communication state, there is a significant link between the downgrading
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of visual sense making and a dominantly linguistic view of cognition. According to the concept of linguistic turn, everything has its meaning because we attribute meaning to it through language. Our entire world is set in language, and language is the model of human activities. This volume questions the approach in the imagery debate." (Back cover)
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"The crisis in Ukraine has accentuated the position of Russian television as the government’s strongest asset in its information warfare. The internet, however, allows other players to challenge the Kremlin’s narrative by providing counter-narratives and debunking distorted information and fake
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images. Accounting for the new media ecology—through which strategic narratives are created and interpreted, this article scrutinizes the narratives of allegedly fake news on Channel One, perceiving the fabricated stories as extreme projections of Russia’s strategic narratives, and the attempts of the Ukrainian fact-checking website Stopfake.org to counter the Russian narrative by refuting misinformation and exposing misleading images about Ukraine. Secondly, it analyses how Twitter users judged the veracity of these news stories and contributed to the perpetuation of strategic narratives." (Abstract)
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"El presente volumen recoge diferentes enfoques teóricos y metodológicos sobre las memorias, transiciones políticas e identidades en Alemania, Argentina y España, buscando establecer comparaciones y puntos de convergencia en sociedades signadas durante el siglo XX por regímenes políticos autor
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itarios y procesos de democratización paradigmáticos. Privilegia la reflexión a partir de fuentes orales, indagación en archivos, sitios de memoria y otros documentos como representaciones literarias y cinematográficas." (Descripción de la casa editorial)
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"International trade in creative industries showed sustained growth in the last decade. The global market for traded creative goods and services totaled a record $547billion in 2012, as compared to $302 billion in 2003. Exports from developing countries, led by Asian countries, were growing faster t
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han exports from developed countries. Among developed country regions, Europe is the largest exporter of creative goods. In 2012, the top 5 creative goods exporters included Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium. Exports of creative goods from developed economies grew during the period 2003 to 2012, with export earnings rising from $134 billion to $197 billion. Among developing countries, China is the largest exporter of creative goods. In 2012, the top 5 exporters were China, Hong Kong, China, India, Turkey and South Korea. Exports of creative goods from developing economies grew during the period 2003 to 2012, with export earnings rising from $87 billion to $272 billion. Developing countries are playing an increasingly important role in international trade in creative industries." (Executive summary)
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