"In the twenty-first century, community radio is fulfilling an increasingly important role in the world’s mediascape. This book documents the ways in which community radio broadcasters and activists are using the medium in countries around the world to challenge political corruption, aid the trans
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ition to political democracy and broadcast voices that are otherwise unheard. The contributors to the volume are academics and practitioners from five continents, many with first-hand experience of community radio. Each chapter demonstrates the pivotal role that small radio stations can play in developing, sustaining and invigorating communities. The book charts campaigns for the legalisation of community radio and relates them to a theoretical context, while providing illustrations and examples from community radio stations around the world." (Publisher description)
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"This book focuses on the impact of digital media use for political engagement across varied geographic and political contexts, using a diversity of methodological approaches and datasets. The book addresses an important gap in the contemporary literature on digital politics, identifying context dep
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endent and transcendent political consequences of digital media use. While the majority of the empirical work in this field has been based on studies from the United States and United Kingdom, this volume seeks to place those results into comparative relief with other regions of the world. It moves debates in this field of study forward by identifying system-level attributes that shape digital political engagement across a wide variety of contexts. The evidence analyzed across the fifteen cases considered in the book suggests that engagement with digital environments influences users' political orientations and that contextual features play a significant role in shaping digital politics." (Publisher description)
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"Through enhancing reflection on the treatment of cultural diversity in contemporary Western societies, this collection aims to move the debate beyond the opposition between ethnicity and citizenship and demonstrate ways to achieve equality in multicultural and globalised societies." (Publisher desc
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ription)
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"For community radio stations, one important gauge of relevance is the Popularity of their programming outputs, as without evidence of this it is difficult to justify providing access to scarce broadcast frequency resources. In part, the popularity ofprogramming outputs can be assessed through varia
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nts of the type ofquantitative research carried out for larger stations by the Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (RAJAR). However because such research ‘does not produce listening figures for a particular Programme on a particular day‘ (Lister et al 2010: 67) it cannot provide detailed qualitative data concerning how satisfied individuals are with the speciflc content of Particular programming. More broadly, its generic audience sample is not best suited to surveying niche listening, such as, for example, to minority language outputs. With the above in mind, how might individual community radio stations approach the issue of audience research so that they can obtain cost-effective and reasonably reliable data suitable for their needs? The following case study examines the approach taken by one particular community radio station serving a ‘community of place' that is the city of Norwich in the east of England." (Page 349)
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"The study focused on the following themes: how and under what conditions are priority target groups for engagement with development policy issues in China, France, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States most likely to engage; what factors influence and motivate both engagement and policy dec
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ision-making by members of these target groups; through which communication channels can members of these groups be accessed most readily and with the greatest impact. The research included a total of 128 in-depth interviews with influentials and government decision-makers; surveys of 3,824 interested citizens, and focus group discussions with 160 interested citizens." (Summary of key findings, page 3)
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"Based on a representative survey of online news consumers across five countries – UK, US, Germany, France and Denmark – the report is the start of an ambitious project to track changing digital news behaviour over the next decade. Key international findings: There are significant differences in
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how regularly people keep up with the news across our surveyed countries. More than 9 in 10 Germans access the news at least once a day compared with only 3 in 4 people in the United Kingdom. The rapid switch from print to digital in the United States is not being replicated exactly in European countries. Germany is showing the strongest allegiance to traditional viewing and reading habits and has the lowest levels of internet news use. In the UK, news about politics is perceived to be less important – and celebrity news more important – compared to the other countries surveyed. There is more interest in business and especially economic news in the UK and the US than in the European countries surveyed." (Publisher description)
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"This paper will use the example of the approach taken by UK Community Radio station, 'Future Radio' to obtain both quantitative data primarily through street surveys and qualitative data through on-line questionnaires, exploring why the station felt such research to be both necessary and beneficial
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. Showing how reasonably accurate data can be obtained on a cost-effective basis, issues of accuracy and practical difficulties will also be explored. Finally, the paper will examine some of the opportunities and challenges raised by the changing nature of radio listening and interaction brought about by new methods of consumption such as Internet streaming and mobile 'smart-phone' applications." (Abstract)
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"Der hier vorgestellte Ansatz untersucht die empirischen Leistungen der Medien für die demokratische Freiheit in Gesellschaften mit Hilfe einer Reihe von demokratietheoretisch abgeleiteten Indikatoren. Diese betreffen sowohl die gesamtgesellschaftlichen Medienstrukturen, als auch die konkreten Leis
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tungen einzelner Medienorganisationen. Die empirische Basis bilden Erhebungen aus neun europäischen Ländern und Australien, wobei insbesondere das relative Abschneiden Deutschlands im Vergleich mit den anderen Ländern dargestellt und erläutert wird." (Zusammenfassung)
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"GISWatch 2012 explores how the internet is being used to ensure transparency and accountability, the challenges that civil society activists face in fighting corruption, and when the internet fails as an enabler of a transparent and fair society. The eight thematic reports and 48 country reports pu
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blished ask provocative questions such as: Is a surveillance society necessarily a bad thing if it fights corruption? And how successful have e-government programmes been in fighting corruption? They explore options for activism by youth and musicians online, as well as the art of using visual evidence to expose delusions of power. By focusing on individual cases or stories of corruption, the country reports take a practical look at the role of the internet in combating corruption at all levels." (Back cover)
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"The Global Journalist in the 21st Century systematically assesses the demographics, education, socialization, professional attitudes and working conditions of journalists in various countries around the world. This book updates the original Global Journalist (1998) volume with new data, adding more
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than a dozen countries, and provides material on comparative research about journalists that will be useful to those interested in doing their own studies. The editors put together this collection working under the assumption that journalists' backgrounds, working conditions and ideas are related to what is reported (and how it is covered) in the various news media round the world, in spite of societal and organizational constraints, and that this news coverage matters in terms of world public opinion and policies. Outstanding features include:"Coverage of 33 nations located around the globe, based on recent surveys conducted among representative samples of local journalist, comprehensive analyses by well-known media scholars from each country, a section on comparative studies of journalists and an appendix with a collection of survey questions used in various nations to question journalists" (Publisher description)
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"The SuBMoJour study has mapped journalistic startups in nine countries. It has created an online database detailing the business models of journalistic startups that are deemed sustainable (www.SuBMoJour.net) and this accompanying narrative report. The study supports research to date that online en
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vironments offer the necessary market characteristics for niche journalistic sites and content production. There is a rich and diverse set of media case studies in the database, all with their unique interpretation of serving communities or reportage. The study was carried out across 12 months with a team of international researchers. Where it was hard to evidence entirely new revenue sources, it was however possible to find new ways in which revenue sources have been combined or reconfigured. Most of the 69 case studies have diversified their income to include more than one revenue source. As such, there is potential innovation in new business models by way of combining revenue sources in new and interesting ways to make their sites profitable in the long term. Some sites, particularly those born to support products, which were very much of the net, have rebundled or recombined revenue streams in relatively innovative ways." (Conclusion, page 116)
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"Audience segmentation is generally associated with strategic communication (such as advertising and public relations), where content is manipulated to suit reader preferences. News has generally been considered truth-telling unvarnished by such concerns. This article compares how news of the same h
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umanitarian crisis [in Darfur, Sudan] was designed by 10 news organizations in seven countries for different market segments. Comparisons showed statistically significant differences in representation, influenced in part by what the audience-market was. Like advertising, news seemed to share an attribute with the strategic design of advertising and public relations. Increasingly carried online, news will be vulnerable to click-based customization of content like advertising is, taking us beyond currently observed geopolitical influences on segmentation to advertiser and market-based differences." (Abstract)
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"In order to maintain competitive edge over both domestic rivals and international competition, Chinese television companies have been looking abroad for ideas. A number of political and commercial concerns have come together to inform a sudden interest by Chinese media companies in creativity and i
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nnovation. Hunan TV has been at the forefront, carefully deciding on the United Kingdom and selecting partners with which to work. In the course of its explorations abroad, Hunan has changed its objectives from narrowly technical and managerial ones to strategic ones. It now buys foreign formats, develops its own ideas, and looks forward to exporting those ideas and perhaps formats abroad, a hitherto inconceivable ambition that reflects urgent Chinese government concerns about the country's need to expand its international 'soft power'. Meanwhile, Hunan TV's initiatives have not gone unnoticed elsewhere in China, and other television companies are following suit. This article describes how this came about and what measures are being undertaken as a result of it, and discusses the implications of such ambitions." (Abstract)
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"This report is the third in a series of comprehensive studies of internet freedom around the globe and covers developments in 47 countries that occurred between January 2011 and May 2012. Over 50 researchers, nearly all based in the countries they analyzed, contributed to the project by researching
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laws and practices relevant to the internet, testing the accessibility of select websites, and interviewing a wide range of sources. This year's findings indicate that restrictions on internet freedom in many countries have continued to grow, though the methods of control are slowly evolving, becoming more sophisticated and less visible. Brutal attacks against bloggers, politically motivated surveillance, proactive manipulation of web content, and restrictive laws regulating speech online are among the diverse threats to internet freedom emerging over the past two years. Nevertheless, several notable victories have also occurred as a result of greater activism by civil society, technology companies, and independent courts, illustrating that efforts to advance internet freedom can yield results." (www.freedomhouse.org, January 14, 2013)
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"Whether at a local, national, or international level, radio has played and continues to play a key role in nurturing or denying—even destroying—people’s sense of collective identity. The essays in this volume provide a historical and contemporary overview of radio in small nations. A number o
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f representative small nations are featured: some grappling with new postcolonial identities and others still operating under repressive regimes; some struggling to find a new common purpose in the postindustrial age and others unifying previously ignored ethnic or language groups. As a whole, the collection strives to present diverse voices commenting on the influential and essential place of radio within these countries." (Publisher description)
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