"This report offers a fresh perspective on the information and media landscape in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). It presents insights into the human impacts of information challenges and articulates opportunities to design development programming. By bringing a ground-level
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, human understanding to the complex dynamics of conflict in the region, this report seeks to supplement other analyses conducted through geopolitical, historical, or security lenses." (Introduction, page 4)
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"This article explores the suppression of press freedoms in Turkey under the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government in the late 2000s. Drawing upon analyses of laws and legislation, surveys, reports, and interviews with journalists, it demonstrates how press censorship in Turkey has been act
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ivated through a dispersed network of state power, commercial forces, and self-Censorship. The article brings together critical analyses of state power, surveillance, corporate media, and self-Censorship, and sheds light on the AKP's financial sanctions on media conglomerates, its instrumentalization of a major political investigation known as the Ergenekon, and its crackdown on Kurdish journalists on charges of terrorism." (Abstract)
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"Im Mittelpunkt dieses Bandes steht die Thematisierung des Islam im zeitgenössischen Spielfilm: konkret das Aufeinanderprallen von islamischer und westlicher Kultur, sowohl im arabischen Raum, in der Türkei oder im Nahen Osten als auch in Westeuropa. Im Zentrum steht damit auch das Spannungsfeld z
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wischen Islam und Moderne beziehungsweise die Frage nach der Artikulation muslimischer Identität im europäischen Kontext. Wie wird der Islam im Film thematisiert und wie kommen Muslime heute im Kino vor? Welcher Blick bestimmt die filmische Auseinandersetzung mit dieser Weltreligion? Welche Bilder sind überhaupt angemessen? Wie werden die tatsächlichen Konflikte angesprochen? Welche Rolle spielt dabei die Religion? Und was bedeutet das für die Beziehungen des Islam zu den anderen Religionen, insbesondere zum Christentum? Die jeweiligen Fragen werden sowohl aus kultur- beziehungsweise religionswissenschaftlicher als auch aus theologischer Sicht bearbeitet." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Media Evolution on the Eve of the Arab Spring brings together some of the most celebrated and respected names in Arab media research to reflect on the communication conditions that preceded and made the Arab uprisings possible." (Publisher description)
"The Mapping Digital Media research confirms that digital television and the internet have had a radical impact on media businesses, journalists, and citizens at large. As might be expected, platforms distributing journalism have proliferated, media companies are revamping their operations, and citi
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zens have access to a cornucopia of news and information sources. Other findings were less foreseeable: digitization has brought no pressure to reform state broadcasters, less than one-third of countries found that digital media have helped to expand the social impact of investigative journalism, and digitization has not significantly affected total news diversity. The Global Findings reveal other common themes across the world: Governments and politicians have too much influence over who owns, operates, and regulates the media. Many media markets are rife with monopolistic, corrupt, or untransparent practices. It’s not clear where many governments and other bodies get their evidence for changes or updates to laws and policies on media and communication. Media and journalism online offer hope of new, independent sources of information, but are also a new battleground for censorship and surveillance. Data about the media worldwide are still uneven, unstandardized, and unreliable, and are often proprietary rather than freely accessible." (Website Open Society Foundations)
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"Examines how policymakers, the donor community, and the private sector have prioritized and sequenced ICT initiatives in the aftermath of conflict. Case studies look at countries at different stages of post-conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan, Liberia, Rwanda and Timor-Leste, and postrevolution
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in Tunisia. In addition, the report proposes a conceptual framework to understand how ICTs can contribute to improving service delivery and assisting with nation-building. The opening of the report gives an overview of the relationship between conflict, reconstruction, and the role of ICTs. It builds on experience within the Bank as well as on a wide range of practitioner, academic, and other literature. The second seeks to establish a framework for understanding the ways in which ICTs interact with societies in transition from violence to stability, and for leveraging their potential to further that transition. The roots of this lie in understanding two fields of study, policy and practice: analysis of conflict and post-conflict reconstruction, and analysis of ICTs and the development of an information society. three then analyses the relationship between these two fields and proposes a framework for analysis and policy development. The fourth makes a number of recommendations to the World Bank Group, to other donors and development actors, as well as to the governments of countries emerging from violent conflict, and suggests areas for further research." (Back cover)
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"This discussion paper studies several main sources to assess the health of ethical journalism in Pakistan today. It takes three main areas of conflict and examines the ethics of reporting in relation to them. They are faith based issues (the blasphemy charge against 14-year-old Rimsha Masih, a Yout
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ube video film which disrespected Islam and the persecution of the Hazara community in Balochistan); the coverage of conflict in the 2013 general election and the Pakistan media's coverage of Afghanistan." (Methodology, page 7)
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"The 2014 MSI study for Europe & Eurasia is marked by an overall constancy of scores, for better or worse. Taken as a whole, the average of 21 overall scores shows an increase of 0.01 compared with last year. Out of the 21 countries studied, 13 showed a change in score of less than 0.10. Of the rema
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ining eight showing significant change, five were headed in a negative direction while three showed improvement. The lack of change was in some cases a sign of resilience and part of a positive overall trend: for example, in Albania, Kosovo, and Moldova panelists noted that recent achievements are not eroding and the media as a whole are finding space to operate independently and are resistant to political control. However, in some cases, such as Ukraine and Serbia, the unchanged scores reflect a sense of frustration on the part of panelists—and a resolve to play a stronger role in bringing about change." (Executive summary)
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"The promotion of gender equality among journalists is a key objective of the SAMSN gender project going forward in 2014. The roundtables and the gender networking conference discussed strategies and campaigns that could address the issues faced by women in South Asia. The conference also put forwar
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d a common Gender Charter, from a charter adopted in Sri Lanka in 2006 that can clearly set out minimum standards, principles and actions needed to underpin gender equity in media and outline a practical program of action to support the achievement of equality in media workplaces, journalist organisations and the media itself." (Conclusion)
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"This report presents an up-to-date assessment of internet rights in Turkey, and has been prepared to coincide with the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2014 which is being hosted by Turkey in Istanbul from 2–5 September 2014. The IGF is a space that strives for a democratic and inclusive internet
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and this report assesses the Turkish government’s respect for international human rights standards in relation to freedom of expression online. The assessment [...] focuses on internet regulation, internet access, blocking, surveillance, liability of internet intermediaries, criminalisation of legitimate expression, and cyber-attacks. The report concludes with recommendations for actions to promote and protect an open and free internet in Turkey." (Abstract)
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"China’s concessionary loans and support to development projects have tended to shift balances of power by favouring certain actors over others and have challenged existing development paradigms, revitalizing ideas of the developmental state. Building on fieldwork conducted in Ghana, Ethiopia, and
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Kenya this article explains to which extent China’s entrance in the media and telecommunication sector actually challenges the dominant, Western-driven approaches to media development, promoting a state centred vision of the information society." (Abstract)
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"The Georgian public service broadcaster has been unable to develop into an autonomous and independent media organisation in spite of all the legal and institutional safeguards. It has been a victim of intense political manipulation and interference throughout its existence, and most domestic and ex
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ternal interventions to improve its position concentrated on changes in legislation and on administrative measures, which the political class has always been able to bypass or bend to its needs." (Conclusion)
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"Both in form and in content, this publication is unconventional in its approach to deconstructing and debating some prevailing imageries of migrants across Europe and specifically in Spain, the UK, Turkey and Poland. In this publication, four individual case studies of incidents that occurred recen
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tly in the media provide the starting points for an analysis of country-specific, cuitural and historical contexts that influence public perception of, and general attitudes to, migrants and migration. An eclectic mix of images from mainstreain rnedia sources - footage "found" and introduced by the cultural organisations of the DocNext Network -. represent how migrants arc portrayed, or in some cases, made invisible in each country. The images are snapshots of the representation of migrauts in media: they show how migrants are stereotyped, criminalised, racially categorised, objectified and subjected to hate speech, all of which serves to deny their individual voices and agency." (Preface)
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"The article identifies the drivers of media attention for climate change in three countries: Australia, Germany and India. It calculates the monthly amount of climate change-related coverage in two leading newspapers for each country in relation to all articles published in the respective newspaper
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s over a 15-year time span (1996–2010). Based on an explanatory model derived from agenda setting theory, punctuated equilibrium theory and multiple streams theory, it uses time series regression analysis to assess the influence of weather and climate characteristics as well as various social events and feedbacks on issue attention. The results show that weather and climate characteristics are no important drivers for issue attention in two of the three countries, and that societal activity, particularly international climate summits and the agenda building efforts from international non-governmental organizations, has stronger impacts on issue attention." (Abstract)
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