"Bangladeshi media have undergone significant changes since the 1990s. Despite a boom in the media industry, journalists are reluctant to uncover the misdeeds of politicians because of threats and torture. The media has been politicised in Bangladesh as media supporting the incumbent party in power
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work towards exposing the perceived misdeeds of the opposition. However, the empirical data show that there is a third category beyond this paradigm, which uncovers the political misdeeds across the parties to the wider populace." (Abstract)
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"This report is the cluster evaluation of 12 UNDEF-supported projects related to the media. It concerns projects that either focused on media capacity building or included a significant element of work with the media. The projects were implemented between 2007 and 2011; they lasted between 12 and 24
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months. The total budget of the 12 projects was US$3.519m (including evaluation costs of US$20,000 to 25,000 per project). Eleven of the projects covered individual countries – six projects in Africa (two of which in Sierra Leone), four in Asia, one in Europe – and one was global. National civil society organizations (CSOs) implemented four of the projects, while international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or their local affiliates implemented the other eight." (Executive summary)
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"Through the design, development and delivery of curricula and the training program in Afghanistan on the subject of media law, the hope is to empower Afghan lawyers to serve as a critical resource to journalists, media managers, and local government officials. Through the trainings, participants ch
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osen from various parts of Afghanistan will work with best practices and national and international media standards and principles. An Afghan-centric approach—necessary for strengthening national media and legal capacity—will be employed in addition to a comparative international approach. Topics included are Afghanistan’s media law; freedom of information; slander; defamation; libel; invasion of privacy; blasphemy; the interplay between Islam/religion and media law; and the interplay between Afghanistan’s constitutional law, criminal law and media law. Another element of the enabling environment is good management. Our hope is that this manual and the training program will contribute to improved media management by covering such subjects as transparency; improving legal protection for journalists; anti-trust rules; copyright law; contract law; licensing; trademarks; advertising; and intellectual property issues. In the area of telecommunications law, the project addresses topics such as the current state of Afghanistan’s telecom law; communication regulation and legislation; regulatory structures and regulatory models for communication; network interconnection and access; licensing; spectrum management; interconnection; access to networks, particularly in rural and underserved areas; improved business-friendly government regulation of the airwaves and licensing procedures; the regulatory regime for content delivered via SMS/IVR; the legal-regulatory framework for the Internet sector and for social media; electronic commerce; data protection and cyber-crime." (Foreward, pages ii-iii)
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"This paper presents the results of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) pilot survey on media statistics conducted in 28 countries in 2011. The survey instruments were designed to provide an initial set of quantitative indicators identified by UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators project. G
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iven the limitations of this sample survey, this report is intended to highlight the scope of the questionnaire items while describing initial results. Further analysis of the indicators and trends will be made in the future as the data collection is expanded to include a greater number of countries. Chapter 1 focuses on indicators related to the regulatory environment in which media operate across countries. Chapter 2 presents data on the supply of different types of media (radio, television, newspapers) before discussing distribution by ownership and geographic coverage, as well as the availability of radio and television equipment and related issues on the penetration of broadcast media channels within each country." (Introduction)
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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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"This article provides an empirically grounded assessment of China’s increasing role in the African mediasphere. It examines the strategic importance of Chinese media assistance to Ghana along three dimensions: the potential appeal of the Chinese approach to information regulation for countries st
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ruggling to balance development and risks to political stability; the direct intervention of Chinese companies in the media and telecommunication sectors through the provision of loans, equipment and technical expertise; and the stepping up of China’s public diplomacy strategy through the expansion of international broadcasters and the increase of exchange and training programs targeting African citizens." (Abstract)
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"Der Autor untersucht in dieser Studie die spezielle Dynamik der Theokratisierung von Staat und Recht – mit besonderem Schwerpunkt auf den in Pakistan geltenden Blasphemiegesetzen. Welchen Einfluss hatten die Blasphemiegesetze, die mir der staatlichen und politischen Bevorzugung einer einzigen Rel
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igion einhergehen, auf die pakistanische Gesellschaft? Der Überblick über die damit zusammenhängenden Menschenrechtsverletzungen wird mit der Schilderung von Einzelschicksalen ergänzt, die das Ausmaß des Versagens der Justiz und des Missbrauchs dieser Gesetze eindrucksvoll veranschaulichen. Neben einer logischen Analyse der Blasphemiegesetze untersucht der Autor die psychologische Verfassung bzw. die Denkmuster, die dem Status quo Vorschub leisten und sich gegen eine Änderung dieser Gesetze sperren. Dabei wird auch der Standpunkt der gebildeten Schichten unter den Muslimen erörtert. Auf der Basis empirischer Daten geht der Autor der Frage nach, warum die Provinz Punjab ein Brennpunkt des Missbrauchs der Blasphemiegesetze und des religiösen Fundamentalismus ist. Kapitel 1 widmet sich den weltweiten Entwicklungen und Ansätzen im Umgang mit der Frage der Diffamierung von Religionen. Kapitel 7 untersucht die umstrittenen Resolutionen zur ‚Diffamierung von Religionen‘, die zwischen 1999 und 2010 nicht weniger als zwölf Mal bei UN-Gremien zur Abstimmung kamen. Abschließend erläutert der Autor die von den einzelnen Regierungen ergriffenen Maßnahmen und den Versuch der Verabschiedung einer entsprechenden Gesetzesnovelle im pakistanischen Parlament. Davon ausgehend entwickelt der Autor praktische Vorschläge zum weiteren Vorgehen für die beteiligten Interessengruppen – die Zivilgesellschaft und die Regierung Pakistans sowie die internationale Gemeinschaft." (Zusammenfassung)
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"There seems little evidence that the rise and increasing availability and range of new media have given real reason to expect different political outcomes on grounds of new patterns of mobilization, particularly given a persistent “digital divide.” What has been happening, though, is an increas
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e in politicization broadly, and especially among urban youth, who form a formidable and aggressively-courted portion of the voting public. Those young voters with a partisan preference are more likely now than previously to exercise that preference, not just by voting, but also by finding and engaging with information and likeminded communities online or off. At any time, media are critical to movements for sociopolitical change, beyond elections. The spread of online news sites, blogs, social networking sites, and other new media increases the odds of media coverage of all sorts of engagement going forward, and may shift the locus of framing away from the state. All the while, the quantum of information in circulation—unfiltered and constant—grows accordingly, begging strategies for selecting what to read and what to ignore. The result is unlikely to be revolutionary, and could simply entrench existing patterns of identity politics all the more deeply, but is more likely to make Malaysia more participatory, and hence, more democratic in its politics." (Abstract)
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"This article investigates what the news says about inequity-driven civil wars and economic underdevelopment. Dewey argued that the lack of causal knowledge that distinguishes between symptoms and root causes would limit potential effective and transformative public action. Political scientists have
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demonstrated that increases in just the number of news stories about a foreign country in both US print and TV news in one year produced a clearly significant relationship to increases in commitments of US foreign aid the following year. This study of reporting on a 2003-2005 African crisis by ten news organizations over 26 months found few articles predominantly focused on causes against conditions on the ground or remedies. It raises questions about the conditions under which news organizations might be expected to provide causal knowledge and when such information can lead to more enlightened long term aid for national transformation." (Abstract)
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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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"This article addresses the emerging patterns of contemporary media-based engagements between China and Africa and argues, after an examination of current media systems in both China and Africa, that, despite expressed worries to the contrary, because of reasons spanning from history to geo-politics
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, the Chinese model of media system as it currently stands does not stand a chance, at least in the foreseeable future, to be exported to Africa – a continent whose current media landscape is, and will arguably remain, significantly Western-oriented. The article concludes with a call for scholars to exercise analytical restraint in their examination of the potential impacts of recent China–Africa media relations." (Abstract)
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"Dialogue Through Film is a unique initiative bringing together young Armenians from Nagorny Karabakh and Azerbaijanis to make short films about the conflict that divides them. Over 30 young film-makers have taken part, and thousands of Armenians and Azeris have watched their films. This handbook of
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fers information, guidance and resources for you to organise your own screenings and discussions of a selection of these films. Our aim is to encourage and facilitate independent debate in Armenian and Azerbaijani societies about each other, the Nagorny Karabakh conflict, and the many challenging issues confronting Armenian-Azerbaijani reconciliation and the peaceful resolution of the conflict." (Foreword)
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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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