"The fifth edition of the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) measures the commitment of countries to cybersecurity in the context of measures across the following five pillars: legal; technical; organizational; capacity development; cooperation. The GCI, launched in 2015 by the International Telecommu
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nication Union, seeks to help countries to identify areas of improvement and encourage countries to act in building capacity and capabilities under each pillar. The GCI has been continuously adapted across editions to respond to changing risks, priorities and resources, in order to provide a more relevant snapshot of cybersecurity measures taken by countries. Since 2021, countries have on average taken more cybersecurity-related actions and improved their commitments to cybersecurity. The global average country score has risen to 65.7/100. Across the five GCI pillars, most countries are strongest in the legal pillar. By contrast, the average country is weakest in the capacity-development and technical pillars. Each region has countries that are role-modelling or are advancing, and each region also has countries that are in the beginning stages of building their cybersecurity commitments. To capture these differences, country performance is measured across five tiers, with Tier 1 being the highest and Tier 5 the lowest. These tiers provide peer groups based on scores to help countries to understand and identify role models for improvement." (Report summary, page 1)
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In 2022, a record 62 billion kg of e-waste was generated globally (equivalent to an average of 7.8 kg per capita per year); 22.3 per cent of this e-waste mass was documented as formally collected and recycled in an environmentally sound manner. In 2010, the world generated 34 billion kg of e-waste,
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an amount that has since increased annually by an average of 2.3 billion kg. The documented formal collection and recycling rate has increased as well, growing from 8 billion kg in 2010 at an average rate of 0.5 billion kg per year to 13.8 billion kg in 2022. The rise in e-waste generation is therefore outpacing the rise in formal recycling by a factor of almost 5 - driven by technological progress, higher consumption, limited repair options, short product lifecycles, growing electronification and inadequate e-waste management infrastructure - and has thus outstripped the rise in formal and environmentally sound collection and recycling. The e-waste generated in 2022 contained 31 billion kg of metals, 17 billion kg of plastics and 14 billion kg of other materials (minerals, glass, composite materials, etc.) An estimated 19 billion kg of e-waste, mainly from metals like iron which is present in high quantities and has high recycling rates in almost all e-waste management routes, were turned into secondary resources. Platinum-group metals and precious metals were among the most valuable metals but present in much lower quantities; nonetheless, an estimated 300 thousand kg were turned into secondary resources through formal and informal recycling practices.
The share of patent applications for e-waste management rose from 148 per million in 2010 to 787 per million in 2022. Most of those applications were related to technologies for cable recycling, with hardly any signs of an increase in the number of patents filed for technologies related to critical raw materials recovery. Although rare earth elements have unique properties that are crucial for future technologies, including renewable energy generation and e-mobility, the world remains stunningly dependent on the production chains of a few countries. The recycling of such elements remains economically challenging, even in the case of devices with a higher content. Consequently, recycling activities are taking only around 1 per cent of the current demand for the recycling of rare earth elements. The market price for rare earth elements is still too low to support larger-scale commercial recycling operations." (Executive summary, pages 12-13)
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"Cumulatively, this research points to the need for increasing efforts to ensure knowledge gaps around the submarine cable are addressed, and that definitions and analyses of topics such as mis- and disinformation, and digital literacy, are developed, shared, and adopted in ways that respond to Timo
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rese concerns and experiences. This would require supporting Timorese-led and owned approaches and solutions to theknowledge gaps, defined through collaboration and consultation with key actors andstakeholders, taking account of the time and resource pressures within which they alreadyoperate. Timorese media leaders and government should be recognised as key stakeholders indigital connectivity research and programmatic initiatives." (Key recommendations)
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"The survey findings reveal that 25 per cent of those aged between 15 and 74 have at least basic digital skills, with 7.8 per cent having above basic digital skills and 17.3 per cent having basic digital skills. The study also found that over a quarter (26.5%) of respondents below the basic level of
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digital skills conduct digital activities in four out of five skill areas. This group, already equipped with devices and Internet access, and familiar with a range of online activities, presents an opportunity for targeted training, particularly in the skills area of safety, to elevate them to the basic level of digital skills.
Moreover, 45 per cent of Azerbaijanis aged between 15 and 74 only possess activities in zero to three skill areas out of five. Even if this group of people is active online, without basic digital skills and rudimentary knowledge of digital technologies, they not only lack the skills to benefit from digitalization but they may face online risks as a consequence. For this group, upskilling will reduce and mitigate any negative impact.
The most important skill areas include safety, digital content creation and problem-solving, and major upskilling interventions and training programmes should be built around these three areas, preferably with targeted upskilling activities for different segments of the population. Moreover, getting a better understanding of why 3.4 per cent of people aged from 15 to 74 have not used the Internet in the past three months will be an important step in getting them online.
The survey recommendations will serve as the basis for designing and planning relevant future government interventions, policies or strategies for digital upskilling at national and regional levels. A number of recommendations, both short and long-term, are outlined by age group. Connections with education institutions are made as formal education offers a structured context to implement digital upskilling strategies to guarantee at least basic digital skills as part of learners’ exit profile from education and training." (Exeuctive summary)
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"The Policy Brief covers pathways for reform of government regulation or public policy with respect to areas applicable to platform workers. These include: a) Laws and statutes enacted by the legislative branch or Congress; and b) Administrative issuances made by the executive branch [...] Further,
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it must be noted that judicial decisions promulgated by the Supreme Court also form part of the Philippine legal system. Indeed, numerous judicial decisions clarify rights pertaining to labour. Foremost in these decisions are the elements in determining the existence of employment relationship, more commonly known today as the four-fold test, which was first enunciated in the Supreme Court decision of Viaña v. Al-Lagadan in 1956. For the purposes of this Policy Brief, these doctrines will be considered as governing law or of what constitutes the present policy and legal landscape from which gaps may be identified. However, possible changes in the doctrines promulgated by the Supreme Court are excluded from the coverage for being judicial, and not political in nature. Thus, the Policy Brief includes proposals that can be adopted either through a legislative act or an executive or administrative issuance, taking into consideration the nuances of the breadth of legislative processes and the limits of executive rulemaking as merely directed to an existing law’s implementation." (Executive summary, page 6)
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"News consumers have come to expect and demand the unprecedented immediacy of experience and coverage of breaking news offered by photographs, video clips, audio recordings, tweets, commentary: content created by ordinary citizens. The use of user-generated content is a salient aspect of how journal
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ists and news organizations are responding to technological changes in the twenty-first century. Eyewitness Textures examines the far-reaching changes in journalism spurred by the growing importance of user-generated content. Bringing together the voices and experiences of professional journalists and academic researchers from across five continents, this collection explores news production practices, changing skills among editors and journalists, and corporate and newsroom restructuring. Chapters by practitioners collectively reflect the newsroom experiences of major global media organizations, while the academic contributions address issues of industrial transformation, political influence, truth and verification, aesthetics, and ideological implications. Both perspectives combine to deepen our understanding of what constitutes the conditions and creation of good journalism, as well as the implications of how the profession should be taught to future journalists." (Publisher description)
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"A Bengali Dalit religion called Matua emerged in the nineteenth century in East Bengal. It counts tens of millions of followers across the Bay of Bengal and the Indo–Bangladesh border. With the COVID-19 pandemic, Matua religious gatherings were shifted online. This paper asks what happened to mul
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tisensory and sonic-haptic religious engagements of the Matua community once ritual gatherings were transported to the cyberspace of digital media. Using data collected through remote ethnography and digital ethnography with the Matua community in 2020 and 2021, we suggest that the increased online visibility of the Matua community (1) contributed to reshaping Matua identity narratives as a global diasporic network, downplaying previous self-definitions of untouchability and displacement; (2) exacerbated inequalities along class and gender lines; and (3) shifted the sensoryscape of Matua ritual experiences, with important repercussions in the domains of embodiment, ritual authority and authenticity. As Matua experiences of increased online visibility clashed with their traditional aesthetics of resistance through shared sonic commingling, we argue, more broadly, that understandings of visibility must take into consideration culturally informed articulations of the senses and sense hierarchies, and how sensory ideology can manifest following the affordances of different media." (Abstract)
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"Laure-Hélène Piron (The Policy Practice Director) undertook an analysis of official development assistance to media and the information environment for the Governance Network of the OECD Development Assistance Committee which was published in June 2024. The report shows that the rhetoric of gover
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nments which support freedom of expression and condemn disinformation is not matched by sufficient resources. ODA for media and the information environment has increased since 2002, reaching USD 1.5 billion in 2022, but this only represented 0.5% of total ODA in that year. When infrastructure support is excluded, ODA for media fluctuated around USD 500 million a year since 2008 (representing 0.19% of total ODA in 2022). This is despite the growth of threats facing media, such as the rise of censorship and the dominance of technology platforms.
And not enough aid directly reaches local organisations. Only up to 8% of ODA for media and the information environment (representing only 0.05% of total ODA) is directly channelled to media organisations in partner countries, such as journalists, media outlets or civil society organisations working with media or on access to information. To improve the quality and quantity of ODA for media and the information environment, the report recommends: increasing direct assistance for local public interest media; adopting a broader “information environment” lens; improving coordination between (i) digital transformation and ICT infrastructure and (ii) media and information policies and programmes; improving co-ordination and coherence between development partners (including global initiatives); strengthening the evidence base." (https://thepolicypractice.com)
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"This handbook reviews extant research and offers critical summaries of key topics and issues in the field, enriched by authoritative analyses of specific cases and examples. It displays pluralism across a number of axes: epistemological, theoretical, geographical, cultural, and thematic. The first
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part offers historical routes through the international development of the field and explores the epistemological grounds of multiple strands of environmental communication studies. In aiming to map the field broadly, as well as stimulating new thinking, the second part is organized along three core perspectives: arenas, voice, and place. It comprises chapters on various public spaces that are critical to the symbolic constitution of the environment, and sheds light on a range of aspects and social agents that have received insufficient attention, including research about – and carried out in – non-Western countries." (Publisher description)
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"Responding to mounting calls to decenter and decolonize journalism, The Routledge Companion to Journalism in the Global South examines not only the deep-seated challenges associated with the historical imposition of Western journalism standards on constituencies of the Global South but also the opp
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ortunities presented to journalists and journalism educators if they choose to partake in international collaboration and education.
This collection returns to fundamental questions around the meaning, value, and practices of journalism from alternative methodological, theoretical, and epistemological perspectives. These questions include: What really is journalism? Who gets to, and who is qualified to, define it? What role do ethics play? What are the current trends, challenges, and opportunities for journalism in the Global South? How is news covered, reported, written, and edited in non-Western settings? What can journalism players living and working in industrialized markets learn from their non-Western colleagues and counterparts, and vice versa? Contributors challenge accepted “universal” ethical standards while showing the relevance of customs, traditions, and cultures in defining and shaping local and regional journalism." (Publisher description)
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"Digital Journalism: Perspectives from South Asia is a descriptive, exploratory book on digital journalism practices and policies followed in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. It brings in-depth perspectives on content, communication, and community between communication theory and the
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digital news ecosystem rooted in a South Asia. What makes this book interesting to read is the integration of forms with manifestations on ground intersecting identities and ideologies. The book thoroughly investigates changes in the regulatory framework, regulations, policies, and code of conduct. Various chapters in the book pursue significant and exciting topics on the changing spaces of news production and consumption, the inter relationship between old and new media, everyday digital news usage and engagement, social media for news, revenue models for digital journalism among others. The highlight of this book is engaging debates on digital journalism practices modeled around mobile journalism, immersive storytelling, gamification, in the context of local and hyper local communities in South Asia. Since Digital Journalism draws extensively from algorithms, matrices and analytics, this book has exclusive chapters on data journalism, data visualization and big data." (Publisher description)
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"In India, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) employs a digital army of right-wing supporters to harass journalists who are critical of the party's Hindu-nationalist ideology. As a result, the country's press freedom rankings have significantly declined over the past decade. While scholars have
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examined the discursive strategies used by online Hindu nationalists against journalists, how reporters cope with these attacks remains unknown. This study investigates how Indian media professionals perceive the personal and professional consequences of harassment for themselves and the coping strategies they use to combat digital hate. In-depth interviews with 24 journalists reveal that they employ mechanisms such as strategic social disconnection, formation of alliance networks, and working for non-profit news sites and international media organizations to overcome the effects of social media harassment. The analysis also highlights that commercial media that are subservient to the Modi government failed to protect their reporters, while independent media outlets provide much more support to their employees. The findings underscore the need for social media companies to promptly respond to content flagged by journalists and allocate additional resources to moderate hate speech in India's local languages to safeguard journalists from sustained online abuse." (Abstract)
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"The existing literature on Internet governance offers important insights on the relationship between state and society in China and the West. It is important to explore this relationship in the developing world. This study focuses on Pakistan, exploring the role of relevant legal frameworks, politi
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cal authorities, and institutional structures in relation to monitoring and regulating telephone traffic, legal compliance, and consumer interests. By focusing on the interplay between political dynamics, international partnerships, and evolving digital landscapes, this study examines the evolution of Internet governance model in Pakistan. While Pakistan appears on a trajectory to digital authoritarianism, its journey is hampered by structural limitations, resistance from democratic forces, concerns about data protection and privacy, pushback from the judiciary, and the emergence of a vigilant civil society. Challenges in establishing a coherent authoritarian model of Internet governance have resulted in an ad hoc approach. This study offers a nuanced understanding of multifaceted factors influencing Internet governance in a developing country." (Abstract)
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"Should the media stand by refugees or maintain deliberate ‘neutrality’? Should the media dehumanize the refugees further in their humanitarian conditions? Are the media entitled to publish photographs of refugees without informed consent? Should the media stand by the state being responsible fo
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r generating refugee crisis or should the state be accountable for rendering its people refugees? What effective roles can media play in redressing the refugee ‘crisis’ in the world? The book brings together scholars across disciplines and continents who reflect on the nexus between media and refugees in contexts around the world." (Publisher description)
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"Digital Religion refers to the contemporary practice and understanding that religion takes place in both online and offline contexts, and how these contexts intersect with each other. Scholars in this growing field of Digital Religion studies recognize that religion has been influenced by its engag
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ement with computer-mediated digital spaces, including not only the Internet, but other emerging technologies, such as mobile phones, digital wearables, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. The Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion provides a comprehensive overview of religion as seen and performed through various platforms and cultural spaces created by digital technology. The text covers religious interaction with a wide range of digital media forms (including social media, websites, gaming environments, virtual and augmented realities, and artificial intelligence) and highlights examples of technological engagement and negotiation within the major world religions (i.e., Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism). Additional sections cover the global manifestations of religious community, identity, ethics, and authority, with a final group of chapters addressing emerging technologies and the future of the field." (Publisher description)
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"Sections of the book engage in critical reflection on what peacebuilding effectiveness is and who gets to decide, provide practical examples and case studies of the successes and failures of assessing peacebuilding work, and support innovative strategies and tools to move the field forward. Chapter
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s reflect a variety of perspectives on peacebuilding effectiveness and methods—quantitative, qualitative, and participatory—to evaluate peacebuilding efforts, with particular attention to approaches that center those local to the peacebuilding process. Practitioners and policymakers alike will find useful arguments and approaches for evaluating peacebuilding activities and making the case for funding such efforts." (Publisher description)
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