"This paper examines the counter-violent extremism and anti-terrorism measures in Australia, China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States by investigating how governments leveraged internet intermediaries as their surrogate censors. Particular attention is paid to how political rhetoric l
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ed to legislation passed or proposed in each of the countries studied, and their respective restrictive measures are compared against the recommendations specified by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. A typology for international comparison is proposed, which provides further insights into a country’s policy focus." (Abstract)
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"In February 2022, Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The relevant narrative articulated by Vladimir Putin presented it as a short-term mission of military professionals. However, as the war continued, the situation at the front required complicated decisions that the initial narrative w
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as not able to cover. This article analyses the core transformations of the Russian narrative on the war in Ukraine. Appealing to the strategic narrative concept, this article suggests a framework for assessing the narrative’s viability. The author reveals that, although the current modified narrative is not able to provide a clear and coherent explanation corresponding to people’s lived experiences, it is still effective due to the following reasons. First, it is built on and perceived within an intuitively familiar discursive landscape that has been promoted for decades. Second, the external prerequisites of the viability, such as the scale of its articulation through propaganda or existing opportunities to perceive alternative narratives, remain strong. Thus, it is likely that most of the rational argumentation in the narrative will be further replaced by its sacralization, and the information isolation will be continuously reinforced." (Abstract)
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"We are pleased that this project has provided evidence indicating an improvement in the representation of distant others in INGO adverts. On the whole, there is a marked difference in the organisation of cast and characters present in charity’s communications imagery and pitiful images are nearly
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entirely absent, while individuals are presented more as named than unnamed.
Slightly fewer photographers received credit for their images. The bulk of images however continue to be from/about African nations, presented largely in rural settings. Although whole family units continue to be grossly under-represented, almost entirely absent, more men are featured in charity adverts in the period under review. Indeed more MW leaders are depicted, which is a good break away from what was obtainable previously, although it is difficult for us to know in what capacity leaders from both worlds are presented. Furthermore, considering recent trends in celebrity humanitarianism and the use of celebrity ambassadors, it is surprising that there are no portrayals of such from the majority world. This could be argued to be a missed opportunity for INGOs to re-present a different image of the global south." (Conclusions, page 26)
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"Este libro reúne un conjunto de investigaciones que desde diferentes perspectivas, problemáticas y objetos de estudio hacen uso de la oralidad para la escritura de la historia. Es fruto del trabajo realizado en el XV Encuentro Nacional y IX Congreso Internacional de Historia Oral. Pasado, present
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e y futuro de la historia oral en Argentina y América Latina, llevado a cabo en la ciudad de Mar del Plata en agosto de 2023. Aunados por la valoración del testimonio como una puerta de entrada privilegiada para la reconstrucción de relatos del pasado, los trabajos aquí compilados dan cuenta de la pluralidad de abordajes que la historia oral integra en la actualidad. Así, esta obra ilustra los principales aportes al desarrollo del campo a través de experiencias, proyectos e investigaciones en curso tanto en Argentina como en Latinoamérica." (Descripción de la casa editorial)
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"The West German novel, radio play, and television series, Through the Night (Am grünen Strand der Spree, 1955-1960), which depicts the mass shootings of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II, has been gradually regaining popularity in recent years. Originally circulated in post-war
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West Germany, the cultural memories of the holocaust embedded within this multi-medium construction present different forms of historical conceptualization. Using numerous archival sources, Microhistories of Memory brings forward three comprehensive case studies on the impact, actors, and materiality of accounts surrounding questions of circulation of cultural memory, audience reception, production, and popularity of Through the Night in its different mediums since its first appearance." (Publisher description)
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"The Ukrainian crisis has received substantial Global Northern policy support and favourable news coverage, contrasting sharply with Global Southern crises. Nevertheless, refugee organizations can influence public perceptions through social media. This study comparatively analyses UNHCR’s Instagra
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m communication strategies for the Ukrainian and Syrian crises (2022–2023). Applying a multimodal critical discourse analysis on UNHCR’s Instagram posts (N=90), we discern interacting humanitarian and post-humanitarian appeals, involving inter- and intra-group hierarchies of deservingness, expanding research on humanitarian communication. While UNHCR mainly represents forcibly displaced Ukrainians as victims and focuses on ‘ideal victims’, it mostly portrays forcibly displaced Syrians as empowered individuals, likely due to context-specific differences and partially countering news and policy narratives. Both humanitarian representations often intersect with post-humanitarian strategies, facilitated by Instagram affordances. This study thus contributes to the literature on humanitarian communication with comparative crisis-specific and platform-specific insights and causes. Moreover, it nuances the often-assumed importance of post-humanitarian imageries on social media." (Abstract)
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"Our richly illustrated volume takes a multifaceted approach to the giant continent of Africa, transcending prejudices and stereotypes through cultural history and contemporary art, constant shifts in perspective, and artistic diversity: human history encounters the colonial past and the omnipresenc
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e of Africa in countless regions of the world. On the one hand, surprising views of Africa are presented from Europe. On the other hand, works and installations created locally by Africans or members of the diaspora present ideas, impulses, and identities that all mean Africa. The texts illuminate the broad temporal arc from the first humans to Pan-Africanism and Afrofuturism and also offer literary and philosophical narratives. Artists: Dele Adeyemo, John Akomfrah, James Gregory Atkinson, Sammy Baloji, Arébénor Basséne, Memory Biwa, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Catpc, Omar Victor Diop, Sokari Douglas Camp, William Kentridge, Kongo Astronauts, Susana Pilar Delahanta Mantienzo, Roméo Mivekannin, Zanele Muholi, Josèfa Ntjam, Kaloki Nyamai, Emeka, Ogboh, Zineb Sedira, Sandra Seghir, Yinka Shonibare, The Singh Twins, Géraldine Tobe, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems." (Publisher description)
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"The study seeks to understand consumers’ and decisionmakers’ perspectives on how current entertainment media treats themes of faith, religion and spirituality in its narratives and characters, if there is a market for more accurate and diverse representation of faith, and what opportunities exi
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st for improving these portrayals. HarrisX surveyed nearly 10,000 entertainment consumers across 11 countries as well as 30 in-depth interviews with entertainment industry leaders. Consumers say they learn about other religions through entertainment and see the potential for faith-inclusive content to create understanding and dialogue in society. Yet, respondents share that when they see their religion or faith - and others - included in mainstream entertainment, they feel it’s often sensationalized or that the portrayal leans on stereotypes. Similarly, entertainment industry professionals also highlighted an opportunity to reach and connect with an underserved audience. They noted that producing this content not only represents a good business opportunity, but also provides the opportunity to demystify what consumers know about other faiths and create understanding between people of different belief systems." (Introduction)
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"Through an online field experiment, we test traditional and novel counter-misinformation strategies among fringe communities. Though generally effective, traditional strategies have not been tested in fringe communities, and do not address the online infrastructure of misinformation sources support
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ing such consumption. Instead, we propose to activate source criticism by exposing sources’ unreliability. Based on a snowball sampling of German fringe communities on Facebook, we test if debunking and source exposure reduce groups’ consumption levels of two popular misinformation sources. Results support a proactively engaging counter-misinformation approach to reduce consumption of misinformation sources." (Abstract)
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"In modern warfare, digitalization has blurred the line where civilian ends and military begins. Embedded in the participative warfare theoretical paradigm, this article looks into how the information and communication technologies (ICT) enable civic resilience under the conditions of the foreign ar
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med aggression. Specifically, the authors explore how smartphones and smartphone applications empowered the Ukrainian civil society in the aftermath of the Russian full-scale invasion of 2022. Based on an online survey and semi-structured interviews, the article highlights how the device and its features not only allowed civilians to adapt to living in conditions of
a constant threat, but also to respond and support the defence from the rear. The authors conclude that, while the smartphone becomes an ‘online resilience hub’, acquiring many new functions like a mobile office, an online volunteer (frontline logistics and procurement) hub, an air-threat warner, a first-hand news source and so on, its security provision functions are not unconditional and may turn to the opposite, depending on the physical circumstances on the ground as well as the virtual information battlefield." (Abstract)
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"This report provides an overview of how Russian state and pro-Kremlin propaganda undermining international support for Ukraine has evolved over the two years since the beginning of the full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. It outlines a range of semi-covert tactics through which Russian state an
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d pro-Kremlin outlets continue to reach substantial audiences despite European Union sanctions. Finally, this report highlights four key areas of vulnerability of the Western alliance that Russian state and pro-Kremlin actors are likely to exploit over the coming year." (About this report)
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"We discuss how a capability approach to information technology in neighbourhoods with low social capital can create embedded and sustainable Community Technology Partnerships (CTPs) that connect residents and institutions together, reducing barriers to social participation and collaborative action.
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Current research indicates older people in deprived neighbourhoods have chronic problems with the effective sharing of community information, a key factor in the ‘digital divide’ (Niehaves and Plattfaut 2014). Manchester Age Friendly Neighbourhoods had 4,000 conversations in four ‘age-friendly’ resident-led neighbourhood partnerships in Manchester. This fieldwork demonstrated that the inability to create and share information within and across residents, communities and service providers is a key contributor to social isolation and barrier to local collaboration. MAFN developed a CTP to correlate perceptions that it was difficult to find out what was going on in the neighbourhood, with an exhaustive audit of actual activity. The result was collective surprise at finding out about dozens of events in each area that were previously either poorly communicated or which were not normally published at all, relying entirely on word of mouth. The CTP was developed using a capability model (Kleine 2013) to discover and overcome both the social and technical barriers preventing the hosts of neighbourhood activities collaboratively and sustainably self-publishing their event information. This resulted in the production of PlaceCal, an holistic social and technical toolkit that ensures groups and individuals have the technology, skills, infrastructure and support to publish information, creating a distributed network of community information." (Abstract)
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"This book brings together a vast range of pre-eminent experts, academics, and practitioners to interrogate the role of media in representing economic inequality. It explores and deconstructs the concept of economic inequality by examining the different dimensions of inequality and how it has evolve
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d historically; how it has been represented and portrayed in the media; and how, in turn, those representations have informed the public's knowledge of and attitudes towards poverty, class and welfare, and political discourse. Taking a multi-disciplinary, comparative, and historical approach, and using a variety of new and original data sets to inform the research, studies herein examine the relationship between media and inequality in UK, Western Europe, and USA. In addition to generating new knowledge and research agendas, the book generates suggestions of ways to improve news coverage on this topic and raise the level of the debate, and will improve understanding about economic inequality, as it has evolved, and as it continues to develop in academic, political and media discourses. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners alike in the areas of journalism, media studies, economics, and the social sciences, as well as political commentators and those interested more broadly in social policy." (Publisher description)
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"Across markets, only around a fifth of respondents (22%) now say they prefer to start their news journeys with a website or app – that’s down 10 percentage points since 2018. Publishers in a few smaller Northern European markets have managed to buck this trend, but younger groups everywhere are
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showing a weaker connection with news brands’ own websites and apps than previous cohorts – preferring to access news via side-door routes such as social media, search, or mobile aggregators.
• Facebook remains one of the most-used social networks overall, but its influence on journalism is declining as it shifts its focus away from news. It also faces new challenges from established networks such as YouTube and vibrant youth-focused networks such as TikTok. The Chinese-owned social network reaches 44% of 18–24s across markets and 20% for news. It is growing fastest in parts of Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America.
• When it comes to news, audiences say they pay more attention to celebrities, influencers, and social media personalities than journalists in networks like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. This contrasts sharply with Facebook and Twitter, where news media and journalists are still central to the conversation.
• Much of the public is sceptical of the algorithms used to select what they see via search engines, social media, and other platforms. Less than a third (30%) say that having stories selected for me on the basis of previous consumption is a good way to get news, 6 percentage points lower than when we last asked the question in 2016. Despite this, on average, users still slightly prefer news selected this way to that chosen by editors or journalists (27%), suggesting that worries about algorithms are part of a wider concern about news and how it is selected.
• Despite hopes that the internet could widen democratic debate, we find fewer people are now participating in online news than in the recent past. Aggregated across markets, only around a fifth (22%) are now active participators, with around half (47%) not participating in news at all. In the UK and United States, the proportion of active participators has fallen by more than 10 percentage points since 2016. Across countries we find that this group tends to be male, better educated, and more partisan in their political vie ws.
• Trust in the news has fallen, across markets, by a further 2 percentage points in the last year, reversing in many countries the gains made at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic. On average, four in ten of our total sample (40%) say they trust most news most of the time. Finland remains the country with the highest levels of overall trust (69%), while Greece (19%) has the lowest after a year characterised by heated arguments about press freedom and the independence of the media." (Summary, page 10)
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"In many countries, especially outside Europe and the United States, we find a significant further decline in the use of Facebook for news and a growing reliance on a range of alternatives including private messaging apps and video networks. Facebook news consumption is down 4 percentage points, acr
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oss all countries, in the last year.
• News use across online platforms is fragmenting, with six networks now reaching at least 10% of our respondents, compared with just two a decade ago. YouTube is used for news by almost a third (31%) of our global sample each week, WhatsApp by around a fifth (21%), while TikTok (13%) has overtaken Twitter (10%), now rebranded X, for the first time.
• Linked to these shifts, video is becoming a more important source of online news, especially with younger groups. Short news videos are accessed by two-thirds (66%) of our sample each week, with longer formats attracting around half (51%). The main locus of news video consumption is online platforms (72%) rather than publisher websites (22%), increasing the challenges around monetisation and connection.
• Although the platform mix is shifting, the majority continue to identify platforms including social media, search, or aggregators as their main gateway to online news. Across markets, only around a fifth of respondents (22%) identify news websites or apps as their main source of online news – that’s down 10 percentage points on 2018. Publishers in a few Northern European markets have managed to buck this trend, but younger groups everywhere are showing a weaker connection with news brands than they did in the past.
• Turning to the sources that people pay most attention to when it comes to news on various platforms, we find an increasing focus on partisan commentators, influencers, and young news creators, especially on YouTube and TikTok. But in social networks such as Facebook and X, traditional news brands and journalists still tend to play a prominent role.
• Concern about what is real and what is fake on the internet when it comes to online news has risen by 3 percentage points in the last year with around six in ten (59%) saying they are concerned. The figure is considerably higher in South Africa (81%) and the United States (72%), both countries that have been holding elections this year.
• Worries about how to distinguish between trustworthy and untrustworthy content in online platforms is highest for TikTok and X when compared with other online networks. Both platforms have hosted misinformation or conspiracies around stories such as the war in Gaza, and the Princess of Wales’s health, as well as so-called ‘deep fake’ pictures and videos." (Executive summary, page 10)
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"Increased understanding of the root causes, scale, and impact of online harmful content and the effectiveness of the existing frameworks and tools: 10 research reports examining the national legal frameworks governing harmful content [...] Local stakeholders empowered and new cooperation and practi
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cal tools and mechanisms developed to counter harmful content online: 3 National Multistakeholder Coalitions for Content Moderation and Freedom of Expression launched in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (with 17 stakeholders), Indonesia (with 12 stakeholders), and Kenya (with 30 stakeholders) [...] Enhanced support and promotion of peacebuilding narratives through digital technologies, in particular social media: 194 representatives from 121 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) trained (60 from 20 CSOs in BiH, 50 from 44 CSOs in Kenya, 31 from 20 CSOs in Indonesia, and 53 from 20 CSOs in Colombia) [...]" (Pages 1-2)
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