"If the Kremlin should not be held directly responsible for ordering murders against journalists, it certainly bears responsibility for the atmosphere of lawlessness that reigns in Russia. Today’s Kremlin doesn’t mind free and critical voices as long as they remain politically irrelevant and hav
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e no impact on decision-making. In other words, Russia has freedom of expression, but no press freedom if the latter is understood as one of the elements in an institutionalized democratic polity. Media may cover political news, but news can’t become a political event." (Abstract)
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"As a follow up on the Media and Development Forum, which took place in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) on 11-13 September 2008, the European Commission initiated this study to map out the projects and programmes which European donors have in place to support media development in Africa [...] Some 240 co
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ntacts were identified and sent the questionnaire. 148 responses have been collected. 200 projects/programmes have been identified and analysed. These projects/programmes amounts to a support worth more than 100m €. The projects/programmes involve 46 out of the 57 African countries. Training is the dominant activity area. More than 1/3 of the projects have training as the main content. Additionally, in many cases the training activities support other activity areas, like production of programmes, setting up of radio stations etc. Only one small project address education of future journalists. 152 projects (76%) address only one country. These projects include 36 countries (63% of the countries in Africa and 78% of the countries which have received support). The projects targeting only one country amount to 60.739.635 €, which is 60% of the funding recorded in the survey. Very few countries receive the majority of the funding. The three countries receiving support for more than 5 mil € receive 32,8% of the total support. The data indicates that the major part of the support goes to countries in conflict/post-conflict or democracy crisis situations. ¾ of the projects are implemented by non-African organisations/institutions. Regarding New Media, the analysis shows that mobile phones and the Internet are gaining importance in the continent because of the numbers of subscribers and access possibilities are increasing. Initiatives are taken in many countries to make these tools real means of communication as well as sources of information and evidence and channels of dissemination of information in several areas of development. Despite of this development, only very few projects address new media." (Executive summary, page 5-7)
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"Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit den Auswirkungen der digitalen Ökonomie auf die Buchbranche. Während sich die Branche über einen langen Zeitraum in einem relativ stabilen Marktumfeld befand, ergeben sich aus der Digitalisierung ihres Kernprodukts und der Entwicklung neuer Technologien wie z.B
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. von Lesegeräten, die in der Lage sind, Texte in einer dem physischen Buch vergleichbaren Qualität darzustellen, vielfältige Herausforderungen. Die Musikindustrie sah sich Ende der 1990er Jahre mit einerähnlichen Situation konfrontiert, weshalb sie in dieser Arbeit als Referenz für die Auswirkungen von Digitalisierungsprozessen dient. Für die Musikindustrie führten diese Prozesse durch den Markteintritt neuer Wettbewerber und durch eine illegale Verbreitung der Inhalte zu einem tiefgreifenden Wandel des gesamten Sektors, der auch als Krise der Industrie bezeichnet wird. Es stellt sich die Frage, ob die Buchbranche mit ähnlichen Entwicklungen rechnen muss. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es also, die für die Krise der Musikindustrie verantwortlichen Faktoren aufzuzeigen und ihre Relevanz für die Buchbranche zu untersuchen, um daraus das Krisenpotential für die Branche abzuleiten." (Gegenstand und Ziel der Untersuchung, Seite 8)
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"Internet censorship and surveillance becomes more sophisticated. The first-generation controls like China's "Great Firewall" are being replaced by techniques that include strategically timed distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, targeted malware, take-down notices and stringent terms-of-usa
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ge policies. Their aim is to shape and limit the national information environment. This publication reports on these new trends and their implications for the global internet commons. In addition, it offers 32 detailed country profiles on internet surveillance from the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East and North Africa, Asia and Europe." (CAMECO Update 2-2010)
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"This report by Drew Sullivan, a journalist, editor, and media development specialist, explains how lawsuits can force media organizations to censor themselves or limit the distribution of their news content, restricting freedom of expression and thus threatening one of the foundations of democracy.
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Vested political, business, and criminal interests, especially in the developing world, are increasingly using the courts to redress alleged harms, punish journalists and scare off publishers. Sullivan’s report describes the practice, known as “libel tourism,” of shopping worldwide for plaintiff-friendly courts. While the United Kingdom is currently the jurisdiction of choice for many plaintiffs, by publishing online, a media organization faces the risk of a lawsuit in just about any country. Given the wide variety of defamation standards, court practices, and freedom of speech standards, the risks are almost impossible to manage. Leveling the playing field requires the passage of laws in many jurisdictions, better standards and awareness of risks among journalists, and an industry-wide solution to the problems of insurance and legal defense." (https://www.cima.ned.org)
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"Peter Reddaway und neun weitere Autoren schauen ins das Archiv der Freiheit, das die osteuropäischen Bürgerrechtler mit ihren selbstverlegten Schriften anlegten. Sie entdecken substantielle Beiträge zur politischen Ideengeschichte des mündigen Bürgers. Sind im Zeitalter der wiedererstarkten po
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stsowjetischen Autokratien die Sozialen Netzwerke und die Blogs des RUnet auch ein solches Archiv der Freiheit? Dmitrij Golynko zweifelt, dass die atomisierten postsowjetischen Gesellschaften gerade im Internet geeint werden können, vier andere Autoren sind optimistischer." (https://www.hsozkult.de/journal/id/z6ann-104850)
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"The Anthropology of News and Journalism is the first book to explore the role of news and journalism in contemporary culture from an anthropological perspective—as a form of cultural meaning-making in its creation, content, and dissemination. Anthropology's global, comparative perspective and eth
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nographic methods provide powerful insights for analyzing case studies from around the world. Essays by leading scholars explore communities of professional and nonprofessional journalists. They describe news-making processes ranging from the local to the global digital environment, as well as how news is disseminated and received in a variety of cultural settings." (Publisher description)
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"The book gives lively and engaging insights into how and why socially sensitive story lines were taken up by different TV programmes from the late 1980s to the 2000s. Drawing on a series of case studies of medicine, health, illness and social problems including breast cancer, mental distress, sexua
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l abuse and violence it comprehensively traces the path of storylines from initial conception through to audience reception and uses contemporary examples to link practice to theory. For the first time, this book addresses production and reception processes across a range of programmes and clearly demonstrates the ways in which television fiction plays a vital and powerful role in reflecting and shaping socio-cultural attitudes." (Publisher description)
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"1. Es posible ofrecer una nueva visión optimista sobre la realidad de las ONG y el trabajo profesional periodístico aportando numerosas pruebas, datos y referencias, que justifican el uso de la comunicación social y periodistica con el objeto de conseguir, a través de la sensibilización de la
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opinión pública y de cambios de actitud, un mayor desarrollo humano y una sociedad más justa y solidaria. 2. La disciplina más adecuada para estudiar los efectos de la comunicación en la sociedad y elaborar teorías de comunicación relevantes en este tema, es la "psicología social" que nació en los años 30 del siglo XX. Ésta se centra en los efectos, integra varias disciplinas y ofrece cierto orden en temas de comunicación. 3. La comunicación produce efectos sobre los pensamientos y actitudes de las personas y el uso de los medios de comunicación puede provocar cambios de actitud en las personas que no estén motivados por intereses económicos, políticos, religiosos…etc., sino, por la única intención, por parte de los emisores y responsables de los medios de comunicación, de favorecer la posibilidad de construir entre todos un mundo mejor [...]" (Conclusiones)
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"This collective report examines the principal dimensions of media policy in 14 European countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey and the UK), probing into the historical forces, national traditions and distinct politi
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cal and socio-economic contexts in which media policies have emerged and developed. The analysis explores the main instruments for media regulation in the countries under study, and assesses the implications of the established media policy strategies for democratic politics. The country chapters follow a similar structure. Following a brief introduction, the analysis focuses on the media landscape of the countries under review, offering an overview of the national media market (the press, broadcast media, online media and news agencies), as well as a discussion of the status of the journalistic profession and media literacy. The third section presents the major actors involved in media policymaking and proceeds with a succinct presentation and explanation of the national regulatory framework for the media, focusing mainly on structural and content regulation. The final section provides a critical assessment of the principal issues and trends that characterise the media policies of the countries under study, together with an assessment of the degree to which they enable the media to feed the democratic process. The report also contains a chapter discussing the media-related initiatives of the European Union and the Council of Europe, focusing on the interventions that are of relevance and importance to the protection and promotion of media freedom and independence." (Introductory note, page 10)
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"Am Beispiel von Bosnien-Herzegowina (BiH) zeigt Violeta Trkulja die Probleme auf, die bei der Einführung einer Informationsgesellschaft in einem Schwellen- und Nachkriegsland bestehen. Neben technischen Aspekten ist vor allem die Wissenskluft zwischen Bevölkerungsschichten für diese neue Form so
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zialer Ungleichheit ausschlaggebend. Den Schwerpunkt legt die Autorin auf das Bildungs- und Bibliothekswesen, die Vermittlung von Informationskompetenz sowie auf den im Internet zur Verfügung stehenden Content. Darüber hinaus weist sie die Unzulänglichkeiten der bisher verwendeten Messverfahren zur Digitalen Kluft nach, die vor allem in der fehlenden Standardisierung begründet sind und darin, dass sie nicht die spezifische Situation der Schwellenländer berücksichtigen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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