"Southeast Europe’s strong tradition of regional cooperation for media reform can be leveraged to address the renewed threats independent media face. Countries in the region have shared cultural and trade ties, common media markets, and face similar threats to a free and independent press. They al
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so benefit from numerous existing regional coalitions and networks that have worked for decades to develop shared norms and standards and promote cross-border knowledge sharing and solidarity. Southeast Europe’s regional media coalitions, organizations, and networks are a significant force for promoting media freedom, independence, and pluralism. Regional coalitions are important drivers of national reform efforts. They need to be equipped to take advantage of new windows of opportunity and tap into the power and influence of the numerous multilateral organizations that serve the region. The support of international donors and multilateral institutions is critical to advancing media reform agendas in Southeast Europe. However, more needs to be done to broaden and deepen support, and to tap into the collective capacities and assets of local media organizations and regional media coalitions." (Key findings)
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"From August 2020 until August this summer, we recorded almost 800 cases of digital rights violations in eight countries of south-eastern Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. Violations took place not just on TikTok, but also on F
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acebook, Twitter and Instagram and were also spread via Viber and WhatsApp. Our report shows that vulnerable groups, including women, minority groups, LGBT +, Roma and Jewish communities, minors and migrants, are particularly exposed to online attacks. Similarly, political and religious tensions, which still continue to mark the cultural and political life of our societies, also surged, further polarising society. All of this suggests that what happens in the virtual space is not much different from the “physical world”. Ongoing tensions and cultural controversies are simply migrating from one place to another and prevention or protection mechanisms are far from successful. It comes as no surprise that the two most common violations this year were “pressure because of expression and activities on the internet” and “manipulation and propaganda in the digital environment”. Journalists were most frequently the target of online threats in two countries – Serbia and Hungary. In both countries, pro-government social media accounts were involved in smear campaigns against independent journalists." (Foreword, page 4)
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"Unter dem Eindruck der Corona-Pandemie haben sich Medien nicht allein auf die Problemanalyse und Kritik an politischen und gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen konzentriert, sondern den Blick auch nach vorn gerichtet, um zu fragen, wie politische, gesundheitliche, kulturelle und wirtschaftliche Risike
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n abgewogen werden können, damit es mit dem gesellschaftlichen (Zusammen-)Leben weitergehen kann. Was dieser erweiterte Blick für den Journalismus bedeutet, wird anhand der zehn ausgewählten Beispiele für konstruktive Ansätze in der Berichterstattung zu ‚Corona‘ nachvollziehbar: Für unsere Gesellschaft geht es vor allem um eine sinnvolle Balance zwischen Lösungen, Engagement und Innovation. Der Journalismus übernimmt eine systemisch wichtige Schnittstellenfunktion, indem er genau über diese weltweiten Lösungen, Engagements und Innovationen berichtet – mit kritischer Distanz und respektvoll. Es mag ein wenig hart klingen, aber: Eine digitale Blütezeit des Journalismus, die sich sowohl in Wertschätzung als auch in Umsätzen auszahlt, ist noch in weiter Ferne, solange sich journalistische Praxis nicht aus sich selbst heraus finanziell tragen lässt. Nachrichtenangebote, insbesondere in Zeiten von ‚Corona‘, scheinen der Öffentlichkeit nicht gut zu dienen, wenn sie Dinge vereinfachen, verkürzen oder extrapolieren. Stattdessen sollten Journalist:innen den Mut und die Sensibilität aufbringen, sorgsamer zu differenzieren, Kontexte zu liefern und die Welt zu vermitteln, wie sie ist: komplex. Dass dies nicht auf Kosten der Verständlichkeit gehen darf, ist zweifelsfrei eine journalistische Herausforderung, aber eine, die Ehrgeiz wecken sollte. Konstruktive und lösungsorientierte Ansätze, wie sie derzeit Anwendung finden, werden daher irgendwann als Blaupause für die Medien der Zukunft dienen können." (Fazit und Asublick, Seite 71)
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"A significant number of the surveyed citizens consider the media in Serbia under the control of political groups at both ends of the spectrum. At the same time, many of the surveyed citizens think that the media is free to collect and publish information on all the relevant issues. These findings r
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eflect the media reality in Serbia: after twenty years of reforms, the country has managed to create a system in which the freedom of the media implies (only) that our media freely report on issues relevant to the option whose interests they represent. Both the media workers in the focus group and the surveyed citizens agree that propaganda and hatred are ubiquitous in the media. The media instrumentalizes hatred based on gender, national and other stereotypes in order to realize the particular interests of the groups to which they are loyal for ideological or financial reasons. But as the media workers warn, the media is also abusing the hatred rooted in society to increase circulation, viewership, or reach, and again, in the end, to make a profit. The position of women journalists in Serbia is especially difficult. As many as 95% of the surveyed citizens agree that women journalists are exposed to attacks, threats, insults and harassment because they do their job well. The journalists and editors in the focus group do not see gender prejudices and stereotypes as a cause of attacks but rather as a tool to discredit female journalists. Not their work—because that is difficult to discredit—but rather female journalists personally, where attacks are dominated by discourse strategies stemming from classic misogyny." (Conclusion, page 25)
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"Competent institutions should react in case of spreading hate speech and introduce appropriate measures to combat the spread of disinformation, which would serve as a middle ground between arresting those who spread disinformation and a too passive approach to this problem. In addition to this, the
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Criminal Code should be amended since its lack of preciseness allows deviations from international standards of freedom of expression. In addition to the Media Strategy, which is to deal with the development of the media and creating a more enabling work environment for journalists, the Government must work on raising awareness and improving the knowledge through the development of a media literacy strategy and an accompanying action plan. In the long run, the media community should work on the establishment of a single self-regulation body, which would bring to light the examples of the spread of hate speech, disinformation, and propaganda, and work on the promotion of professional standards. Existing self-regulatory bodies should initiate the process of changing and amending the Code of Journalists of Montenegro to include the issue of preventing the emergence and the spread of disinformation. Moreover, in order to prevent the spread of hate speech, the existing self-regulatory bodies, including the RTCG’s Ombudsperson, need to make a stronger effort in promoting the professional standards set out in the Code of Journalists of Montenegro." (Recommendations)
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"Digital technologies have changed the public arena, but there is little scholarly consensus about how they have done so. This Element lays out a new framework for the digitally mediated public arena by identifying structural changes and continuities with the pre-digital era. It examines three count
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ry cases - the United States, Germany, and China. In these countries and elsewhere, the emergence of new infrastructures such as search engines and social media platforms increasingly mediate and govern the visibility and reach of information, and thus reconfigure the transmission belt between citizens and political elites. This shift requires a rethinking of the workings and dysfunctions of the contemporary public arena and ways to improve it." (Publisher description)
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"Public service journalism draws its legitimacy from a strong connection with the public. The EBU News Report 2021-22 highlights how today’s public service media organisations go about building and strengthening this connection while dealing with a variety of challenges. In three parts and 16 case
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studies it discusses, first, the political and economic pressures under which public service media are operating, second, new and innovative ways of connecting with audiences, and third, approaches newsroom leaders can take to tackle challenges they encounter in their daily operations. The report is solution-oriented and provides ideas on how to move forward. It is based on more than 40 interviews with media leaders, experts, and academics from the public service media community and beyond and draws on the latest research." (Executive summary)
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"A diverse range of international and interdisciplinary scholars take a closer look at how gender and sexuality have been essential in the evolution of comics, and how gender and sexuality in comics demand that we re-frame and re-view comics history. Essays cover a wide array of intersectional topic
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s including Queer Underground and Alternative comics, Feminist Autobiography, Re-drawing disability, Latina testimony, and re-evaluating the critical whiteness and masculinity of superheroes in this first truly global reference text to gender and sexuality in comics." (Publisher description)
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"The paper examines ideological segregation among Ukrainian users in online environments, using as a case study partisan news communities on Vkontakte, the largest online platform in post-communist states. Its findings suggest that despite their insignificant numbers, partisan news communities attra
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ct substantial attention from Ukrainian users and can encourage the formation of isolated ideological cliques – or ‘echo chambers’ – that increase societal polarisation. The paper also investigates factors that predict users’ interest in partisan content and establishes that the region of residence is the key predictor of selective consumption of pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian partisan news content." (Abstract)
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"Mittels einer Onlineumfrage und Publikumsgesprächen wurde bei seh- und hörbeeinträchtigten Personen ermittelt, welche Medienangebote sie nutzen und wie sie diese beurteilen. Die barrierefreien Angebote im öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunk werden grundsätzlich sehr geschätzt. Es wird aber auch V
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erbesserungspotenzial und der Wunsch nach einer Ausweitung der Angebote benannt. Auch konkrete Informationen über barrierefreie Angebote gilt es zu optimieren." (Seite 109)
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"The most effective campaigns are face-to-face, repeated campaigns. Such campaigns generally have a larger average impact on persuasion, knowledge, and behavior than remote campaigns (such as ones conducted through television or the internet). Negative and positive messages appear to be almost equal
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ly effective in motivating behavioral change. Negative messaging does seem to be more memorable than other types of messages. However, if negative advertisements are attributed to an individual or organization, they tend to lead to backlash against the sender. Targeting a message to a particular subpopulation greatly increases the success rate of information campaigns, especially if the targeting stresses peer groups or community norms. Additionally, targeting and knowledge of relevant subpopulations can decrease the risk of unintended or counterproductive results. In complex environments where people are bombarded by a wide range of messages, adversarial messaging efforts tend to cancel each other out." (Key findings)
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"Civil society technology, or civic tech, is one of the novel notions introduced by the digital age – a new form of social interaction and implementation of fundamental human rights. The dominating discourse that civic tech is about optimising and digitising public services is challenged by the ex
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amples of autocracies, like Belarus, where the rise of civic tech initiatives pre-, mid-, and post- the 2020 presidential election present examples of digital resistance to repressive state policies. In this paper, we seek to analyse the notion of civic tech in Belarus, identify its distinctive features, the role it plays as a tool of digital resistance, and the impact it has on human rights." (Page 1)
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"The legislative framework for the regulation of hate speech in BiH is fragmented and unaligned with European standards, and there are few cases of its processing. Ways to combat disinformation mainly rely on self-regulatory frameworks and fact-checking platforms, and there are no comprehensive stra
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tegies to combat disinformation. Given the large presence of hate speech and disinformation, especially in the online sphere, which can affect the democratic processes in the country, it is necessary to improve the legislative, regulatory and self-regulatory frameworks and ways of their application. Bosnia and Herzegovina is obliged to adopt appropriate solutions in accordance with international conventions, recommendations of international bodies and standards of the European Court of Human Rights." (Conclusion, page 21)
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"Social media technology is having a dramatic impact on social and political dynamics around the world. The contributors to this book document and illustrate this "techtonic" shift on violent conflict and democratic processes. They present vivid examples and case studies from countries in Africa, So
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uth and Southeast Asia, Latin America as well as Northern Ireland. Each author maps an array of peacebuilding solutions to social media threats, including coordinated action by civil society, governments and tech companies to protect human minds, relationships and institutions. Solutions presented include inoculating society with a new digital literacy agenda, designing technology for positive social impacts, and regulating technology to prohibit the worst behaviours." (Publisher description)
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