"Indian Media Giants' is an analytical chronicle of six Indian mega media conglomerates' individual odyssey from their humble, incipient beginnings in the pre-independence era to their transformation into powerful business empires in the digitised world. The book traces Indian Media metamorphosis, t
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he birth, phase-wise contours of growth and development, travails and trajectories, organizational structures, editorial policies and business dynamics of print majors in India, namely, The Times Group, The Hindu Group, The Hindustan Times Limited, The Indian Express Group, Dainik Jagran Limited and DB Corp Limited. It unravels their understanding of the values of co-dependence, collaboration, and competition with their contemporaries. It is an untold story of how these organizations leapt over the perimeters of conventional greatness to achieve unmeasured success that spans the globe. The book analyses how innovations have been brought in the management policies of these print businesses, with respect to production, distribution, consumption, while accrediting the visionary leadership that drives each organisation forward in its endeavours. What the case studies also details, is the wide extent of strategic intent enunciation; the role of product lines, development and diversification into radio, TV, digital and other segments; geographical spread, expansion, regional penetration and international footprint; the role of technological advancements in throwing up unimaginably new business opportunities; strategic alliances, mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and takeovers; manpower management policies; CSR activities and financial performance of these media giants. The theoretical implications of the growth of media organisations in terms of the nature of mass media and its products are also underlined. The book focuses on the theoretical framework of media management and pays attention on the changing media management practices from one era to another, gradually orienting and re-orienting the strategic positioning of respective media giants to the pulse of the media market and the opportunities under various regulatory regimes. It is replete with the meticulous analysis of the editorial values and business dynamics upon which their legacies are founded, changing business models adopted by the media moguls, the ripples they have created in the media world and how they are constantly being modified to suit the tastes of the modernising market. With this, and more, Indian Media Giants is a holistic compendium that offers multiple perspectives on how print media organizations in India have grown from strength to strength and have become platform agnostic. The book also details the changing media landscape in India and also underlines the efforts of media giants in retaining print while embracing the digital." (Publisher description)
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"This book explores the socioeconomic and cultural understanding of climate issues and the influence of environment communication via the news and the public response to it. It also examines the position of the media as a facilitator between scientists, policy makers and the public. Drawing extensiv
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ely from case studies, personal interviews, comparative analysis of international climate coverage and a close reading of newspaper reports and archives, the author studies the pattern and frequency of climate coverage in the Indian media and their outcomes. With a special focus on the Western Ghats, the book discusses the political rhetoric, policy parameters and events that trigger a debate about development over biodiversity crisis and environmental risks in India." (Publisher description)
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"The Global Handbook of Media Accountability brings together leading scholars to 'de-Westernize' the academic debate on media accountability and discuss different models of media self-regulation and newsroom transparency around the globe. With examination of the status quo of media accountability in
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forty-four countries worldwide, it offers a theoretically informed, comparative analysis of accountability regimes of different varieties. As such, it constitutes the first interdisciplinary academic framework comparing structures of media accountability across all continents and represents an invaluable basis for further research and policy-making. It will therefore appeal to scholars and students of media studies and journalism, mass communication, sociology and political science, as well as policy-makers and practitioners." (Publisher description)
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"The pandemic made inequality, discrimination, exclusion and structural inequity more palpable, and rather than stagnating in indignation, it reactivated a sense of rebellion and contestation. The strength and sharpness with which we connect social justice, gender justice, environmental justice, eco
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nomic justice and racial justice with the potentials and limitations of digital technologies is undeniable. Using this intersectional lens, we need to document and build our own narratives about the challenges that we face related to the impacts of the pandemic and reflect on how our advocacy priorities as well as the ways we do advocacy are changing and keep being modified and adjusted. At APC we have strengthened capacity to design and implement collective and contextual community responses to the multiple challenges and crises that we face, while having a greater awareness of the kind of global responses that should be prioritised, based on shared but differentiated responsibilities [...] GISWatch 2021-2022 focuses on responses to some of the fundamental questions brought by the pandemic to inform civil society’s advocacy around digital technology issues and their potential to shape future horizons. As illustrated on our cover, a sustained struggle will be necessary in the years ahead, but not only in the public spaces. A nuanced approach to advocacy will be essential to open multiple ways to bring about positive change." (Preface, page 6)
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"This study looks at how online misogyny is impacting the work of women journalists in India. Journalists here are encouraged to have a social media presence and publicize stories online, but organizations do little to protect them from the relentless trolling and misogyny that characterizes the onl
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ine sphere in India today. Analyzing interviews with female journalists who actively covered the recent #MeTooIndia movement, this study found that when women reporters covered stories of sexual violence, their voices online were condemned, and they were subject to horrific sexual innuendo that implied violence. As journalists are forced to rethink the notion of public, how do they respond and cope with incivility online? They are expected to do stories that serve the public, but when a section of that public is extremely uncivil, how are journalists impacted and how does this affect their work? Journalists in India have developed a variety of strategies to deal with social media vitriol, but incivility online is an issue that organizations refuse to do much about. As the interviews show, social media platforms in India are more pulpits of hate than reasoned debate. This study looks at their implications on journalism from a gendered perspective in India." (Abstract)
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"Despite rising scholarly interest in online violence as an “occupational hazard” for journalists, we know little about the dynamics that shape the often-limited support given by media organizations to media workers affected by online violence. In this study, I explore how the working environmen
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t of journalists constrains opportunities for addressing gendered online violence. Through a total of 27 interviews with experts and media workers in the United Kingdom and India, I find that these structural barriers play out through three main dynamics: stratified access to support resources, workplace norms that punish reporting online violence as signs of “weakness,” and precarious conditions that leave journalists with little control over their work. Adverse press freedom conditions also appear to exacerbate the impact of these dynamics. Relating these findings to broader inequality regimes in the contemporary working world, I argue that online violence both reinforces and is reinforced by inequality regimes within media organizations. In the same way that organizations often fail to adequately address other forms of workplace harassment, structural barriers complicate newsroom responses to online violence." (Abstract)
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"An international survey reveals that Internet users' trust on the Internet has dropped significantly since 2019. That is among the key findings of a 20-country Ipsos survey released by The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany. Only six in ten (63%) Internet users on average across the 20 countries sai
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d they trust the Internet. That is down 11 points since a similar survey was conducted in 2019. The singular exception is Japan, which showed a 7 percentage-point increase in trust. But Japan is the rare exception, as the findings reveal that Internet trust shrunk by double-digits in India (-10 points), Kenya (-11), Sweden (-10), Brazil (-18), Canada (-14), the United States (-12), and Poland (-26)." (Publisher description)
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"This volume presents a comparative exploration of Dalit autobiographical writing from India and of Latin American testimonio as subaltern voices from two regions of the Global South. Offering frames for linking global subalternity today, the chapters address Siddalingaiah's Ooru Keri; Muli's Life H
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istory; Manoranjan Byapari and Manju Bala's narratives; and Yashica Dutt's Coming Out as Dalit; among others, alongside foundational texts of the testimonio genre. While embedded in their specific experiences, the shared history of oppression and resistance on the basis of race/ethnicity and caste from where these subaltern life histories arise constitutes an alternative epistemological locus. The chapters point to the inadequacy of reading them within existing critical frameworks in autobiography studies." (Publisher description)
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"This book offers a critical and systematic survey of the study of religion and digital media. It covers religious engagement with a wide range of digital media forms and highlights examples of new media engagement in all five of the major world religions. From mobile apps and video games to virtual
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reality and social media, the book provides a detailed review of major topics including ritual, identity, community, authority, and embodiment, includes a series of engaging case studies to illustrate and elucidate the thematic explorations, considers the theoretical, ethical, and theological issues raised [...] Thoroughly updated throughout with new case studies and in-depth analysis of recent scholarship and developments, this new edition provides a comprehensive overview of this fast-paced, constantly developing, and fascinating field." (Publisher description)
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"This paper experimentally tests the effectiveness of two short edutainment campaigns (under 25 minutes) delivered through Facebook Messenger at reshaping gender norms and reducing social acceptability of violence against women in India. Participants were randomly assigned to watch video clips with
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implicit or explicit messaging formats (respectively a humorous fake reality television drama or a docuseries with clear calls to action). After one week, the intent-to-treat effects of the implicit format on knowledge, gender norms, and acceptability of violence against women oscillated between 0.16 and 0.21 standard deviations yet impacts diminished after four months. By contrast, the explicit format was more impactful in the short term in increasing willingness to share video clips with friends and promoting online information-seeking behaviors. In the medium term, individuals who were exposed to the docuseries were 7.5 percentage points more likely to add a frame against violence against women in their Facebook profile picture, a public display of their disapproval of this harmful practice. The general lack of heterogeneous effects across social status indicators suggests social media as a potential medium for reaching different online populations, including vulnerable ones." (Abstract)
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"This Open Access book examines the ambivalences of data power. Firstly, the ambivalences between global infrastructures and local invisibilities challenge the grand narrative of the ephemeral nature of a global data infrastructure. They make visible local working and living conditions, and the reso
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urces and arrangements required to operate and run them. Secondly, the book examines ambivalences between the state and data justice. It considers data justice in relation to state surveillance and data capitalism, and reflects on the ambivalences between an “entrepreneurial state” and a “welfare state”. Thirdly, the authors discuss ambivalences of everyday practices and collective action, in which civil society groups, communities, and movements try to position the interests of people against the “big players” in the tech industry." (Publisher description)
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"The book is divided into five sections that examine philosophical principles for reporting on poverty, the history and nature of poverty coverage, problematic representations of people experiencing poverty, poverty coverage as part of reporting on public policy, and positive possibilities for pover
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ty coverage. Each section provides an introduction to the topic, as well as a broad selection of essays illuminating key issues and a Q&A with a relevant journalist. Topics covered include news coverage of corporate philanthropy, structural bias in reporting, representations of the working poor, the moral demands of vulnerability and agency, community empowerment, and citizen media. The book's broad focus considers media and poverty at both the local and global levels with contributors from sixteen countries." (Publisher description)
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"This report summarises learnings from BBC Media Action’s landscaping study of the gendered dimensions of social media access and use in India. It addresses 10 questions that have implications for designing digital solutions for women’s empowerment in India." (Page 2)
"In the past decade, Bangladesh has witnessed severe erosion of democratic practices and weakening of democratic institutions. Incumbent has demonstrated its penchant for executive aggrandizement. These have transformed Bangladesh into a hybrid regime, which is marked with various characteristics in
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cluding the limited freedom of expression. International human rights organizations and organizations for press freedom have noted the continuous decline of freedom of expression in Bangladesh. The decline is due to both legal and extra-legal measures adopted by the incumbent Awami League since 2011. This chapter seeks to understand how journalists and media organizations operate in a hybrid regime. How do journalist and editors in Bangladesh negotiate between journalistic obligations and restricted freedom of press freedom by the state? What strategies do journalists undertake in their everyday professional duties to safeguard freedom? By utilizing an ethnographic approach, this chapter highlights personal and professional challenges faced by the editors and journalist in a hybrid regime." (Abstract)
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"This document was produced by the IFJ and focuses on the following issues that the media faces in Sri Lanka: The severe economic crisis in the country poses yet another challenge to a media barely recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic; existing issues in the media industry such as poor wages and wo
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rking conditions of media workers rapidly deteriorated; digital security threats and state authorities confiscating and accessing digital equipment belonging to journalists; female journalists at the entry level are almost equally represented in many media institutions; arrests and detention of writers, journalists, whistle-blowers and activists under charges of 'terrorism' using repressive laws; among others." (commbox)
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"Community radio plays an important role in the communication of a certain community and is a form of public-service broadcasting. It upholds the principles of participatory communication. The present study was conduct to know about the role of Radio Dhadkan, a community radio, in sensitizing and em
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powering the Sahariya tribe of Shivpuri district in Madhya Pradesh of India. Here mainly secondary sources of data have been used. There are some development gaps in meeting the needs of Sahariyas and other marginalized communities living in villages and urban slums of Shivpuri district. To fill these gaps, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in association with Sambhav Social Service Organization, has set up a community radio station – Radio Dhadkan. The present study reveals that Radio Dhadkan has been successful in promoting collective action through radio programs and has been instrumental in creating awareness and empowering the target communities. It has shown an extraordinary dynamism due to its diverse endeavors. It has really helped in connecting, entertaining and educating the Sahariyas in a way that was not possible through any other medium. It has also provided opportunity for employment generation and community capacity building. Thus, the Radio Dhadkan approach has potential applicability in achieving developmental goals." (Abstract)
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"This study is unique in its attempt to map both law and policy (regulation and self-regulation) and identify measures to promote gender equality in the media and women’s freedom of expression. The study covers policy instruments adopted at international, regional, national, industry and media hou
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se levels in over 100 countries. Parallel to the global study, case studies have been developed in a sample of countries in which Fojo Media Institute is active: Armenia, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Somalia, Sweden and Zimbabwe. The analysis reveals patterns of inconsistencies between commitment to gender equality in national policies, as well as gender equality in media policies and legislation. Widespread interest in gender equality at the overall international and national level does not appear to filter into statutory media sector regulation." (Executive summary)
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