"A clustered randomized trial in two states of India examines alternate strategies to reduce child marriage, increase girls' education and change gender attitudes. GPs were randomized into four treatment and one control group in a 1:1:1:2:2 ratio. The GP level intervention from November 2012 deliver
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ed to treatment groups i) A Full Package, comprising mass-media, training and community mobilization programs; ii) a Training Package comprising a combination of mass media and a training program at the block level; iii) a Community Mobilization Package comprising a combination of mass-media and a community mobilization program; iv) and an only Mass Media program. Data from 2,542 households seven years after the start of the program shows that the intervention made significant improvements in impact indicators on girls' education and incidence and age at marriage. As compared to the control GPs, the Full Package intervention increased the age at marriage for girls aged 13-25 on an average by 6.5 months and their education by 9 months. The Full Package also increased the percentage of girls enrolled in school by an additional 9% over the level that control group achieved (92% in Full Package vs 83% in Control Group). The program impacts were similar after controlling for stratification and other household and GP level characteristics.
We found that the intervention made an outcome indicator - gender attitudes - more progressive; GP with Full Package had a 0.407 standard deviation (equivalent to approximately 16%) higher gender attitude index than control GPs (p < 0.01). The measure of attitudes is an index of aggregated indices on gender equality, education, marriage, mobility and knowledge. Attitude change was larger for education and mobility indices. For example, the households in the Full Package had 0.26 and 0.33 standard deviations more positive attitude towards girls’ education and mobility than control GPs. We did not find any significant effect on attitudes pertaining to marriage and girl’s work and responsibility. There is little change in norms related to gender roles within the home and education has mostly been perceived as a vehicle for better management of the home, rather than for empowering women to work and be independent." (Summary)
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"The fifth edition [...] cuts across print, TV, film, music, radio and digital media. In the process, the book takes you through the current trends, history, business dynamics and regulation in media, and provides a glimpse into the future of each of these segments." (Back cover)
"Definitions of impunity regarding crimes against journalists have thus far been too narrow. Therefore, we propose a new approach to understanding impunity as also being grounded in journalists’ lived reality and perceptions to better understand the complexity and breadth of impunity. It is based
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on the findings obtained through a set of semi-structured interviews with 40 editors and senior journalists in five countries and expressed in a new typology of impunity. We argue that what we call the ‘Politics of Impunity’ is a policy of governance whereby impunity is used as a political tool by the state and state-sponsored actors to achieve journalistic self-censorship. This is done through the deliberate deprivation of private autonomy brought about by the enforced exile of journalists into a ‘space of exception’ where they are both within and beyond the law. The exercise of the ‘Politics of Impunity’ in an increasing number of states creates an environment that only allows for politically compliant journalism." (Abstract)
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"This study revealed that more than 40% of news stories on child sexual abuse (CSA) cases did not follow the ethical standard of reporting. Episodic CSA cases were more unethically reported in newspapers, compared to the thematic stories (42.8% vs. 11.6%). Approximately 37% of news stories disclosed
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at least one identifying information of victims (i.e., name, parents’ name, family member’s name, or school name), and 23% of stories included sensual and/or excessive description of the event. Our adjusted model showed that victim identifiers were most likely to be reported in news stories when the victim was 13–17 years old, the alleged perpetrator held influential social status, the victim was familiar to the perpetrator, and when public reaction against the CSA incident was reported. In addition, if there was a public reaction to any CSA occurrence, the chances of unnecessary extensive coverage increased by 1.82 times. In conclusion, Bangladeshi newspapers often publish CSA stories without maintaining the ethical standard of reporting and thus ignore child rights." (Abstract)
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"In 2017, following the #MeToo movement stirred by the public outing of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, the safety of women at the workplace became a prime agenda for international news media. Although far from being truly inclusive, the #MeToo movement rapidly spread to other parts of the worl
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d. Women of different nationalities, backgrounds, and race shared their stories of abuse and survival using the #MeToo hashtag and its variants. In 2018, women within the news media industry in India joined the movement and called out prominent editors, filmmakers, and artists on social media for perpetrating and abetting acts of sexual harassment and abuse against them. As an immediate result, several accused were made to resign from their organizations and dropped from prestigious public posts. However, a backlash to the movement followed soon after, most evidently in the form of victim-shaming and defamation lawsuits against women. Based on the theory of epistemic advantage, the study explores the perception of sexual harassment among journalists in India using in-depth interviews." (Abstract)
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"Giga, a joint collaboration between ITU and UNICEF, is an initiative to connect every young person in the world to information, opportunity and choice. Devised before the onslaught on COVID-19, the project addresses the underlying inequities in access to the Internet. However, it is also a platform
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for creating the infrastructure necessary to provide digital connectivity to an entire country, for every community and for every citizen. With schools as a focal point, Giga seeks to build robust digital ecosystems, so communities everywhere can cope with shocks such as COVID-19 and ensure that no one is left behind. To achieve this goal, Giga builds on four pillars: map, finance, connect, empower.
Map. Mapping of schools helps identify the connectivity problems and gauge the magnitude of the challenge in each country. Top-down and bottom-up approaches to mapping school connectivity support this endeavour [...]
Connect. There are various infrastructure and technology solutions available that could bring affordable connectivity to the unconnected schools identified by the mapping exercise, including established technologies such as Wi-Fi, satellite, and fibre [...]
Finance. The selection of appropriate financing mechanisms depends on the magnitude of the challenge. The costing analysis can only take place after mapping connectivity gaps and determining fit-for-purpose connectivity solutions. Government budgets or universal service funds (USFs) could address small- to medium-sized connectivity gaps [...]
Empower. Bringing connectivity to schools will have a limited impact if e-learning solutions are not in place and if educators do not have the digital skills to empower learners. There are many case studies from Asia and the Pacific of initiatives that aim to empower digital learning [...]
Giga has made significant progress since its launch. It is already active in 17 countries in three regions. Countries in Asia and the Pacific are next to join the Giga initiative. Several countries have expressed interest, including Bhutan, Pakistan, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Fiji. Each country has its own opportunities and challenges in terms of extending connectivity. The review of policies, regulatory environment, school connectivity initiatives and availability of connectivity data in potential Giga countries and the assessment of use cases strongly indicate that there is significant promise for the expansion of Giga in the region." (Executive summary, pages vi-vii)
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"Mental health in workplaces is a global concern today, and Bangladesh is not an exception to that. It is a big concern in journalism as good journalism depends on healthy journalists and news organizations. Most of the scholarships on the topic have been done from the perspective of western and dev
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eloped countries. Little is known about it from the context of developing countries like Bangladesh. As such, the present study aimed at assessing mental health and well-being of professional journalists in Bangladesh. Data were collected through a survey using a semi-structured questionnaire from 191 Dhaka-based journalists reached with the aid of snowball sampling method. Psychometric instruments such as improvised depression scale, the perceived stress scale, Beck hopelessness scale (BHS), and satisfaction with life scale were used to collect data. The results show that most of the journalists perceive their job as highly stressful, suffer from depression up to some extent, are extremely dissatisfied with their life, and severely hopeless about their life and future." (Abstract)
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"Featuring international migration in all facets from the migration of tech sector specialists through to refugee displacement, leading contributors offer strategic insights into the future of migration and mobility. Covering diverse geographies and using interdisciplinary approaches, contributions
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provide new analysis of migration futures. A discrete chapter on digital technology and COVID-19 global pandemic offers reflections on how migration and mobility are being profoundly reshaped by the global pandemic. The practical applications and limitations of digital technology in relation to international migration are also highlighted and supported with key case studies." (Publisher description)
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"This article focuses on a work published in 1883 by a German Christian press associated with a missionary society. The book provides a visual panorama of all the world’s cultures in 1,690 engravings. Most images were reproductions of material that had initially appeared in a variety of other cont
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exts, ranging from missionary periodicals to secular travel magazines and British colonial literature. This study examines the message that the volume’s editors wanted to convey: the extra-European world was portrayed as devoid of historical agency, non-Christian religions as false, and the presence of western agents – in particular, missionaries – as providential. Retracing the life story of a few images, I show that some of them communicated these notions better than others. For example, engravings based on photographs were often not as polemical as those based on drawings, simply because of the characteristics of photography as a medium. Complicating the critical reading of the images as simply missionary propaganda, I argue that a volume like the one examined here is best understood when placed within a transnational (or connected) history of visual practices." (Abstract)
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"This book explores how religion manifests itself in television. It focuses on how religious traditions, practices, and discourses have been incorporated into non-religious television programmes and how they bring both the community and the media into the fold of religion. The volume traces the cult
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ural and institutional history of television in the state of Sikkim, India, to investigate how it became part of the cultural life of the communities. The author analyses three televised shows that captured the community’s imagination and became ceremonial and religious engagement. Through these case studies, he highlights how rituals and myths function in mass media, how traditional institutions and religious practices redefine themselves through their association with the visual mass medium, and how identities based on religion, cultural tradition, and politics are reinforced, transformed, and amplified through television. The book further analyses the engagement of televised religion with audiences, its reach, relevance, and contents and its relationship with urbanity, tradition, and identity." (Publisher description)
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"The internet brought new opportunities for Pakistan to develop into a progressive society and a more democratic country, and it opened doors for more forms of criminal activity (like fraud, child pornography, etc.), more intimidation and the spreading extremism, and more information gathering on ci
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tizens by business and state agents. It will be highly important to Pakistan to more actively and more successfully develop the positive sides of IT technology, internet services, and the social media, while at the same time check its excesses, problems and abuses. FES Pakistan is delighted to present the report “Internet Landscape 2020” It is providing an excellent overview of internet usage, and on its dangers and opportunities. We hope, the report will facilitate a broad discussion about the use and further development of the internet in Pakistan, to fully tun it into another means for Pakistan to utilize its full potential and develop into a more progressive, citizen-oriented country." (Preface, page 4)
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"This 3rd edition maps the new world of Investigative Journalism, where technology and globalisation have connected and energized journalists, whistle-blowers and the latest players, with far-reaching consequences in politics and business worldwide. In this new edition, expert contributors demonstra
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te how crowdsourcing, big data, globalization of information and changes in media ownership and funding have escalated the impact of investigative journalists. The book includes case studies of investigative journalism from around the world including the exposure of EU corruption, destruction of the Malaysian environment, and investigations in China, Poland and Turkey. From Ibero-America to Nigeria, India to the Arab world, investigative journalists intensify their countries' evolution by inquisition and revelation. This new edition reveals how investigative journalism has gone digital and global." (Publisher description)
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"In this book, Patrick Colm Hogan sets out through close analysis and explication of culturally particular information about Indian history, Hindu metaphysics, Islamic spirituality, Sanskrit aesthetics, and other Indian traditions to provide necessary cultural contexts for understanding Indian films
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. Hogan analyzes eleven important films, using them as the focus to explore the topics of plot, theme, emotion, sound, and visual style in Indian cinema. These films draw on a wide range of South Asian cultural traditions and are representative of the greater whole of Indian cinema. By learning to interpret these examples with the tools Hogan provides, the reader will be able to take these skills and apply them to other Indian films. But this study is not simply culturalist. Hogan also takes up key principles from cognitive neuroscience to illustrate that all cultures share perceptual, cognitive, and emotional elements that, when properly interpreted, can help to bridge gaps between seemingly disparate societies. Hogan locates the specificity of Indian culture in relation to human universals, and illustrates this cultural-cognitive synthesis through his detailed interpretations of these films." (Publisher description)
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"Since October 2017, the Common Service for Community Engagement and Accountability (‘the Common Service’) has been funded as a dedicated project providing key services and support to help humanitarian organisations engage effectively with Rohingya communities and Bangladeshis living near Rohing
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ya camps (host communities) in Cox’s Bazar. A sub-national working group on communicating with communities (CwC) already existed in Bangladesh and was activated in response to the Rohingya refugee crisis. The Common Service project operates alongside the working group carrying out a diverse range of activities including creating and sharing audio and visual content in the Rohingya language; supporting and training humanitarian agencies on language, communication, community engagement and accountability; and operating a collective feedback analysis service, collating and analysing community feedback and complaints data from different sources and producing a fortnightly bulletin" (Preface, page 4). –- "There is strong evidence to suggest that community members have improved access to coordinated, timely and responsive two-way community engagement as a result of the Common Service. The evaluation has found causal evidence to suggest that support the Common Service has provided to the humanitarian sector, through provision of communication materials and training has led to humanitarian agencies being better equipped to communicate with communities and in turn community members having access to key, useful information which has prompted them to take action." (Conclusions, page 50)
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"This report, based on research conducted with women's empowerment collectives (self help groups, co-operatives, rights-based groups, trade unions) in India in late 2019, explores the relationship between the expansion of women's social networks in collectives, their growing empowerment, and their a
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doption and meaningful use of digital technologies." (https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction)
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"BBC Media Action is helping to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus in Afghanistan by using a media campaign to encourage uptake of preventive behaviours. Informed by research the project’s media outputs aim to help reduce the transmission of the coronavirus by encouraging take up of the fo
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llowing behaviours: Handwashing with soap and water more frequently; Disinfecting high touch surfaces; Catching coughs and sneezes; Maintaining a physical distance from people that you don’t live with. The campaign features: Seventeen (17) video and 18 audio PSAs distributed on TV, social media and radio featuring a little girl and her family who urges everyone to follow preventive behaviours to reduce the chance of getting the Coronavirus and escape the fate of losing loved ones, like she had, losing her father. Six different PSAs produced in Dari, Pashto and Uzbek languages, and distributed across national and local radio and TV stations as well as on Facebook. Forty (40) five minute episodes of a fast fiction radio drama targeting the nomadic Kuchi population were also produced and distributed on radio, interactive voice response (IVR) and Facebook.
Impact: A Reach and Engagement survey was conducted in February and March 2021 of a nationally representative sample with 2,729 men and women aged 18 years and above, from settled urban and rural areas of 16 provinces of all eight geographic regions. In addition, 273 interviews were conducted with Kuchis (nomads). The survey’s primary goals were to gauge how successful the PSAs were in terms of reaching their intended targets and what the impact of the PSAs were, in terms of audiences’ knowledge and take up of preventative measures. The survey has shown that approximately 7.6 million have listened to or watched at least one of the PSAs or drama episodes (46% of the Afghanistan’s adult population). About three quarters of the audience (74%) reported to have discussed the PSAs with other people." (Page 1)
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"This study mapped 11 innovative and public interest media initiatives in Bangladesh seeking to reach diverse audience groups and communities with news and information in a changing media landscape. Each of these media initiatives has its unique strengths and weaknesses but managed to thrive to cont
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inue to provide information to the community they serve. However, the online media space is chaotic, and media innovation in Bangladesh is still in a very immature stage. Independent journalists’ inability to try out new ideas and risk investments to startup a public interest media is often ascribed to the restrictive licensing system and repressive laws. The uncertainty that government may not allow them media registration and can block the site anytime — as it happened with a few initiatives — remains one of the biggest constraints for innovation. Therefore, there are more innovations and investments in media that offer information contents around important social and economic – and potentially less-sensitive subjects like health, agriculture, migration, and education. These initiatives (for example, Shohay, Krishi Bioscope) manage to grow hundreds of thousands of followers on different platforms, engage audiences not only as consumers but also as a part of the content development process, and contribute to social and human development. Most of these initiatives are youth-led and seem to find ways to generate revenue by adopting innovative strategies." (Summary, page 2-3)
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"The intersection between media and politics remains very strong in several countries under study. In these conditions, there is often little transparency on media ownership and a lack of transparency on local funding sources of media. Relatedly, in some cases, a change in government policies was ra
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ised as an important precondition to possibly change the negative discourse towards the (public) media. A different political climate may benefit the financial conditions of a media outlet, for instance by lifting difficulties in acquiring media licenses or access to (governmental) funding by independent media. The advertisement markets for media are, in many of the countries under study, still controlled by a few large, more traditional media outlets. Generally, the advertising market is driven by a number of factors, including a network, political patronage, and the ability of media owners to utilise relationships with the corporate sector. Due to the digitalisation of media and the advertising market, the market has further changed over the past years. There is limited to no regulation in the distribution of advertisement funding based on quality standards for journalism. Some media practitioners proposed to address this problem by stimulating national governments to support regulatory bodies for media advertisement. While digital advertisement is on the rise, most revenue of online (media) advertisement is directed to big tech companies. An increased amount of advertising money is flowing towards social media platforms, and Internet advertising has been rising exponentially, as observed in all countries under study. The media sector as a whole is suffering from this trend, particularly the more traditional print media who are struggling to make the transition to online media. In some countries under study, media are not even eligible to generate an income on the large social media platforms. Policies to regulate online advertisement is imperative to strengthen the competition position of traditional media." (Global trends, page 9)
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