commbox East Asia

Minority and Indigenous Trends 2020: Focus on Technology
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Peter Grant (ed.)

London: Minority Rights Group International (2020), 189 pp.

Women and News: An Overview of Audience Behaviour in 11 Countries
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Meera Selva, Simge Andi

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2020), 43 pp.

"This report [...] presents a bespoke analysis of how women around the world consume and perceive news, based on data on audience behaviour from 11 countries featured in the 2020 Reuters Institute Digital News Report: Kenya, South Africa, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Finland, Germa ... more

National Environmental Education and Communication Strategy for the Protected Areas System in Mongolia

Manfred Oepen

ACT Assist;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) (2020), 24 pp.

The Digital Silk Road: Expanding China’s Digital Footprint

Eurasia Group (2020), 12 pp.

"First unveiled in 2015, the Digital Silk Road (DSR) component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has attracted more political and commercial attention as technology-related tensions between the US and China have risen. Whereas large-scale traditional infrastructure projects have so far bee ... more

China’s Aid from the Bottom Up: Recipient Country Reporting on Chinese Development Cooperation Flows

Jonathan Glennie, Peter Grinsted, Hannah Ryder

Washington, DC: Center for Global Development (2020), 51 pp.

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Media and Conflict in the Social Media Era in China

Shixin Ivy Zhang

Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan (2020), xiv, 160 pp.

"This book explores the media and conflict relationship in the age of social media through the lens of China. Inspired by the concepts of medialization of conflict and actor-network theory, this book centers on four main actors in wars and conflicts: social media platform, mainstream news organizati ... more

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Media Culture in Transnational Asia: Convergences and Divergences

Hyesu Park (ed.)

New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press (2020), 241 pp.

"Media Culture in Transnational Asia: Convergences and Divergences examines contemporary media use within Asia, where over half of the world's population resides. The book addresses media use and practices by looking at the transnational exchanges of ideas, narratives, images, techniques, and values ... more

The Implications for Democracy of China’s Globalizing Media Influence

Sarah Cook

In: Freedom and the Media: A Downward Spiral

Freedom House (2019), pp. 8-15

"Chinese authorities influence news media content around the world through three primary strategies: promoting the CCP’s narratives, suppressing critical viewpoints, and managing content delivery systems. These efforts have already undercut key features of democratic governance and best practices ... more

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The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity

Amy Webb

New York: PublicAffairs (2019), 320 pp.

"The Big Nine who will determine the future of artifical intelligence (AI) - Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and Facebook in America; and Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent in China - serve masters with conflicting interests. Wall Street wants profit now without regard to consequences. The Chinese g ... more

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China and the Global Media Landscape: Remapping and Remapped

Gabriele Balbi, Fei Jiang, Giuseppe Richeri (eds.)

Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2019), vi, 196 pp.

"In the last decade, the Chinese media have imposed themselves in the global arena and have started to become a reference point, in business and cultural terms, for other national media systems. This book explores how the global media landscape was changed by this revolutionary trend, and why and ho ... more

Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication

Scott Slovic, Swarnalatha Rangarajan, Vidya Sarveswaran (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge;Earthscan (2019), xxi, 412 pp.

"Ecocriticism and environmental communication studies have for many years co-existed as parallel disciplines, occasionally crossing paths but typically operating in separate academic spheres. These fields are now rapidly converging, and this handbook aims to reinforce the common concerns and methodo ... more

Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media

Samuel C. Woolley, Philip N. Howard (eds.)

New York: Oxford University Press (2019), vi, 263 pp.

"Computational propaganda is an emergent form of political manipulation that occurs over the Internet. The term describes the assemblage of social media platforms, autonomous agents, algorithms, and big data tasked with the manipulation of public opinion. Our research shows that this new mode of int ... more

The Need for a New US Information Strategy for North Korea

Nat Kretchun

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace (USIP) (2019), 19 pp.

"Drawing on relevant literature, analysis of North Korean media and information control techniques, and interviews with refugees and defectors, this report argues that a new US information strategy is needed to alleviate the social isolation of the North Korean people and improve their long-term wel ... more

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Digital News Report 2019
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Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2019), 153 pp.

"Despite the efforts of the news industry, we find only a small increase in the numbers paying for any online news – whether by subscription, membership, or donation. Growth is limited to a handful of countries mainly in the Nordic region (Norway 34%, Sweden 27%) while the number paying in the US ... (16%) remains stable after a big jump in 2017. • Even in countries with higher levels of payment, the vast majority only have ONE online subscription – suggesting that ‘winner takes all’ dynamics are likely to be important. One encouraging development though is that most payments are now ‘ongoing’, rather than one-offs. In some countries, subscription fatigue may also be setting in, with the majority preferring to spend their limited budget on entertainment (Netflix/Spotify) rather than news. With many seeing news as a ‘chore’, publishers may struggle to substantially increase the market for high-priced ‘single title’ subscriptions. As more publishers launch pay models, over two-thirds (70%) of our sample in Norway and half (50%) in the United States now come across one or more barriers each week when trying to read online news. In many countries, people are spending less time with Facebook and more time with WhatsApp and Instagram than this time last year. Few users are abandoning Facebook entirely, though, and it remains by far the most important social network for news. Social communication around news is becoming more private as messaging apps continue to grow everywhere. WhatsApp has become a primary network for discussing and sharing news in non-Western countries like Brazil (53%) Malaysia (50%), and South Africa (49%). People in these countries are also far more likely than in the West to be part of large WhatsApp groups with people they don’t know – a trend that reflects how messaging applications can be used to easily share information at scale, potentially encouraging the spread of misinformation. Public and private Facebook Groups discussing news and politics have become popular in Turkey (29%) and Brazil (22%) but are much less used in Western countries such as Canada (7%) or Australia (7%). Concern about misinformation and disinformation remains high despite efforts by platforms and publishers to build public confidence. In Brazil 85% agree with a statement that they are worried about what is real and fake on the internet." (Summary, page 9) more

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Climate and Sustainability Communication: Global Perspectives

Donnalyn Pompper (ed.)

London; New York: Routledge (2019), x, 149 pp.

"Climate and Sustainability Communication builds upon traditional approaches to understanding the role of mass media in shaping social issues by amplifying diverse perspectives of opinion leaders, as well as voices of those affected by climate and sustainability issues. From South Korea and China, t ... more

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Chinese Propaganda Seducing the World

Jeanne Boden

Brussels: PUNCT (2019), 292 pp.

"In contrast to earlier publications on Chinese propaganda and media, 'Chinese propaganda seducing the world' offers the first comprehensive analysis of propaganda from Mao to today. Here lies the book’s strength. The author, Jeanne Boden, holds a PhD in Oriental Languages and Cultures (Ghent Univ ... more

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Muss man wissen … über Verschwörungstheorien

iz3w, issue 371 (2019), pp. 19-39

"Verschwörungstheorien sind kein Alleinstellungsmerkmal der Rechten und des Rechtspopulismus, sie reichen bis weit in gesellschaftliche Mitte. Auch die linke Szene ist anfällig dafür. Das unreflektierte Gerede von »den Herrschenden«, »den Eliten« oder »den Großmächten« eröffnet eine Quer ... more

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Media in the Global Context: Applications and Interventions

Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi (ed.)

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (2019), xxii, 272 pp.

"This book investigates ways in which global media coverage of conflicts affects the worldviews of the social and cultural values of nationals from the war regions. It identifies the cultural patterns in remote communities that have been 'diluted' by IT and the extent to which the changes impacted t ... more