"The 2014 MSI study for Europe & Eurasia is marked by an overall constancy of scores, for better or worse. Taken as a whole, the average of 21 overall scores shows an increase of 0.01 compared with last year. Out of the 21 countries studied, 13 showed a change in score of less than 0.10. Of the rema
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ining eight showing significant change, five were headed in a negative direction while three showed improvement. The lack of change was in some cases a sign of resilience and part of a positive overall trend: for example, in Albania, Kosovo, and Moldova panelists noted that recent achievements are not eroding and the media as a whole are finding space to operate independently and are resistant to political control. However, in some cases, such as Ukraine and Serbia, the unchanged scores reflect a sense of frustration on the part of panelists—and a resolve to play a stronger role in bringing about change." (Executive summary)
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"Nationally, Turkish media consumers fall into three basic groups: About half (48.0%) tend to only watch TV news; about one-third (32.0%) mostly watch TV and use the Internet to get news, and two in 10 (20.0%) are “super users” who get news from a variety of media platforms. Super-users are more
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likely to be male, young, highly educated, and to live in urban areas." (Page 1)
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"This paper compares and contrasts four centers: The Center for Investigative Reporting in Bosnia-Herzegovina (CIN), The Journalism Training and Research Initiative in Bangladesh (JATRI), the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism in Jordan (ARIJ), and The Caucasus Media Investigations Center (
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CMIC) in Azerbaijan. No officials or funders ever announce failures or label projects like these failures. But this paper posits that those centers designed and run by journalists to actively report are more effective in fulfilling their role as watch-dogs, as well as more sustainable. They perform better at developing future practitioners and instilling an investigative reporting tradition in new places. This examination suggests that donors hoping to implant successful centers increase their chances when they match ambitions to the political and legal climate of host countries, commit to multi-year involvement, and select passionate leaders with clout in the eyes of other journalists in their host regions. This study suggest that centers designed by outsiders and run by non-journalists tend to evolve into generalized research, resource and training centers." (Introduction)
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"This Global Information Society Watch tracks the state of communications surveillance in 57 countries across the world – countries as diverse as Hungary, India, Argentina, The Gambia, Lebanon and the United Kingdom. Each country report approaches the issue from a different perspective. Some analy
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se legal frameworks that allow surveillance, others the role of businesses in collecting data (including marketing data on children), the potential of biometrics to violate rights, or the privacy challenges when implementing a centralised universal health system. The perspectives from long-time internet activists on surveillance are also recorded. Using the 13 International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance as a starting point, eight thematic reports frame the key issues at stake. These include discussions on what we mean by digital surveillance, the implications for a human rights agenda on surveillance, the “Five Eyes” inter-government surveillance network led by the US, cyber security, and the role of intermediaries." (GIS website)
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"This report presents an up-to-date assessment of internet rights in Turkey, and has been prepared to coincide with the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2014 which is being hosted by Turkey in Istanbul from 2–5 September 2014. The IGF is a space that strives for a democratic and inclusive internet
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and this report assesses the Turkish government’s respect for international human rights standards in relation to freedom of expression online. The assessment [...] focuses on internet regulation, internet access, blocking, surveillance, liability of internet intermediaries, criminalisation of legitimate expression, and cyber-attacks. The report concludes with recommendations for actions to promote and protect an open and free internet in Turkey." (Abstract)
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"The transformation of state media to public service media (PSM) is one of the most ambitious endeavors in the field of media development. Not many efforts to free the national media from government control have succeeded in the past decades. In this paper the comparatively promising cases of Kyrgyz
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stan, Mongolia, Moldova and Serbia are discussed. The PSM in these countries all have a new legal basis, including a public service remit and a relatively independent governing body in which civil society is represented. The services delivered to the public by these media are analyzed according to a number of societal functions which are assembled under two general headings: “creating a public sphere” and “supporting integration”. Based on this analysis, a differentiation between “PSM in initial transformation” and “PSM in advanced transformation” is suggested. In all cases studied, different actors successfully used windows of opportunity: general political agendas to reform the media, a specific engagement from the management as well as support from the population and civil society. Media development actors here helped to advance the processes of change in different ways. Recommendations for future media development include strategic planning, inclusion of local actors, the pooling of legal expertise as well as structured processes of organizational development and capacity building." (Abstract)
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"The Georgian public service broadcaster has been unable to develop into an autonomous and independent media organisation in spite of all the legal and institutional safeguards. It has been a victim of intense political manipulation and interference throughout its existence, and most domestic and ex
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ternal interventions to improve its position concentrated on changes in legislation and on administrative measures, which the political class has always been able to bypass or bend to its needs." (Conclusion)
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"Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fourth consecutive year, with a growing number of countries introducing online censorship and monitoring practices that are simultaneously more aggressive and more sophisticated in their targeting of individual users. In a departure from the pa
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st, when most governments preferred a behind-the-scenes approach to internet control, countries are rapidly adopting new laws that legitimize existing repression and effectively criminalize online dissent." (Page 1)
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"Both in form and in content, this publication is unconventional in its approach to deconstructing and debating some prevailing imageries of migrants across Europe and specifically in Spain, the UK, Turkey and Poland. In this publication, four individual case studies of incidents that occurred recen
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tly in the media provide the starting points for an analysis of country-specific, cuitural and historical contexts that influence public perception of, and general attitudes to, migrants and migration. An eclectic mix of images from mainstreain rnedia sources - footage "found" and introduced by the cultural organisations of the DocNext Network -. represent how migrants arc portrayed, or in some cases, made invisible in each country. The images are snapshots of the representation of migrauts in media: they show how migrants are stereotyped, criminalised, racially categorised, objectified and subjected to hate speech, all of which serves to deny their individual voices and agency." (Preface)
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"Turkish television has undergone a distinctive transformation since the early 2000s in which new regulations, rapid market growth, and political pressures have interacted with and transformed each other. As Turkey set new records in 2013 for the highest number of journalists arrested worldwide, tel
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evision dramas have suffered from their fair share of political pressures, while the contemporary political agenda has, in turn, infiltrated the content of television dramas. This article analyzes the ways in which Turkish television dramas appear as a sphere of political contest." (Abstract)
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"Despite the importance of media ownership transparency for both the individual and the state, only two of the surveyed countries—Italy and Romania—address media transparency directly in their constitutions but in both cases the focus is on transparency of fi nancial sources not ownership. In th
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e Turkish Constitution the state is empowered to require information as a precondition to publication. None of these constitutions therefore impose an express positive obligation on the state to ensure that the public has access to information on media ownership. Although the Constitution of Norway does not expressly refer to media ownership transparency, Norwegian media ownership rules, which do provide for ownership transparency, refer back to the provisions on freedom of expression in article 100 of the Constitution. These impose on the state a positive duty to create conditions that “facilitate open and enlightened public discourse”, thus underlining the link between freedom of expression and media ownership transparency." (Key findings, page 3)
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"Three former Soviet republics occupy Central Asia's Ferghana Valley, a region of serious transborder environmental problems, especially ones that involve water and energy. Most news organizations in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan provide little in-depth coverage of these issues. Journalists
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in one country usually do not seek news sources in the others. Journalists and media experts cite such reasons as avoidance of controversy, self-censorship, lack of access to information, little collaboration, inadequate professional skills, and weak minority-language media." (Abstract)
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"Russia still aspires to influence the news media in the former Soviet republics. The objective appears to be to manipulate their media environments in order to promote dependence on Russia and distrust of the West and to help Russia to pursue its political and commercial objectives–such as persua
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ding former Soviet republics to adhere to the Eurasian Customs Union or promoting opposition to the United States and NATO. The push by Russia to influence the media among its near neighbors not only marks an important thrust of Russian foreign policy, it also poses a major challenge to the international media development community." (CIMA website)
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"Global Journalism Practice and New Media Performance provides an overview of new and traditional media in their political, economic and cultural contexts while exploring the role of journalism practice and media education. The authors examine media systems in 16 countries, including China, Russia a
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nd the United States." (Publisher description)
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"Ethnische Medien in Deutschland befinden sich in einer Nischenökonomie und sind aufgrund der mangelnden Einbindung in den deutschen Medienmarkt informellen Strukturen unterworfen. Die Schattenwirtschaft der ethnischen Medien in Deutschland mündet demzufolge in einen Schlamassel. Diese Studie befa
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sst sich mit den Strukturmerkmalen des deutsch-türkischen Fernsehmarktes auf der Basis ausgewählter türkischer Fernsehsender. Grundlage dieser empirischen Untersuchung sind fünf Akteure, die spezielle Fernsehprogramme für türkische Rezipienten auf dem deutsch-türkischen Fernsehmarkt anbieten. Das Ziel der Untersuchung besteht darin, herauszufinden, aus welchen Motiven die ausgewählten Fernsehsender eine Präsenz auf dem deutsch-türkischen Fernsehmarkt anstreben und welche Strategien sie verfolgen, um ihre politischen und unternehmerischen Ziele zu verwirklichen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Media Evolution on the Eve of the Arab Spring brings together some of the most celebrated and respected names in Arab media research to reflect on the communication conditions that preceded and made the Arab uprisings possible." (Publisher description)