"The current UIS Questionnaire on Media Statistics provides information for three UNESCO frameworks, namely the Media and Information Literacy Framework, the Media Development Indicators Framework and the Framework for Cultural Statistics. The questionnaire collects data for reporting global progres
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s on Action Lines C2, C3, C8 and C9 of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in UNESCO’s fields of competencies. In particular, Action Line C9 recommends appropriate policies to foster and sustain media and information development. This document provides country profiles for each of the countries that participated in the two pilot surveys conducted in 2011 and 2012." (Background, page 3)
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"Freedom House has conducted a comprehensive study of internet freedom in 60 countries around the world. This report is the fourth in a series and focuses on developments that occurred between May 2012 and April 2013. The previous edition, covering 47 countries, was published in September 2012. 'Fre
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edom on the Net 2013' assesses a greater variety of political systems than its predecessors, while tracing improvements and declines in the countries examined in the previous editions. Over 70 researchers, nearly all based in the countries they analyzed, contributed to the project examining laws and practices relevant to the internet, testing the accessibility of select websites, and interviewing a wide range of sources. Of the 60 countries assessed, 34 have experienced a negative trajectory since May 2012." (Page 2)
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"News Media in the Arab World: A Study of 10 Arab and Muslim Countries is based on ongoing research at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester, and has investigated the rapidly changing nature of the news media in Arab countries. They have investigated the role of newspape
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rs and television in news provision and the impact of new media developments, most especially the emergence of the internet as a platform for news distribution and of international satellite television channels such as Al Jazeera. Examining the constantly developing nature of news, the collection contains separately authored chapters produced by the researchers responsible for each original analysis, covering Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates." (Publisher description)
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"The Report is composed of four thematic parts. Part 1 describes the conceptual framework and relates the findings of the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) 2012. In addition, Part 1 features selected expert contributions on the general theme of hyperconnectivity. Part 2 includes two case studies showi
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ng the efforts that two countries, Azerbaijan and Mauritius, are making to develop ICT and fully leverage their potential benefits. Part 3 comprises detailed profiles for the 142 economies covered in this year’s Report, providing a thorough picture of each economy’s current networked readiness landscape and allowing for international comparisons of specific variables or components of the NRI. Part 4 includes data tables for each of the 53 variables composing the NRI, with rankings for the economies covered as well as technical notes and sources for the quantitative variables used." (Executive summary, page xi)
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"An extraordinary wave of popular protest swept the Arab world in 2011. Massive popular mobilization brought down long-ruling leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, helped spark bloody struggles in Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, and fundamentally reshaped the nature of politics in the region. New media -
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at least that which uses bit.ly linkages - did not appear to play a significant role in either in-country collective action or regional diffusion during this period. This lack of impact does not mean that social media - or digital media generally - were unimportant. Nor does it preclude the possibility that other new media technologies were significant in these contexts, or even that different Twitter or link data would show different results. But it does mean that at least in terms of media that use bit.ly links (especially Twitter), data do not provide strong support for claims of significant new media impact on Arab Spring political protests. New media outlets that use bit.ly are more likely to spread information outside the region than inside it, acting like a megaphone more than a rallying cry. This dissemination could be significant if it led to a boomerang effect that brought international pressure to bear on autocratic regimes, or helped reduce a regimefs tendency to crack down violently on protests. It is increasingly difficult to separate new media from old media. In the Arab Spring, the two reinforced each other. New media must be understood as part of a wider information arena in which new and old media form complex interrelationships. Of the four major Arab Spring protests analyzed - Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain - large differences were found across the four in the amount of information consumed via social media. The events in Egypt and in Libya (#jan25 and #feb17, respectively) garnered many more clicks on a much larger number of URLs than those in Tunisia and Bahrain." (Summary, page 3)
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"This is the first scholarly analysis of how young women used social media and cyberactivism to help shape the “Arab Spring” and its aftermath. It argues that women's engagement with social media has coincided with a shift in the political landscape of the Middle East, and it is unlikely that th
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ey will ever retreat from the new arenas they have carved out for themselves because they have reconfigured the public sphere in their countries, as well as the expectations of the public about the role women can and should play in the political lives of their countries."
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"The Arab Media Outlook is the most comprehensive publication on the Arab Media Industry and represents one of the key knowledge development initiatives of the Dubai Press Club. The report serves as a reference point of the media industry in the region highlighting media trends across 17 markets and
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providing both breadth and depth of coverage for the benefit of various industry stakeholders." (www.med-media.eu, October 26, 2015)
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"This report is the third in a series of comprehensive studies of internet freedom around the globe and covers developments in 47 countries that occurred between January 2011 and May 2012. Over 50 researchers, nearly all based in the countries they analyzed, contributed to the project by researching
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laws and practices relevant to the internet, testing the accessibility of select websites, and interviewing a wide range of sources. This year's findings indicate that restrictions on internet freedom in many countries have continued to grow, though the methods of control are slowly evolving, becoming more sophisticated and less visible. Brutal attacks against bloggers, politically motivated surveillance, proactive manipulation of web content, and restrictive laws regulating speech online are among the diverse threats to internet freedom emerging over the past two years. Nevertheless, several notable victories have also occurred as a result of greater activism by civil society, technology companies, and independent courts, illustrating that efforts to advance internet freedom can yield results." (www.freedomhouse.org, January 14, 2013)
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The following report documents the findings of a delegation comprised of representatives from six international rights groups (three members and three partners of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, IFEX), which carried out a fact-finding mission between 20-30 November, 2011, in order
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to gain an understanding of the state of free expression and the status of human rights defenders in Bahrain. The 11 recommendations made in this report include calls to end the harassment, imprisonment and prosecution of Bahraini citizens for what essentially amount to persecution of free expression and legitimate human rights work.
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"Women have yet to enter to Bahrain’s parliament despite being permitted to run for some years. With its king promoting social and economic change, the media has portrayed positive images of Arab women as professionals against a backdrop of religious conservatism. The communications strategy adopt
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ed by some women candidates to attain election to parliament and the response of the local media are analysed utilizing content analysis. Despite some variation of coverage, the media in this Persian Gulf country were found to be fair to all women candidates and generally gender-neutral. Although the women candidates who applied a well thought-out communications strategy did better in media coverage and voting results, ultimately none were elected. This article explores the reasons for this failure in terms of Islamist religious interpretations of the role of women and Arab cultural conventions regarding family life. Finally, the authors speculate briefly about the prospects of political communications by women challenging Arab cultural conservatism in the future." (Abstract)
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"Around the developing world, political leaders face a dilemma: the very information and communication technologies that boost economic fortunes also undermine power structures. Globally, one in ten internet users is a Muslim living in a populous Muslim community. In these countries, young people ar
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e developing their political identities—including a transnational Muslim identity—online. In countries where political parties are illegal, the internet is the only infrastructure for democratic discourse. In others, digital technologies such as mobile phones and the internet have given key actors an information infrastructure that is independent of the state. And in countries with large Muslim communities, mobile phones and the internet are helping civil society build systems of political communication independent of the state and beyond easy manipulation by cultural or religious elites. This book looks at the role that communications technologies play in advancing democratic transitions in Muslim countries. As such, its central question is whether technology holds the potential to substantially enhance democracy. Certainly, no democratic transition has occurred solely because of the internet. But, as the book argues, no democratic transition can occur today without the internet. According to this book, the major (and perhaps only meaningful) forum for civic debate in most Muslim countries today is online. Activists both within diasporic communities and within authoritarian states—including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan—are the drivers of this debate, which centers around issues such as the interpretation of Islamic texts, gender roles, and security issues. Drawing upon material from interviews with telecommunications policy makers and activists in Azerbaijan, Egypt, Tajikistan, and Tanzania and a comparative study of seventy-four countries with large Muslim populations, this book demonstrates that these forums have been the means to organize activist movements that have lead to successful democratic insurgencies." (Publisher description)
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"Based on a wealth of primary data collected during five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fueling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the
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Arab world. The controversies, Marwan M. Kraidy argues, are best understood as a social laboratory in which actors experiment with various forms of modernity, continuing a long-standing Arab preoccupation with specifying terms of engagement with Western modernity. Women and youth take center stage in this process. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic “Arab Street” and offers an original perspective on Arab media, shifting attention away from a narrow focus on al-Jazeera and toward a vibrant media sphere that compels broad popular engagement and contentious political performance." (Publisher description)
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