"This report documents a snapshot of media ownership in Bangladesh in late 2020 and identifies its major patterns. By no means is this report exhaustive nor does it cover all aspects of ownership of media in Bangladesh. In the absence of baseline data, our primary objective was to build one with the
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possibility of further addition and exploration. The information provided in the report should allow researchers to examine these media and others which remained outside the ambit of this report. Drawing on data about selected 32 business entities and associated 48 print and electronic media outlets, this report has shown that family ties, political affiliation and business interests largely shape the ownership patterns in the mediascape. The fact that large business groups are dominating the Bangladeshi mediascape is not a unique phenomenon. But a combination of these three factors points to an alarming picture and raises concern. These do not augur well when the legal and extralegal measures are used rampantly to curtail freedom of speech and when the democratic space is shrinking fast. The overall political environment has created a situation where the pattern of media ownership facilitates ongoing democratic backsliding. The current pattern of ownership also warrants exploration of media content. It is necessary to examine whether the extent of the monopoly of the few groups over the industry and the incumbent government's politics impact media content." (Concluding remarks, page 26)
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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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"This collection investigates and critiques the dynamism of children's lives online with contributions fielding both global and hyper-local issues, and bridging the wide spectrum of connected media created for and by children. From education to children's rights to cyberbullying and youth in challen
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ging circumstances, the interdisciplinary approach ensures a careful, nuanced, multi-dimensional exploration of children's relationships with digital media. Featuring a highly international range of case studies, perspectives, and socio-cultural contexts, The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children is the perfect reference tool for students and researchers of media and communication, family and technology studies, psychology, education, anthropology, and sociology, as well as interested teachers, policy makers, and parents." (Publisher description)
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"This report provides an overview of the innovation capacity of the Asia-Pacific region through ICT-centric innovation activity and offers an insight to how good practice can strengthen Member State capacity to integrate ICT innovation into development agendas.
Although the Asia-Pacific region has a
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strong tradition of innovation, there is room for improvement, for example, some countries have healthy innovative ecosystems that perform well in some elements of the ecosystem but need further support in others to develop a thriving digital innovation ecosystem.
This report uses international indices to monitor the current state of innovation ecosystem performance, aspects of growth, gaps, and discrepancies. The information from these major indices has been analysed to create an ICT-centric innovation performance monitor that provides a comparative assessment of the innovation ecosystems both within and among countries in the region and a threshold for action by decision-makers.
There are many good practices in the region. Each practice presented in this report has been assessed according to three engines of growth (innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology) and the current state of the seven enablers of digital transformation. In addition, the ecosystem maturity map helps to assess stakeholder levels of engagement, for example where the first stage of the journey for entrepreneurs is entrepreneurial interest, and for the public sector it is having a vision and developing a strategy. These monitoring tools enable stakeholders to visualize the maturity of the ICT-centric innovation ecosystem and identify practices to keep, those that must be improved, and those to be replaced." (Introduction)
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"The two objectives that this compilation set for itself were documenting community radio best practices and creating a robust sector through knowledge sharing and collaborative learning. The 96 stories [from Bangladesh, India and Nepal] included in the compilation capture the various ways in which
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the diverse sector is identifying, prioritizing, and addressing concerns in the community’s vis-a-vis the SDGs. These stories describe the creative ways in which content has been developed by using the folk format, engaging the community through discussions, games, and cultural events, and innovative outreach activities. Further, they also highlight collaborations with local institutions and civic administrations and the way in which CRS’ core strengths like youth power especially in educational institutions are harnessed to provide inclusive community programming that truly provides a voice to the voiceless. Finally, the stories also highlight how social media and internet have been co-opted for a wider and on-demand access. The stories embody within them elements worthy of replication and emulation. Several community radio stations are already networking and sharing content and ideas. If these stories are also shared across content aggregation platforms and through the community radio networks, they could reach much wider audiences and initiate new conversations and exchange of ideas building a robust community of practice." (Way forward, page 34)
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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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"Reports by international organizations suggest that physical violence and threats against journalists and bloggers continued with impunity in Bangladesh, resulting in the country being ranked as 146 in the World Press Freedom Index 2018. Considering the increasing incidents of violence against jour
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nalists and attacks on media freedom, this chapter specifically aims to shed light on Bangladeshi laws and policies, which are related to media freedom and to protect media from crime against journalists. Relying on Beata Rozumilowicz's concept of media reform and stages of media reform, the study urges that Bangladesh is in under the rule of democratic rule for years that symbolizes the primary transition stage. However, the enactment of statutes on digital media, access to information, defamation, and so on epitomize the pre-transition stage of the media reform concept. Hence, the study questions the legal and media structure of Bangladesh with the historical and document analysis of laws and policies." (Abstract)
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"This book tells the story of community radio in four South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The three parts of the book focus on policy (discussed country by country), issues in practice, and case studies. In effect, however, each of the chapters touches on these topics to
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one degree or another. The first section presents very helpful background on the introduction of community radio in the four countries, focusing not only on policy issues but also on the history of setting up the stations. The second section calls attention to particular challenges such as the role of NGOs, radio spectrum management, the introduction of somewhat advanced technologies into rural communities, the role of women, the possibilities of community radio for disaster response, and issues of sustainability. The third section (the case studies) offers a good deal of practical suggestions to address challenges such as conflicts in the communities, assessment of the stations, and the practices of democracy." (Review in "Religion and Social Communication", vol. 20:2, 2022, page 418-421, https://www.asianresearchcenter.org)
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"The present paper identifies five key roles of media in contributing to the SDGs delivery. These include: channeling information flow, ensuring proper monitoring and accountability, acting as an enabler of a ‘culture of peace’, upholding marginalised voices and facilitating the localisation of
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SDGs. Based on a mapping exercise on selected national and sub-national Bangla, English and online newspapers, this paper finds that among the five identified roles, the media in Bangladesh at present is primarily playing the role of channeling information flow. Media is also playing a watchdog role in a limited scale, while their participation in the SDGs accountability process is almost non-existent." (Abstract)
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"Global news on anthropogenic climate change is shaped by international politics, scientific reports and voices from transnational protest movements. This timely volume asks how local communities engage with these transnational discourses. The chapters in this volume present a range of compelling ca
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se studies drawn from a broad cross-section of local communities around the world, reflecting diverse cultural and geographical contexts. From Greenland to northern Tanzania, it illuminates how different understandings evolve in diverse cultural and geographical contexts while also revealing some common patterns of how people make sense of climate change. Global Warming in Local Discourses constitutes a significant, new contribution to understanding the multi-perspectivity of our debates on climate change, further highlighting the need for interdisciplinary study within this area." (Publisher description)
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"The world is facing an unprecedented climate and environmental emergency. Scientists have identified human activity as primarily responsible for the climate crisis, which together with rampant environmental pollution, and the unbridled activities of the extractive and agricultural industries, pose
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a direct threat to the sustainability of life on this planet. This edition of Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) seeks to understand the constructive role that technology can play in confronting the crises. It disrupts the normative understanding of technology being an easy panacea to the planet’s environmental challenges and suggests that a nuanced and contextual use of technology is necessary for real sustainability to be achieved. A series of thematic reports frame different aspects of the relationship between digital technology and environmental sustainability from a human rights and social justice perspective, while 46 country and regional reports explore the diverse frontiers where technology meets the needs of both the environment and communities and where technology itself becomes a challenge to a sustainable future." (Back cover)
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"The Right to Information (RTI) Survey was conducted between January and March of 2019. The survey was split into five segments: a) a survey among 768 Designated Officers (DOs) in 64 districts, b) a survey among 768 Heads of Office covering both government and non-government organizations (NGOs) in
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64 districts, c) a survey among 359 requesters in 21 districts, d) a survey among 340 complainants to the Information Commission (IC), and finally, e) a nationwide survey among 12,800 citizens. The survey results reveal that the contribution of the RIT Act 2009 has overall been positive in the last decade. Especially, notable progress has taken place in making the supply side prepared in implementing the RTI Act. IC’s overall operational approaches have been found very effective for DOs, requesters, complainants, and appellants. In contrast to an increased awareness of the RTI Act on the supply side i.e. the DOs and Heads of Office, the awareness level on the demand side i.e. the citizens has been found to be very low. Only 7.7% of the 12,800 citizens surveyed across the country said they were aware of the law. Meanwhile, about two-third of the 768 government officials surveyed in 64 districts said they did not receive a single application from citizens using RTI Act since they were designated for providing information services. Nonetheless, the survey among 359 requesters in 21 districts revealed that about two-third of them received their desired information, mostly in time." (Abstract)
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"1. Women with disabilities have among the lowest rates of mobile and smartphone ownership. In most countries, ownership gaps are widest between men without disabilities and women with disabilities. Even in countries where the mobile gender gap is small or nonexistent, there is still a disability ga
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p in mobile ownership.
2. Persons with disabilities perceive mobile as less beneficial than non-disabled persons, and, specifically, women with disabilities perceive benefits the least.
3. Women with disabilities report various barriers to mobile ownership. In Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Uganda, relevance, literacy and skills, and safety and security were among the most commonly reported barriers.
4. In most countries, regardless of gender, persons with disabilities are less aware of mobile internet than those without disabilities. While awareness of mobile internet is lower for women than men, it is even lower for persons with disabilities, except in India. Women with disabilities have the lowest level of awareness.
5. Persons with disabilities tend to have lower levels of internet use than non-disabled persons. Women with disabilities are the least likely to use mobile internet, particularly in India where women are least likely to use mobile internet regardless of disability and the most commonly mentioned barrier to mobile internet is the cost of buying a phone and data." (Key findings)
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