"In this report, we use online survey data collected in August and September 2022 to document and understand how people in eight countries - Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Pakistan, the UK, and the USA - access news and information about climate change. A large majority of our respondents ac
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ross these countries recognise that almost all climate scientists believe that climate change is caused by humans and are worried about the impact, but above and beyond basic understanding of the scientific consensus and recognition of the climate crisis, it is important to understand people's attitudes towards climate change news, including who they trust as sources of information, how climate news makes them feel, and how well they think news media are performing covering it. Finally, we take some preliminary steps in understanding how each of these are correlated with climate change beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours." (Executive summary)
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"This Media Landscape Guide provides a snapshot of the media in Afghanistan, including the audiences, the producers, the preferences of different groups in the community, the communications culture, and the languages associated with the media. It gives an insight into the role of media in developmen
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t work, crisis preparedness, recent disasters, and the (at time of writing1) ongoing COVID-19 response. The guide also gives an overview of each media sector including, digital and social media, radio, television, print and other traditional forms of mass communication." (Introduction, page 4)
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"In Turkey, the AKP came to power in 2002 at a time marked by a relatively pro-European Union and pluralistic outlook in politics. The democratic backsliding in Turkey has been more obvious since 2007 and the start of the AKP’s second term in power. It deepened especially after the 2016 coup attem
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pt and the transition to a presidential system in 2017. This democratic regression has also impacted on the media sector globally, especially through various coercive and non-coercive media capture strategies. Media concentration has been ongoing in many countries for many decades with a concomitant negative impact on media freedom, leading to a gradual decline in free and independent media. Current forms of media capture are considered more impactful than earlier methods, due to the rise of business structures that operate in tandem with state authorities to capture media outlets. In Turkey, and across those countries in which media capture is prevalent, the mainstream media is vanishing as a result of polarization; two distinct journalisms are emerging in their place, one of which is based on a propaganda model and erodes media and press freedom." (Summary)
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"This joint stakeholder report focuses on key issues relating to human rights online in India, including internet shutdowns, digital exclusion, freedom of speech and expression online, online harassment and hate speech, privacy, surveillance and data protection. The report draws on extensive and ong
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oing monitoring of the situation of human rights online in India by a number of civil society organisations and a desk review." (Introduction, page 3)
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"[…] This project looks at experiences and observations of what it means to speak truth to power and receive hate as it is manifested through varying degrees of violence, across a variety of instances. Drawing on the responses of 15 interviewees, this qualitative research report presents 3 section
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s in understanding 'Hated Speech': (a) Forestalling Speech, (b) Speech in Polarised and Reactionary contexts, (c) Speaking For Oneself In One's Voice. The report ends by Enunciating Hope, offering a reflection on possibilities and pathways for solidary-building and reflexive collective action." (Executive Summary, page 2)
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"The observations made in this report make emphatically clear the failings of the current legal framework in defending human rights in the context of access to the internet. As seen in the report, the disruption of access to the internet is triggered at the most menial of instances, including for re
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asons where alternatives to internet shutdowns are available. The glaring absence of necessity, rationality, proportionality, and due process in the exercise of shutdown powers has attracted significant disrepute to the state of democracy in India." (Way forward, page 43)
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"This document was produced by the IFJ and focuses on the following issues that the media faces in Sri Lanka: The severe economic crisis in the country poses yet another challenge to a media barely recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic; existing issues in the media industry such as poor wages and wo
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rking conditions of media workers rapidly deteriorated; digital security threats and state authorities confiscating and accessing digital equipment belonging to journalists; female journalists at the entry level are almost equally represented in many media institutions; arrests and detention of writers, journalists, whistle-blowers and activists under charges of 'terrorism' using repressive laws; among others." (commbox)
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"This document was produced by the IFJ and focuses on the following issues that the media faces in India: rise of government pressure and fear towards it, the growth of digital users, journalists´ lives lost during the pandemic, intimidation and harassment of the journalists across the country, the
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steady erosion of democratic institutions, the challenges for female journalists, raids towards journalists and media houses, escalation of internet shutdowns, rise of detentions, among other issues". (commbox)
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"This document was produced by the IFJ and focuses on the following issues that the media faces in Bangladesh: struggles since the 50 years of the country´s independence, surge and rise of new media, issues of harassment to journalists, persecution via law, power of the protest, use of laws to rout
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inely being used as an instrument to muzzle the media and stifle critic, creation of governmental bodies to potentially repress the media, the precarious labor laws, and the rise of hate speech and disinformation, self-censorship phenomena, loss of readers, and the future of journalism and the media in the country". (commbox)
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"An independent media is essential to tell the world the complex unfolding story of Afghanistan. Journalists remaining in Afghanistan, as well as those who have left, desperately need support from the international community. There is need for solidarity and interventions on several fronts. The Afgh
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an journalists who have fled the country need support to relocate and restart their lives. Release from military camps in Pakistan, Abu Dhabi, Macedonia and Albania and facilitation of visas to proceed to their destination must be a priority. Support in terms of finances, skills building, resources and jobs to integrate them into their new homes is also the need of the hour. Within Afghanistan, a functioning economy needs to be restored after freezing of its assets, international sanctions and cuts in aid have contributed to a severe financial crisis in the country. Besides immediate financial assistance to survive in the short term, journalists and media houses need funds, training for the newly hired media workers and support from the international community to help rebuild the media. Regaining lost ground is crucial. Support for women journalists who are currently out of jobs, is a need that the international community can and must fulfil." (Page 4)
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"While social media offer an unprecedented opportunity for orchestrating large-scale communication campaigns, it is often difficult to track audience responses on various digital platforms over time and to ascertain if their engagement is aligned with the original intention. In this article, we shar
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e a promising solution—the purposive embedding and tracking of unique content elements as “markers” using text analytics techniques. Four markers were introduced in an Indian melodramatic television serial, Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (I, A Woman, Can Achieve Anything), which was part of a larger transmedia edutainment initiative in India to promote sanitation, family planning, and gender equality. These markers served as anchors for audience engagement with the originally intended messaging embedded in the narratives as well as for program monitoring and evaluation. We applied various web-based tools to systematically track marker-related engagement on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube across eight months. We also conducted semantic network analysis to better understand how marker-related social media comments evolved over time. Our investigation of using markers for digital engagement and narrative exchange in MKBKSH makes an important and timely methodological contribution to the scholarship and praxis of social and behavior change communication." (Abstract)
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"Few studies have examined the relationships between the different aspects of vaccination communication and vaccine attitudes. We aimed to evaluate the influence of three unique messaging appeal framings of vaccination from two types of messengers on COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in India. We surveyed
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534 online participants in India using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) from December 2021 through January 2022. We assessed participants' perception of three messaging appeals of vaccination -COVID-19 disease health outcomes, social norms related to vaccination, and economic impact of COVID-19 - from two messengers, healthcare providers (HCP) and peers. Using a multivariable multinomial logistic regression, we examined participants' ad preference and vaccine hesitancy. Participants expressed a high level of approval for all of the ads, with >80% positive responses for all questions across ads. Overall ads delivered by health care workers were preferred by a majority of participants in our study (n = 381, 71.4%). Ad preference ranged from 3.6% (n=19) social norm/peer ad to 32.4% (n = 173) health outcome/ HCP ad and half of participants preferred the health outcome ad (n = 279, 52.3%). Additionally, vaccine hesitancy was not related to preference (p = .513): HCP vs. peer ads (p = .522); message type (p =.284). The results suggest that all three appeals tested were generally acceptable, as well as the two messenger types, although preference was for the health care provider messenger and health outcome appeal. Individuals are motivated and influenced by a multitude of factors, requiring vaccine messaging that is persuasive, salient, and induces contextually relevant action." (Abstract)
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"Kilkari is the largest direct-to-beneficiary mobile communication programme in the world and has reached over 10 million women and their families across 13 states in India. Our study is the first randomised controlled trial conducted to date of a beneficiary mobile communication programme at scale.
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Exposure to Kilkari was significantly associated with improvements in a few important health practices, including the use of reversible contraceptive methods, but not others, including exclusive breast feeding. Subgroup analyses highlight the differential impact among key population segments, including the poorest." (Page 2)
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"Global Sceptical Publics is the first major study of the significance of different media for the (re)production of non-religious publics and publicity. While much work has documented how religious subjectivities are shaped by media, until now the crucial role of diverse media for producing and part
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icipating in religion-sceptical publics and debates has remained under-researched. With some chapters focusing on locations hitherto barely considered by scholarship on non-religion, the book places in comparative perspective how atheists, secularists and humanists engage with media – as means of communication and forming non-religious publics, but also on occasion as something to be resisted. Its conceptually rich interdisciplinary chapters thereby contribute important new insights to the growing field of non-religion studies and to scholarship on media and materiality more generally." (uclpress.co.uk)
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"This Open Access book examines the ambivalences of data power. Firstly, the ambivalences between global infrastructures and local invisibilities challenge the grand narrative of the ephemeral nature of a global data infrastructure. They make visible local working and living conditions, and the reso
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urces and arrangements required to operate and run them. Secondly, the book examines ambivalences between the state and data justice. It considers data justice in relation to state surveillance and data capitalism, and reflects on the ambivalences between an “entrepreneurial state” and a “welfare state”. Thirdly, the authors discuss ambivalences of everyday practices and collective action, in which civil society groups, communities, and movements try to position the interests of people against the “big players” in the tech industry." (Publisher description)
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"This paper experimentally tests the effectiveness of two short edutainment campaigns (under 25 minutes) delivered through Facebook Messenger at reshaping gender norms and reducing social acceptability of violence against women in India. Participants were randomly assigned to watch video clips with
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implicit or explicit messaging formats (respectively a humorous fake reality television drama or a docuseries with clear calls to action). After one week, the intent-to-treat effects of the implicit format on knowledge, gender norms, and acceptability of violence against women oscillated between 0.16 and 0.21 standard deviations yet impacts diminished after four months. By contrast, the explicit format was more impactful in the short term in increasing willingness to share video clips with friends and promoting online information-seeking behaviors. In the medium term, individuals who were exposed to the docuseries were 7.5 percentage points more likely to add a frame against violence against women in their Facebook profile picture, a public display of their disapproval of this harmful practice. The general lack of heterogeneous effects across social status indicators suggests social media as a potential medium for reaching different online populations, including vulnerable ones." (Abstract)
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"The study finds that journalistic and fact-checking disinformation responses in the country have struggled due to lack of conceptual understanding of disinformation among journalists, monetization trends that incentivize sensationalist news and reduce the impact of capacity building initiatives, la
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ck of financial sustainability of responses, language barriers, and political backlash. At the same time, the research finds that local capacity building responses have improved the ability of individual journalists to understand Covid-19 misinformation and hashtag manipulation on Twitter whereas fact-checking responses have led to the development of efficient workflows, informed recruitment principles, contextual verification practices, and collaboration with social networks to downrank viral online disinformation. The study also confirms findings from literature that disinformation is negatively affecting the work and safety environment of Pakistani digital journalists. The journalists surveyed for this research reported that disinformation has increased their risk of getting deceived by fake social media posts during online newsgathering. In addition, most women journalists surveyed for the study said they were targeted with gendered disinformation campaigns, which caused them physical, psychological or reputational harm. A majority of surveyed women digital journalists also believed that they face additional challenges to counter disinformation due to their gender identity. The digital journalists who participated in the survey identified fact-checking training as their most urgent need to counter disinformation." (Executive summary, page 8)
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"Nepal’s digital ecosystem does not yet meet the needs of all Nepalis and runs the risk of falling further behind. Over the past decade, mobile phones, and mobile internet have become increasingly widespread in Nepal; however, the government’s capacity to implement digital policies and solutions
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has not kept pace with Nepalis’ embrace of the internet. In the coming years, equitable access for all Nepalis, establishment of internet connectivity in remote areas, and safe internet use practices for the digitalization of Nepal’s economy are just some of the key challenges that the country will face." (Executive summary)
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"Key findings: Overcoming the digital divides between men and women and urban and rural populations requires long-term planning and resource commitments that include broad stakeholder engagement and coordination [...] The public’s appetite for online content is growing, but accessible, diverse, hi
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gh-quality educational and professional content in local languages is sorely lacking [...] High, unmet demand for digital and IT talent and a weak digital startup ecosystem are critical bottlenecks to growing Uzbekistan’s domestic IT sector and driving digital transformation across the economy [...] The COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened the Government’s commitment to digital transformation of the health sector." (Executive summary, page 12)
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"Geo-strategically, Pakistan is placed in the region that has been frayed by wars conflict since the USSR’s (1979) invasion of Afghanistan. Since, Pakistan is sharing one of the longest borders with Afghanistan, hence could not remain impervious. The region, specially, Pakistan had not yet fully r
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ecovered from horrors of the stated war when unfortunately, the episode of the September 11, 2001, provoked another war in the area, framed as “war against terrorism”. The said war prompted a wave of religious extremism and radicalism in the region. Tactically, the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011brought the war on terror to its ultimate end but its after effects is still seriously hurting Pakistan. This state of affairs paved way for the emergence of war reporting in Pakistan. By now, dozens of journalists have been killed during performing their professional duties. This paper is an effort to explore the issues of religious extremism and radicalism in Pakistan and associated threats for the journalists engaged in reporting the same. The study is quantitative in nature and makes use of a questionnaire for data collection. The study found that lack of safety protocol such as deficient safety gadgets; training deficiency; and rush to break news endanger war reporter’s lives." (Abstract)
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