"In the neoliberal media autocracy of Turkey, mass media are propaganda tools rather than the public watchdogs. The coup attempt in 2016 gave the government additional power to institutionalise this regime. Critical journalists have become the enemies of the state and suffered from threats from vari
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ous sources. This attack on critical journalism is increasing alongside the deepening of the democracy crises, positioning journalists as victims. This study argues that bridging the fields of journalism safety and victimology would benefit journalists. Therefore, a critical analysis of reports on journalism safety, opponent journalists' social media posts, and related news was performed in order to discuss the possibility and advantages of bridging this gap to help journalists deal with victimisation. The findings demonstrate the acceptance of journalists as a new subject for victims' rights might activate new mechanisms of protection for them. This means searching for new rights can contribute to their physical, mental, and moral recovery." (Abstract)
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"Digital Religion does not simply refer to religion as it is carried out online, but more broadly studies how digital media interrelate with religious practice and belief. This collection explores Digital Hinduism and consequentially studies how Hinduism is expressed in the digital sphere and how Hi
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ndus utilise digital media. Highlighting digital Hinduism and including case studies with foci on India, Asia and the global Hindu diaspora, this book features contributions from an interdisciplinary and international panel of academics. The chapters focus on specific case studies, which in summary exemplify the wide variety and diversity of what constitutes Digital Hinduism today." (Publisher description)
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"2019 has seen major achievements resulting from needs-based, and specifically-tailored support through the Multi-Donor Programme on Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists (MDP). Actions building on ongoing work and others opening new avenues, have initiated substantial changes in favour of
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freedom of expression and media development. The stories presented here are some examples of how the MDP works to provide countries and their populations with the necessary tools to nurture a free and independent media. This includes promoting the adoption of policies and standards on freedom of expression and safety of journalists, and fostering diversity, gender equality and media and information literacy through and with the media. Hence the name given to this series of articles: Let Free Media Thrive." (Editorial, page 2)
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"Why are so many contemporary comics and graphic narratives written as memoirs or documentaries of traumatic events? Is there a specific relationship between the comics form and the documentation and reportage of trauma? How do the interpretive demands made on comics readers shape their relationship
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s with traumatic events? And how does comics' documentation of traumatic pasts operate across national borders and in different cultural, political, and politicised contexts? The sixteen chapters and three comics included in Documenting Trauma in Comics set out to answer exactly these questions. Drawing on a range of historically and geographically expansive examples, the contributors bring their different perspectives to bear on the tangled and often fraught intersections between trauma studies, comics studies, and theories of documentary practices and processes. The result is a collection that shows how comics is not simply related to trauma, but a generative force that has become central to its remembrance, documentation, and study." (Publisher description)
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"The rapid escalation in the long-running conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia which took place in late September 2020 has been shadowed by a battle across social media for control of the international narrative about the conflict. On Twitter, large numbers of accounts supporting both sides have
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been wading in on politicised hashtags linked to the conflict. Our findings indicate large-scale coordinated activity. While much of this behaviour is likely to be authentic, our analysis has also found a significant amount of suspicious and potentially inauthentic behaviour. The goal of this research piece is to observe and document some of the early dynamics of the information battle playing out in parallel to the conflict on the ground and create a basis for further, more comprehensive research. This report is in no way intended to undermine the legitimacy of authentic social media conversations and debate taking place on all sides of the conflict." (Aspi.org.au)
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"Television was introduced in India in 1959 but for many years it was limited to state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan, which had one channel with twice-weekly, one-hour programs. However, there has been a marked shift in the television entertainment options available in India today, with 48 paid-for
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broadcasters, an estimated 60,000 cable operators, 6000 Multi System Operators (MSOs) and six pay direct-to-home (DTH) operators, all in addition to the public service broadcaster – Doordarshan. In total, there are over 850 TV channels registered with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. 2016 witnessed the arrival of a revolution in content consumption in India, with the entry of OTT (over-the-top) media services. OTT content is defined as the “productized practice of streaming content to customers directly over the web.” This has marked a big shift from the traditional tune-in, “consume-what-you-are-fed” model of conventional terrestrial, cable or satellite dish television, towards a new on-demand era of choice. Given the OTT boom, 82% of users in the Indian market are currently engaged on free-to-view, advertising-led videoon-demand platforms (like YouTube), compared to the 18% who pay for content on subscription-led video-on-demand services (such as Netflix and Amazon Prime). There are many factors that have been conducive to the on-demand model in India, the foremost being the growing penetration of internet and smart phones." (Introduction)
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"Central Asia has been generally omitted from most academic debates, including those on the causes and consequences of widespread plagiarism and copy-and-paste behaviour among journalists. In this article I address this problem by interviewing working journalists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikis
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tan and Uzbekistan. The article argues that plagiarism in journalism is not only thriving but also encouraged by a variety of mechanisms, such as the distribution of “ready-to-publish” media content by government press secretaries and encouragement for journalists to simply “add your name” to these materials. It finds that some journalists are proud of the fact that others plagiarise their work, saying “it indicates we are doing a superior job”, which in turn encourages further copyright breaches within the profession. This is significant, because students and early career journalists may witness such practices and conclude that plagiarism is a norm and that is how it should be, thus creating a false “model of excellence” for future journalists and the public. The results are also discussed in relation to agenda-setting theory, whereby governments predominantly control media outlets. In such a context, the public may end up only having access to news that is subsidised and approved by their governments." (Abstract)
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"Information and Communication Technology interventions have the potential to improve outcomes in health and other development sectors in low-income settings. Large-scale impact, however, remains the central challenge for the HCI4D community as significant and diverse resources are typically require
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d to scale such interventions beyond the pilot stage. In contrast, voice-based entertainment services accessible over simple phones, designed for similarly low-income, low-literate populations manage to scale ‘virally’ to tens of thousands of users with little to no advertising cost. Our study compares the outcomes of using voice-based entertainment to spread a maternal-health hotline against conventional advertisement channels including paper flyers, posters, radio, TV, social media and robocalls. Through an 11-week deployment in Pakistan where the hotline reached 21,770 users over 32,625 calls, we find that the entertainment service outperformed other channels on all popular user acquisition metrics, with the exception of robocalls, which lead in terms of spread." (Abstract)
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"This study examines disinformation and propaganda in war in the age of information particularly through social media. It analyzes Twitter's posts of the Afghan government and the Taliban, from January to March 2018. For understanding disinformation, 952 tweets of both parties were crosschecked with
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four national media outlets and a civilian protection advocacy group; and to recognize how the belligerents tried to present and propagate, their contents were analyzed to identify terms that dominate their outbound information. The study found discrepancy in information disseminated by the warring parties and mainstream media. Terrorism and Jihad were dominant frames of government and the Taliban, respectively. The findings could contribute to a greater body of literature regarding propaganda in operationalization of social media in the conflict zone." (Abstract)
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"Fieldwork from across Afghanistan allowed Osman to record the voices of Afghan media producers and people from all sectors of society. In this moving work, Afghans offer their own seldom-heard views on the country's cultural progress and belief systems, their understandings of themselves, and the r
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ole of international interventions. Osman looks at the national and transnational impact of media companies like Tolo TV, Radio Television Afghanistan, and foreign media giants and funders like the British Broadcasting Corporation and USAID. By focusing on local cultural contestations, productions, and social movements, Television and the Afghan Culture Wars redirects the global dialogue about Afghanistan to Afghans and thereby challenges top-down narratives of humanitarian development." (Publisher description)
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"This report analyzes the content of traditional media and social networks on religious freedom and violent extremism in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. At the same time, the study seeks to examine hate speech against certain religious groups and how pre-labeling affects those officially accu
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sed of extremism. For the most part, the policies and legal frameworks of the three Central Asian states focused on CVE (counteracting violent extremism) are structurally repressive and do not always protect religious freedom. State information resources are informative, poorly represented in the online environment and do not have a high level of citizen confidence due to their policies. The securitization and politicization of religion resulted in repressive state practices in respect to religious freedom, which is one of the driving factors in the radicalization of people. The need for alternative ways of expressing opinions and finding answers to religious questions has resulted in the emergence of alternative (parallel to the state information resources) media channels mainly on social media: YouTube, Facebook, Telegram, Odnoklassniki and online websites with a large number of young subscribers." (Abstract)
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"As the United States engages with the Taliban in a peace process that might return them to influence within Afghanistan, concerns are rising regarding the future status of Afghan women. In this background, this article returns to the much studied subject of the portrayal of Afghan women in Western
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news media through Orientalist stereotypes. Noting the lack of Afghan perspectives in previous research on this topic, the study investigates the views and practices of Afghan photojournalists, who have today come to replace international photojournalists in the country, when it comes to ‘picturing Afghan women’ for Western audiences. It sheds light on the day-to-day professional activities of these photojournalists when producing images of Afghan women for Western audiences. It goes on to explore Afghan photojournalists’ perceptions about how Afghan women have been and are being portrayed in Western news media. Finally, it reports on how most of these Afghan photojournalists may perpetuate the same stereotypes about Afghan women for Western audiences because hierarchies in the international ‘visual gatekeeping chain’ supersede the Afghan photojournalists’ power to shape visual narratives and coupled with the need to earn an income as precarious labor, their individual self-reflexivity regarding picturing Afghan women are suppressed. The study also notes how photographing Afghan women causes risks for Afghan photojournalists as well as the Afghan women who are photographed. Attention is called to this hitherto invisible ethical concern that lives are jeopardized to validate Western savior narratives regarding Afghan women through images." (Abstract)
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"This book discusses how digital inequalities today may lead to other types of inequalities in the Global South. Contributions to this collection move past discussing an access problem - a binary division between 'haves and have-nots' - to analyse complex inequalities in the internet use, benefits,
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and opportunities of people in the Global South region. Using specific case studies, this book underlines how communities in the Global South are now attempting to participate in the information age despite high costs, a lack of infrastructure, and more barriers to entry. Contributions discuss the recent changes in the Global South. These changes include greater technological availability, the spread of digital literacy programs and computer courses, and the overall growth in engagement of people from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and languages in digital environments." (Publisher description)
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"Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, however, have be
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en aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself." (Publisher description)
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"With e-learning technologies evolving and expanding at high rates, organizations and institutions around the world are integrating massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other open educational resources (OERs). MOOCs and Open Education in the Global South explores the initiatives that are leveragi
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ng these flexible systems to educate, train, and empower populations previously denied access to such opportunities. Featuring contributors leading efforts in rapidly changing nations and regions, this wide-ranging collection grapples with accreditation, credentialing, quality standards, innovative assessment, learner motivation and attrition, and numerous other issues. The provocative narratives curated in this volume demonstrate how MOOCs and OER can be effectively designed and implemented in vastly different ways in particular settings, as detailed by experts from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific/Oceania, and the Caribbean. This comprehensive text is an essential resource for policy makers, instructional designers, practitioners, administrators, and other MOOC and OER community stakeholders." (Publisher description)
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"The objective of this report is to make available a resource that can be used by lawyers, policy experts and civil society to gauge the trajectory of judicial discourse on digital rights and use this as a tool to advocate for greater protections. This is not a compendium of all cases relating to th
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e topics dealt with. For studying the cases, the researchers developed a workbook that collated decisions available in online databases including CYRILLA and the Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression database. Resources developed by national groups on the state of digital rights in their countries provided critical guidance. The cases selected naturally fell into three categories of Access, Privacy and Freedom of expression. A key challenge faced, while developing this research, relates to collection of data. In many of the countries (except India), case laws are not easily available on free, open and searchable case law databases. Judgements and orders are often not available or are difficult to access on official court websites. In some countries, many of the decisions or orders relating to digital rights were not reported and thus were inaccessible. In a few instances, particularly for Nepal and Pakistan, some judgements were not available in English and reliance had to be placed on the analysis of the judgement provided by researchers with knowledge of the local language. The countries selected share similar legal systems and challenges in the exercise and enjoyment of digital rights. Some of the issues covered by the report include discussions around access to the internet and its impact on other rights as well as network shutdowns. Judicial pronouncements in relation to privacy, surveillance, national identity programmes, data protection have been analysed across jurisdictions. A significant number of cases studied related to challenges surrounding freedom of expression. Judgements on access to the internet indicate that there is some recognition of the central role the internet and connectivity play in the lives of all individuals. Cases discussed in this report include judgements relating to equitable telecast rights, instances where use of mobile phones were prohibited, providing limited internet access to prisoners, recognition of medium of information being protected and multiple cases on network shutdowns." (Overview and refelections, page 7)
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"Indian Sound Cultures, Indian Sound Citizenship addresses the multifaceted roles sound plays in Indian cultures and media, and enacts a sonic turn in South Asian Studies by understanding sound in its own social and cultural contexts. "Scapes, Sites, and Circulations" considers the spatial and circu
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latory ways in which sound "happens" in and around Indian sound cultures, including diasporic cultures. "Voice" emphasizes voices that embody a variety of struggles and ambiguities, particularly around gender and performance. Finally, "Cinema Sound" make specific arguments about film sound in the Indian context, from the earliest days of talkie technology to contemporary Hindi films and experimental art installations." (Publisher description)
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"This research aims at finding the current state of (open) voice datasets in Indian languages, including information about their volume, quality, mode of collection, and availability. The present research also explores the challenges for the creation and maintenance of open voice datasets in India.
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The report makes practice-oriented recommendations for future sustainable voice data collection based on both extensive desk research and expert interviews."
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"WhatsApp is a key medium for the spread of news and rumors, often shared as images. We study a large collection of politically-oriented WhatsApp groups in India, focusing on the period leading up to the 2019 Indian national elections. By labeling samples of random and popular images, we find that a
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round 10% of shared images are known misinformation and most fall into three types of images. Machine learning methods can be used to predict whether a viral image is misinformation, but are brittle to shifts in content over time." (Abstract)
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