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Counterpublics, Attitudes, and Social Change in Authoritarian Regimes: An Analysis of Digital Communities on Russian YouTube

Eduard Anaskin

Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) (2020), 31 pp.

"By examining Russian YouTube, this article has attempted to show how in this particular digital environment a shift in social attitudes and the emergence of counterpublics are likely to occur, thus advancing a bottom-up approach to social change. The paper has proceeded in three steps. The first se ... more

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Media Influence Matrix: Slovakia

Marius Dragomir

Budapest: Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS), 2nd, updated ed. (2020), 110 pp.

"Seemingly, Slovaks have access to a wealth of news sources. In reality, though, the market is concentrated in the hands of a few large players. Powerful financial groups such as Penta Investments and J&T, and a handful of magnates including Ivan Kmotrik and Andrej Babis (who is also Czech Republic� ... ��s prime minister) exert decisive influence in the ownership of most major media companies. They are also close to politicians (if they are not themselves one), which means big leverage in regulatory affairs. The entry on the Slovak market of PPF, a Czech financial group led by another wealthy oligarch, Petr Kellner, which bought Markiza TV in 2019, is further cementing the oligarchic control in the country’s media. The Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic known as PMU is much responsible for the shape of the Slovak media market. It has been the PMU that approved a spate of merger cases allowing the expansion of some media owners. Decisions by the PMU in 2015-2016 allowed Penta Investments to take over several major publishers. It was one of these deals that prompted journalists from the daily Sme (acquired by Penta) to leave and set up DennikN. Civil society exerts little influence. International groups are not effective either. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a Vienna-based intergovernmental group, has some political leverage, but that does not materialize in any earth-shattering policy changes or palpable improvements for journalists. For example, in early March 2018, Harlem Desir, the head of media at OSCE, called on Slovak authorities in a meeting in Bratislava to investigate the killing by unknown assaulters in February 2018 of the Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak. Instead, two months later, Slovak police began to harass Pavla Holcova, a Slovak journalist who was trying to help with the police investigation. It was only after massive pressures from citizens and journalism groups from abroad that four people were finally charged in October 2019 over Kuciak’s killing. Besides regulation, tightly controlled by authorities and highly politicized, the government plays also a direct role in the Slovak media market. Funding from license fees collected from all Slovak households and state budget makes the public broadcaster RTVS the largest player in the country’s media with a budget in excess of €115m. That is not necessarily bad. For some years, the Slovak public got its money’s worth. The station earned a feather in its cap for improved programming." (Key findings, pages 6-7) more

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Countering Russian & Chinese Influence Activities: Examining Democratic Vulnerabilities & Building Resiliency

Cyrus Newlin, Heather A. Conley, Amy Searight, Tim Kostelancik, Rachel Ellehuus, Jeffrey Mankoff, Devin Stewart

Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) (2020), v, 31 pp.

"With their heavily censored and restricted civil societies at home, China and Russia exploit the asymmetry of democratic systems by targeting open information environments, freedom of expression, participatory civic discourse, and pluralistic and fluid politics. Democracies have unique vulnerabilit ... more

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Media Incubator for the Western Balkans Pilot Project: Evaluation Report

Ivana Kahrmann

Free Press Unlimited (2020), 67 pp.

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Der Buchmarkt in Russland: Infrastruktur und die wichtigsten Branchenentwicklungen

Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurter Buchmesse (2020), 36 pp.

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WorldCat (7)

Media Framing of Human Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation: A Study of British, Dutch and Serbian Media

Elena Krsmanovic

Utrecht: Eleven International Publishing (2020), xiii, 246 pp.

"This books critically explores media framing of human trafficking for sexual exploitation in UK, Dutch and Serbian media. It draws upon data from content analysis of online news reports and interviews with journalists and anti-trafficking professionals in order to further explore the framing of tra ... more

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More-Troll Kombat: French and Russian Influence Operations Go Head to Head Targeting Audiences in Africa

Graphika (2020), 83 pp.

"On December 15, Facebook announced that it had taken down three separate networks that it had discovered for “coordinated inauthentic behavior” that targeted communities across Africa. One, centered on the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali, was linked to individuals associated with the Fr ... more

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Presse- und Medienfreiheit in Europa: Serbien. Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die Kleine Anfrage der Abgeordneten Thomas Hacker ... und der Fraktion der FDP. Drucksache 19/16639

Deutscher Bundestag

Köln: Bundesanzeiger Verlag (2020), 10 pp.

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WorldCat (11)

World Entertainment Media: Global, Regional and Local Perspectives

Paolo Sigismondi (ed.)

New York; London: Routledge (2020), xvi, 210 pp.

"There are still opposing and restraining forces to globalization processes taking place in media, and the global mediascape comprises international, regional and local markets, and global and local players, which in recent years have evolved at an uneven pace. By analyzing similarities and differen ... more

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China’s Soft Power in Southeast Europe

Plamen Tonchev

Sarajevo: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) (2020), 25 pp.

"China does not seem to have a regional soft-power strategy and prefers bilateral relations with SEE countries. Institutional ties take the shape of Friendship Associations, business bodies or twinning agreements which, however, rarely live up to expectations. Scientific cooperation between numerous ... more

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Media Capture

Russian Analytical Digest, issue 258 (2020), 16 pp.

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Evaluation of UNESCO’s Work in the Thematic Area of Media and Information Literacy (MIL)

Paris: UNESCO (2020), 128 pp.

"Overall, this evaluation has shown that over the last biennia UNESCO has made significant achievements through its work in MIL and is holding the lead in this constantly evolving field that has gained increasing importance at the forefront of global and national agendas. It also revealed that MIL o ... more

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"Big Changes Start Small": Stories of People Making a Difference. An Impact Report

Bonn: Deutsche Welle DW Akademie (2020), 97 pp.

"DW Akademie collects and documents the impacts of its projects through a range of methods. There are three approaches that are currently standard in development cooperation: Applied studies, which enable new insights on impacts, impact-oriented monitoring performed with local partners in the course ... more

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WorldCat (8)

Journalism and Communication in China and the West: A Study of History, Education and Regulation

Bing Tong

Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan (2020), xxi, 366 pp.

"This book sheds new light on the study of journalism and communication, considering why and how journalism is studied in the 21st century. It notably offers both an international and interdisciplinary comparison of journalism and communication, examining the history of Chinese and Western journalis ... more

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Independent Media Depend on You: Research Report

CESID

USAID;IREX;Agency Communis (2020), 19 pp.

"The research on audience behavior and the effects of Free Media Advocacy Campaign was conducted on a sample of 1,000 respondents, 25 to 55 years of age, and focused on the citizens’ viewpoint towards paying for media content (with the possibility of comparison to 2019 research) and evaluation of ... the campaign “Independent Media Depend on You” (IREX and Agency Communis). In terms of media consumption, respondents from 2019 generally spent more time with media than in the 2020 research. In addition, it is noticeable that respondents in both research cycles spent more time watching television and listening to the radio. The average time respondents spent per day watching television in 2020 was 108.6 minutes, while in 2019 the average time spent watching this media was 161.4 minutes. The average time respondents spent listening to the radio in the research conducted in 2020 is the same as the time spent watching TV (108.6 minutes), while in 2019, radio was the media respondents spent the most time listening to – 166.8 minutes. Social networks are the third most used media in terms of time spent on them per day (average time for 2020 – 87.6 minutes; average time for 2019 – 126.6 minutes). In fourth place are informative online portals and sites, while fifth place is print media with which respondents spend the least time per day (average time – 27 minutes). When it comes to citizens’ trust in media, it is evident that in both research cycles there is a greater distrust than a trust in the media, and this fits in the broader picture of citizen’s distrust in all civil society institutions. A total of 43% of respondents generally do not trust the media in Serbia at all – in 2020, while in 2019 the percentage was lower by two points (41%). On the other hand, a total of 22% of respondents stated that they have full confidence and that they mostly have trust in Serbian media, which is one percentage point more than in the research conducted in 2019. About a third of respondents had a neutral stance about trust in media (31% in 2020, 33% in 2019). A large percentage of respondents were not willing to pay for online content, however, when compared with 2019’s findings, SMS noticed that the willingness to pay for online content is more noticeable in 2020." (Summary) more

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A Lockdown for Independent Media? Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Media Landscape and Press Freedom in Central and Southeast Europe

Maxim Edwards (ed.)

Budapest: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES);N-ost Netzwerk für Osteuropa-Berichterstattung (2020), 37 pp.

"Correspondents in nine countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and North Macedonia – have analysed how the pandemic has affected to their work environment. Lockdowns have caused print media sales and advertising revenue to collapse. Media w ... more

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WorldCat (9)

Language of Conflict: Discourses of the Ukrainian Crisis

Natalia Knoblock (ed.)

London et al.: Bloomsbury Academic (2020), x, 279 pp.

"Exploring the ways in which language and conflict are intertwined and interrelated, this book examines the changes that have taken place in the public discourse of the Ukraine and Russia since 2014 and the beginning of the 'Ukrainian Crisis.' Through analysis of the narratives constructed by differ ... more

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‘Getting on the Radar’: China’s Rising Media Presence in South East Europe

Vladmir Shopov

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), Media Programme South East Europe (2020), 35 pp.

"A gradual transition from unconnected, discrete public relations efforts towards a coherent narrative is in progress. This is facilitated by the strengthening framework of cooperation, the change of posture and behaviour by Chinese institutions, the expansion of points of entry into the media envir ... more

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Conveying Truth: Independent Media in Putin’s Russia

Ann Cooper

Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy (2020), 39 pp.

"This study examines the evolution of independent Russian media, from the glasnost era to the pandemic. It describes some of the pandemic coverage and identifies several of the newsrooms that gave Russians reliable, accountability journalism throughout the early months of the crisis. It may seem obv ... more

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Book Industry: Special Issue [on Children's Literature]

Moscow: Book Industry (LLC) (2020), 71 pp.

"The Russian book industry is actively preparing for the Bologna Book Fair and the 37th IBBY International Children’s Book Congress, which Moscow will host for the first time this year. How is children’s book publishing developing in Russia? What support does it need from the government?" (Page ... more