"Several studies analysed in this paper show that messenger services facilitate and exacerbate the spread of disinformation. Any solution must make allowances for the complexity with which information spreads. The case studies show that a lack of trust in government is a key factor in the proliferat
...
ion of disinformation, as is an increase in nationalism and its epiphenomena, including racism, sexism and anti-semitism. Additionally, a general loss of trust in journalism poses a problem. The infodemic surrounding the novel coronavirus highlights the urgency of the topic. A nuanced and comprehensive discourse on disinformation is crucial, and it is no longer adequate to discuss disinformation as a problem predominantly concerning social media platforms and politics. Addressing the issue can only be achieved by a society as a whole: we need broad social discourse and cannot outsource the solution to social media companies alone. This paper includes six recommendations designed to provide guidelines for political decisions and as a basis for further discourse." (Executive summary, page 4)
more
"Este artigo tem por objetivo examinar a relevância de produções de contrainformação desenvolvidas durante a ditadura militar no Brasil por grupos religiosos. O objeto é a revista Paz e Terra, da Editora Civilização Brasileira nos anos 1960, como iniciativa ímpar no campo da comunicação r
...
eligiosa, ecumênica e política. A fim de se responder à questão-problema “qual o lugar da revista Paz e Terra na memória das produções midiáticas religiosas no Brasil?” são tomados por base estudos sobre “suportes da memória” e “lugares de memória”. A articulação entre a narrativa da memória de Paz e Terra e a descrição do conteúdo dos dez exemplares publicados, que forma a metodologia da pesquisa empregada, foi feita com base no acervo da revista, em pesquisa documental, em depoimentos de personagens envolvidas, colhidos durante pesquisa para o Mestrado em Memória Social da autora, e em obras sobre a Editora Civilização Brasileira e seu editor Ênio Silveira, sobre as lideranças evangélicas envolvidas no projeto e sobre a própria revista." (Resumo)
more
"This research brings together scholarship across the Americas and Caribbean to examine digital inclusion initiatives in the following countries: Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, Jamaica, the United States, and Canada. Across the cases, several themes emerge that offer important indicator
...
s for future digital inclusion initiatives. First, public policy can effectively reduce access gaps when it addresses the trifecta of network, device, and skill provision. Second, this triple-crown of public policy is highly effective for longitudinal effect when implemented early via educational institutions. Third, rural-urban digital inequality is resistant to change such that rural populations benefit less from policy initiatives than their urban counterparts. Fourth, digital inclusion in rural areas and among marginalized populations is most effective when cocreated with communities to ensure community investment, participation, and control. Fifth, stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic are rapidly increasing our dependence on digital technologies, making digital inclusion more important than ever for education and rural communities. We therefore close the article with discussion of how the COVID-19 pandemic is amplifying digital disadvantage and exclusion across the Americas, the Caribbean, and the globe. (Abstract)
more
"El objetivo de este libro colectivo es ofrecer una perspectiva panorámica acerca de la investigación profesional sobre los estudios cinematográficos que se está produciendo en siete países de América Latina: Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Colombia, Chile, México y Perú. En cada uno de los cap
...
tulos de este volumen se ofrece un puntual registro de la producción bibliográfica nacional y la ponderación de estos materiales desde una perspectiva especializada. En las primeras dos décadas del nuevo siglo se observa un crecimiento exponencial de los estudios sobre cine en la región latinoamericana. Es de esperarse que esta tendencia se mantenga y que propicie un diálogo internacional para la creación de redes de cooperación académica, videotecas compartidas y publicaciones conjuntas. La investigación sobre cine producida en América Latina se encuentra en un momento de crecimiento y efervescencia, y este impulso podrá llevar a la producción de modelos teóricos de alcance universal. Esperamos que la presentación de estos materiales contribuya a la consolidación y el crecimiento de este terreno emergente de la investigación interdisciplinaria." (Resumen)
more
"Brazil markets itself as a racially mixed utopia. The United States prefers the term melting pot. Both nations have long used the image of the mulatta to push skewed cultural narratives. Highlighting the prevalence of mixed-race women of African and European descent, the two countries claim to have
...
perfected racial representation - all the while ignoring the racialization, hypersexualization, and white supremacy that the mulatta narrative creates. Jasmine Mitchell investigates the development and exploitation of the mulatta figure in Brazilian and US popular culture. Drawing on a wide range of case studies, she analyzes policy debates and reveals the use of mixed-black female celebrities as subjects of racial and gendered discussions. Mitchell also unveils the ways the media moralizes about the mulatta figure and uses her as an example of an "acceptable" version of blackness that at once dreams of erasing undesirable blackness while maintaining the qualities that serve as outlets for interracial desire." (Publisher description)
more
"Comunicar Ciência num Mundo em Mudança elegeu como tema central o papel desta actividade num horizonte comunicacional altamente volátil, onde transformações radicais alteram os modos da comunicação, as estruturas produtivas, e acabam tendo pesadas consequências na organização social e pol
...
ítica. Para abarcar a complexidade destes fenómenos ocupamos-nos deles em três vertentes, correspondendo às três partes em que se encontra dividido este livro: A Ciência nos Media Jornalísticos e Redes Sociais Digitais, Mulheres na Ciência, e Media, Universidades e Assessorias de Comunicação na Divulgação Científica." (Introdução, página 1)
more
"La tiranía del rating se ha convertido en los últimos años en una expresión muy utilizada por diferentes actores de la industria de los medios de comunicación, que desconfían de la forma en la que las métricas miden el comportamiento de las audiencias. Los compradores, los periodistas, los a
...
ctores y los productores ven cada vez más en estas mediciones una moneda de cambio que privilegia la cantidad sobre la calidad. Sin embargo, la investigación comercial de audiencias, y la manera en la que es implementada, ajustada, cuestionada, tolerada o acatada por las industrias mediáticas y publicitarias contemporáneas, es un tema que no ha sido estudiado con suficiente atención. Conscientes de la relevancia y de la urgencia de estos temas, los autores de Contando colombianos cuestionan el funcionamiento de las distintas métricas comerciales; analizan los referentes históricos y conceptuales que motivaron el diseño de estos sistemas de clasificación; indagan acerca de sus consecuencias biopolíticas, filosóficas, sociales y culturales; y plantean modos y soluciones que permitan humanizar y relativizar la influencia, el impacto y el poder de las métricas comerciales. A través del estudio de un amplio rango de medios de comunicación, como el cine, la radio, el internet, la publicidad, la prensa y la televisión, y mediante estudios que abarcan toda América Latina y que se extienden a países como los Estados Unidos, España y China, este libro demuestra que la medición de audiencias no se limita a aspectos económicos y comerciales, sino que incide y define los modos en lo que el ser humano es pensado, gobernado, entendido, estudiado y, en última instancia, valorado y contado." (Sinopsis)
more
"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
...
ces in a landscape where driving forces of globalization meet locally situated audiences and institutions, this volume unveils a complex, contested space comprising global and local players, whose success is determined by both their national and international dimensions. It guides its readers to the geographical and intellectual exploration of the international media landscape, analyzing the global and local media players and their modus operandi." (Publisher description)
more
"This book offers a systematic study of media education in Latin America. As spending on technological infrastructure in the region increases exponentially for educational purposes, and with national curriculums beginning to implement media related skills, this book makes a timely contribution to ne
...
w debates surrounding the significance of media literacy as a citizen’s right. Taking both a topical and country-based approach, authors from across Latin America present a comprehensive perspective of the region and address issues such as the political and social contexts in which media education is based, the current state of educational policies with respect to media, organizations and experiences that promote media education." (Publisher description)
more
"The bulk of this report is based on data collected by a survey of more than 80,000 people in 40 markets and reflects media usage in January/February just before the coronavirus hit many of these countries. But the key trends that we document here, including changes in how people access news, low tr
...
ust, and rising concern about misinformation have been a backdrop against which journalists, editors, politicians, and public health officials have been battling to reach ordinary people with key messages over the last few months. We know that this crisis has substantially increased the amount and frequency of news consumption as well as influenced attitudes to the news media, at least temporarily. We’ve captured this in a second set of polling data collected in April when the crisis was at its peak in some countries. This has helped us to see the impact of the crisis in terms of sources of news and also reminded us of the critical role that the news media play at times of national crisis, including documenting that people who rely on news media are better informed about the virus than those who do not. While many media companies have been enjoying record audience figures, news fatigue is also setting in, and the short-term and long-term economic impact of the crisis is likely to be profound – advertising budgets are slashed and a recession looms, threatening news media, some of whom are struggling with adapting to a changing world. Against this background, this year’s report also focuses on the shift towards paying for online news in many countries across the world, with detailed analysis of progress in three countries (the UK, USA, and Norway). This year, our report carries important data about the extent to which people value and trust local news, perhaps the sector most vulnerable to the economic shocks that will inevitably follow the health crisis itself. And we also explore the way people access news about climate change as well as attitudes to media coverage for the first time." (Foreword)
more
"This article brings the results of an investigation into the role of WhatsApp audio messages in the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, proposing that instant voice messaging borrows elements from radio language. We started from a broader research, conducted by the Brazilian National Institute o
...
f Science and Technology in Digital Democracy (INCT.DD, in its Portuguese acronym), which identified a network composed of 220 WhatsApp groups – all of them with open-entry links – supporting six different candidates. Those groups put together thousands of anonymized profiles linked through connections to similar groups, configuring an extensive network. More than 1 million messages, including 98,000 audios, were gathered and downloaded during 2018 Brazilian electoral period (from June to October). We focused on eighteen audios with major circulation (totalling 3622 appearances) among the ones shared at least 100 times, which were extracted and analysed. The use of radio content analysis techniques pointed out strong evidence that audio messaging remediate radiophonic elements such as intimacy and colloquial language to accelerate disinformation campaigns." (Abstract)
more
"Brazil has a strong legacy in the field of participatory communication and articulation of bottom-up development processes. Many innovative experiences and key conceptual foundations that have enriched and informed this field in Latin America and beyond have strong Brazilian roots. A reference of
...
seminal importance to the field has been Paulo Freire, whose liberating pedagogy and principles of dialogic communication have influenced generations of educators, activists, movements and governments across the world. In a controversial move, the current government in Brazil has explicitly declared its intention to erase any trace of Freire’s pedagogy from any policy and practice in the country. It sparks the question: what is so dangerous about Freire’s ideas? This special issue explores this question in articulation with another one that seeks to examine how relevant –beyond the borders of pedagogical fields– are his ideas for Brazil as well as other settings where social and political perspectives clash. This issue is an outcome of a seminar held at Loughborough University London, in June 2019, where around 30 participants concluded that the ideas of Paulo Freire are still alive and kicking but confronted with new and transformed challenges. The collection of articles here suggests that the danger of Freire’s ideas emerge from their perspective upon society, their inherent vision of change, and, in particular, from the methods Freire developed in order to build a just society of emancipated and equal members. The special issue consists of six articles. They place the debate about Freire’s ideas in the context of development and social change, populism, polarization, but also of resistance. In this sense, the debate around the Brazilian case is illustrative of a larger historical framework. How Freire’s ideas can be expanded, re-written –as he might have proposed– under the experience of current times of such asymmetrical power?" (Page 408)
more
"This edited book aims at bringing together a range of contemporary expertise that can shed light on the relationship between media pluralism in Latin America and processes of democratization and social justice. In doing so, the authors of the book provide empirically grounded theoretical insight in
...
to the extent to which questions about media pluralism-broadly understood as the striving for diverse and inclusive media spheres-are an essential part of scholarly debates on democratic governance. The rise in recent years of authoritarianism, populism and nationalism, both in fragile and stable democratic systems, makes media pluralism an intellectual and empirical cornerstone of any debate about the future of democratic governance around the world." (Publisher description)
more
"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
...
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)
more
"In The Charismatic Gymnasium Maria José de Abreu examines how Charismatic Catholicism in contemporary Brazil produces a new form of total power through a concatenation of the breathing body, theology, and electronic mass media. De Abreu documents a vast religious respiratory program of revival pop
...
ularly branded as “the aerobics of Jesus.” Pneuma—the Greek term for air, breath, and spirit—is central to this aerobic program, whose goal is to labor on the athletic elasticity of spirit. Tracing the rhetoric, gestures, and spaces that together constitute this new theological community, de Abreu exposes the articulating forces among evangelical Christianity, neoliberal logics, and the rise of right-wing politics. By calling attention to how an ethics of pauperism vitally intersects with the neoliberal ethos of flexibility, de Abreu shows how paradoxes do not hinder but expand the Charismatic gymnasium. The result, de Abreu demonstrates, is the production of a fluid form of totalitarianism and Christianity in Brazil and beyond." (Back cover)
more
"El libro busca visibilizar la preocupante situación que atraviesan las y los comunicadores indígenas y afrodescendientes particularmente en Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, México, Nicaragua y Venezuela. En el marco de la defensa por sus der
...
echos, tierras, territorios y cultura, los trabajadores se encuentran expuestos a múltiples situaciones de violencia cotidiana [...] En un primer momento, el libro analiza la forma en que los pueblos comprenden la comunicación y en especial la comunicación ancestral indígena frente a las concepciones modernas de comunicación y un sistema de medios latinoamericano cada vez más concentrado. A su vez, plantea que la comunicación todavía es un derecho emergente, en disputa y en construcción. Si bien en muchos de los países analizados el derecho a la comunicación está reconocido explícitamente en sus constituciones, todavía falta para un pleno respeto de su ejercicio. En este marco, releva y sistematiza los instrumentos legales tanto nacionales como internacionales disponibles. Por otra parte, el trabajo demuestra la falta de información sistematizada en relación al tema y plantea que la carencia de reportes panorámicos claros es parte de la discriminación y marginación de los y las comunicadores y sus pueblos. Finalmente, proporciona una serie de recomendaciones para el fortalecimiento de una comunicación democrática y plural." (Editorial)
more