"95 per cent of journalists killed in armed conflict are locally based journalists. While there has been increasing focus on the physical and digital safety issues these journalists face, there has been less attention towards the need for psychosocial support. Addressing psychosocial needs of local
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journalists must become a higher priority to better provide for their well-being as they are impacted by psychologically traumatizing events happening around them. The context of local journalists in covering such events is very different from their international correspondent colleagues. This paper will discuss the cross-country lessons, as well as the challenges, surrounding psychosocial issues as part of the holistic theme of safety of journalists. Researchers have shown how journalists, particularly war correspondents, are affected by the work they do. But there has been little examination of the effects on local journalists or fixers for international media who live and work covering violence, conflicts or disasters that impact them directly. This paper will look at how trauma support considered mainstream in Western countries might be adapted for local journalists, examples of psychosocial support that have been used in different contexts such as the Middle East, Asia and Latin America and offer considerations in conducting further research into this area moving forward." (Abstract)
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"Conflict in Yemen plays out along various fault lines—regional, sectarian, class, political, tribal, and ethnic—which are reflected in the hateful language employed on and offline to incite violence. The sectarian aspect of conflict in Yemen is relatively new, as prior to 2011, “religious coe
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xistence and intermingling was taken for granted by most Yemenis and seen as a normal feature of everyday life.” But with the outbreak of conflict after the removal of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, “sectarian discourse has become more heated, reorganizing Yemeni society along sectarian lines and rearranging people’s relationships to one another on a non-nationalist basis.” Furthermore, the social and political dynamics in Yemen have fostered a permissive environment for hate speech. According to information gathered from a community meeting held in Sana’a in 2015, “many leaders have normalized and legitimized antagonistic, exclusionary rhetoric to consolidate their power and dehumanize their enemies.” In terms of access to online networks, despite a weak telecommunications sector relative to other Middle Eastern countries, an estimated 90 percent of the Yemeni population has access to the internet through mobile phones and, as of 2015, 93 percent of internet users are on Facebook and 92 percent utilize WhatsApp. The heavy saturation of these online communications networks highlights a growing need to understand and address the hate speech being spread within Yemen’s complex context. PeaceTech Lab’s work on hateful speech aims to identify and contextualize the particular terms and phrases that have the potential to lead to violence. This project identifies relevant terms through on-the-ground information gathering and examines their origins, context, and usages in a particular country environment. To successfully monitor and counter hateful speech, we must first identify specific terms and the social and political context that makes them offensive, inflammatory, and potentially dangerous. The research also seeks to identify alternative terms that might be used to mitigate or replace this language and thereby contribute to building peace. Finally, this report is intended as a resource for individuals and organizations involved in monitoring and combatting hateful speech as well as those involved in conflict prevention and mitigation so that their work can be more effective." (Introduction)
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"Very few international news organisations routinely cover humanitarian affairs. Only 12 news outlets reported on all four of the humanitarian events we analysed in 2016. Because of the high costs of producing regular, original journalism on humanitarian issues, commercial news organisations do not
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usually cover humanitarian issues, with the exception of major ‘emergencies’. Most humanitarian journalism is now funded by states or private foundations. This is worrying because claiming that particular actors or activities are ‘humanitarian’ is a powerful form of legitimacy. It is important that media about the suffering does not become a vehicle for commercial or political interests. A major challenge of foundation funding is its unsustainable nature, as most foundations want to provide start-up money, rather than giving ongoing support. Meanwhile government funding can constrain where and how humanitarian reporting takes place because of foreign policy objectives and diplomatic tensions." (Executive summary)
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"National and Regional Internet Governance Forums (NRIs) are the stars of the 2017 Global Information Society Watch. The story of NRIs began two years after the first global IGF held in 2006. In 2008, stakeholders from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda organised national forums and a subsequent Eas
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t African IGF, to prepare for and discuss common concerns in anticipation of the global forum held later that year in Hyderabad. Soon after, many other national and regional initiatives emerged, impacting the global forum from the bottom up, enhancing inclusiveness and the broad engagement of multiple stakeholders. Today there is widespread agreement that national and regional forums constitute an important part of the IGF process, that their rise has added significance to the global forum and, at the same time, strengthened national and regional initiatives in their quest for inclusive, participatory decision making on their home turf. This GISWatch edition is the first comprehensive look at national and regional IGF initiatives from a critical, civil society perspective. In all, 54 reports are presented, including seven reports addressing cross-cutting themes, 40 covering national IGFs, and seven examining regional initiatives." (Preface)
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"This book, the first of its kind ever in Yemen, serves as a guide for Yemeni media professionals as well as a highly significant document that will go a long way in boosting their reporting skills in such a way that meets the standards of conflict sensitive journalism. It is also a compendium on a
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number of workshops SEMC had conducted across Yemeni governorates over the past couple of years." (Introduction, page 8)
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"This study identified three local or subregional incidents that led to heated debates on Twitter: a video shared on Twitter of the sexual assault of a woman on Cairo’s Tahrir Square in June 2014, anti-fracking protests in southern Algeria in early 2015, and Saudi Arabia’s military intervention
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in Yemen in March 2015 [...] By closely tracing how Twitter debates on these three issues unfolded and conducting interviews with agenda setters for these debates, this study sheds light on Twitter’s role in important social and political discussions as well as on the scope and patterns of Twitter networks. In other words, it highlights the various ways Twitter is being utilized by ordinary people, activists, media outlets, and officials, and it provides an idea of the political impact they can have via Twitter." (Page 5)
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"The 45 country reports gathered here illustrate the link between the internet and economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs). Some of the topics will be familiar to information and communications technology for development (ICT4D) activists: the right to health, education and culture; the socioec
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onomic empowerment of women using the internet; the inclusion of rural and indigenous communities in the information society; and the use of ICT to combat the marginalisation of local languages. Others deal with relatively new areas of exploration, such as using 3D printing technology to preserve cultural heritage, creating participatory community networks to capture an “inventory of things” that enables socioeconomic rights, crowdfunding rights, or the negative impact of algorithms on calculating social benefits. Workers’ rights receive some attention, as does the use of the internet during natural disasters. Ten thematic reports frame the country reports. These deal both with overarching concerns when it comes to ESCRs and the internet – such as institutional frameworks and policy considerations – as well as more specific issues that impact on our rights: the legal justification for online education resources, the plight of migrant domestic workers, the use of digital databases to protect traditional knowledge from biopiracy, digital archiving, and the impact of multilateral trade deals on the international human rights framework. The reports highlight the institutional and country-level possibilities and challenges that civil society faces in using the internet to enable ESCRs. They also suggest that in a number of instances, individuals, groups and communities are using the internet to enact their socioeconomic and cultural rights in the face of disinterest, inaction or censure by the state." (Back cover)
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"Im Fokus des ersten Teils stehen transnationale Phänomene wie die Bedeutung des Satellitenfernsehens und der Sozialen Medien sowie die Rolle von Minderheiten, Gender und Islamisten in den Medien. Diese Beiträge geben den aktuellen Stand der Forschung wieder und reflektieren diesen. Im zweiten Tei
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l des Buches werden in 18 Länderstudien – von Marokko bis zum Irak – die nationalen Besonderheiten der Medien betrachtet, die aus unterschiedlichen politischen Systemen, rechtlichen Beschränkungen, ökonomischen Voraussetzungen und der jeweiligen Soziodemographie resultieren." (Klappentext)
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"This Global Information Society Watch tracks the state of communications surveillance in 57 countries across the world – countries as diverse as Hungary, India, Argentina, The Gambia, Lebanon and the United Kingdom. Each country report approaches the issue from a different perspective. Some analy
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se legal frameworks that allow surveillance, others the role of businesses in collecting data (including marketing data on children), the potential of biometrics to violate rights, or the privacy challenges when implementing a centralised universal health system. The perspectives from long-time internet activists on surveillance are also recorded. Using the 13 International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance as a starting point, eight thematic reports frame the key issues at stake. These include discussions on what we mean by digital surveillance, the implications for a human rights agenda on surveillance, the “Five Eyes” inter-government surveillance network led by the US, cyber security, and the role of intermediaries." (GIS website)
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"Global Journalism Practice and New Media Performance provides an overview of new and traditional media in their political, economic and cultural contexts while exploring the role of journalism practice and media education. The authors examine media systems in 16 countries, including China, Russia a
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nd the United States." (Publisher description)
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"Through the methodological framework of the Networked Readiness Index (NRI), the report measures the extent to which 144 economies, from both the developed and developing worlds, take advantage of ICTs and other new technologies to increase their growth and well-being. The NRI identifies the most r
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elevant factors driving ICT readiness and impacts, providing policymakers, business leaders, and civil society at large with a useful tool for designing national strategies for increased networked readiness and for benchmarking their country’s performance against other relevant comparators. The Global Information Technology Report 2013 features the latest computation and rankings of the NRI, and in referring to this year’s theme, dives deeper into the connection between ICTs and economic growth and job creation. As in previous years, it also showcases a number of ICT development stories of particular interest. In addition, the report includes detailed profiles for the 144 economies covered this year together with data tables for each of the 54 indicators used in the computation of the NRI." (Back cover)
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"According to the Danida website "The Danish Arab Partnership Programme (DAPP) is a long-term programme with the dual objectives of 1) supporting local reform processes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region) and 2) Establishing a basis for improved dialogue, understanding and cooperation
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between Arab countries and Denmark. Media support has been the biggest programme under the DAPP with a total of 178 million DKK (approx. Euro 24 Mio) being allocated to these activities during the period 2005-2012. The evaluation applies OECD/DAC’s five criteria: relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, (emerging) impacts, and sustainability to answer the overall evaluation questions, including whether and how the media cooperation activities have contributed to media reform in the Arab countries and to enhanced dialogue between professional media partners in Arab countries and in Denmark. Other key questions include the extent to which DAPP and MCP programmes and projects have been able to adjust and respond to the dynamic changes in the region and which lessons can be learned for future media cooperation and professionalization of the media in the MENA region". The overall study frame included 20 different regional and country programmes. Five countries were assessed: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen and Tunisia. The intervention areas sampled for assessments were: investigative journalism, media monitoring, legal reform, online media, public service broadcasting (PSB), documentary filmmaking and twinnings." (commbox)
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"The Report is composed of four thematic parts. Part 1 describes the conceptual framework and relates the findings of the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) 2012. In addition, Part 1 features selected expert contributions on the general theme of hyperconnectivity. Part 2 includes two case studies showi
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ng the efforts that two countries, Azerbaijan and Mauritius, are making to develop ICT and fully leverage their potential benefits. Part 3 comprises detailed profiles for the 142 economies covered in this year’s Report, providing a thorough picture of each economy’s current networked readiness landscape and allowing for international comparisons of specific variables or components of the NRI. Part 4 includes data tables for each of the 53 variables composing the NRI, with rankings for the economies covered as well as technical notes and sources for the quantitative variables used." (Executive summary, page xi)
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"This is the first scholarly analysis of how young women used social media and cyberactivism to help shape the “Arab Spring” and its aftermath. It argues that women's engagement with social media has coincided with a shift in the political landscape of the Middle East, and it is unlikely that th
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ey will ever retreat from the new arenas they have carved out for themselves because they have reconfigured the public sphere in their countries, as well as the expectations of the public about the role women can and should play in the political lives of their countries."
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