"In dieser Studie werden auf Basis der Literaturanalyse eine Vielzahl an Anwendungsfällen mit besonders hohen Potenzialen für positive Umwelteffekte identifiziert. Insbesondere im Energiebereich gibt es eine Vielzahl von vergleichsweise gut erforschten Anwendungsfällen. Hierzu zählt beispielswei
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se der Einsatz von Smart Metering und preisdynamischen Tarifen. Auch Automatisierung und Monitoring im Gebäudebereich können den Energieverbrauch deutlich verringern. Durch Digitalisierung im Energiesektor kann außerdem das Abregeln erneuerbarer Energien vermieden werden. Im Bereich Verkehr können Technologien wie Internet of Things (IoT) und 5G z. B. die THG-Emissionen im Güterverkehr deutlich senken. Die positiven Umweltpotenziale der Digitalisierung sind jedoch nicht auf das Einsparen von CO2-Emissionen beschränkt. In der Landwirtschaft können z. B. durch den Einsatz von Precision Farming durch digital gestütztes Monitoring der Einsatz von Pflanzenschutzmitteln und Bewässerung reduziert werden. Trotz einer Vielzahl von Studien, die sich mit Umwelteffekten von Digitalisierung beschäftigen, ist der Wissensstand über das Ausmaß der Potenziale in vielen Bereichen jedoch immer noch lückenhaft. In den für diese Studie analysierten Veröffentlichungen wird eine Vielzahl von digitalen Technologien und Anwendungsfällen qualitativ bzw. anekdotisch als sehr relevant beschrieben, es fehlen jedoch in der Regel Quantifizierungen. Obwohl z. B. für den Bereich KI viele Veröffentlichungen identifiziert wurden, enthielten nur wenige quantifizierte Analysen, auch Bilanzierungen fehlten zum Teil. Diese Studien wurden daher nur begrenzt in die Metastudie miteinbezogen, deuten aber auf ein potenziell disruptives Potenzial von KI in manchen Anwendungsbereichen hin (z. B. im Bereich Klimaanpassung kann KI durch die Verbesserung von Prognosen die Reaktionsfähigkeit auf Umweltereignisse erhöhen). Mit der Digitalisierung gehen neben Umweltchancen auch negative Umwelteffekte einher. Zu den negativen Effekten der Digitalisierung gehören direkte Effekte, die durch den Energie- und Ressourcenverbrauch der Produktion und den Betrieb digitaler Infrastruktur entstehen. Ein weiteres prominentes Beispiel sind negative systemische Effekte wie Rebound-Effekte. Daher führt Digitalisierung nicht zwangsläufig zu einer Verringerung des Ressourcenverbrauchs. Positive Umwelteffekte der Digitalisierung gehen oft auf positive Enabling-Effekte wie Optimierungs- und Substitutionseffekte zurück, oder ergeben sich durch den Wandel zu nachhaltigen Verhaltens- und Konsummustern. Im Fokus der Literatur stehen meist positive Enabling-Effekte. Die vorhandenen Quantifizierungen konzentrieren sich meist auf die Potenziale digitaler Technologien (die positiven Enabling-Effekte). Nur in wenigen Studien werden vor- und nachgelagerte Umwelteffekte der Produktion der digitalen Technologien sowie weitere systemische Effekte wie Rebound-Effekte in die Umweltbewertung mit einbezogen. Eine übergeordnete Bewertung der Gesamtbilanz digitaler Technologien im Rahmen wissenschaftlicher Analysen wird somit erschwert. Bei vielen Studien handelt es sich zudem um Fallstudien, die Umwelteffekte unter sehr spezifischen Rahmenbedingungen ermitteln. Es ist daher häufig nicht klar, inwieweit sich diese Potenziale skalieren bzw. auf andere Kontexte übertragen lassen. Schließlich werden Umweltauswirkungen häufig auf CO2-Äq. verkürzt und auf eine breitere Betrachtung von Umwelteffekten im Sinne von Ressourcenverbrauch wird oft verzichtet." (Zusammenfassung, Seite 7-8)
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"The global food system is characterized by market concentration and oligopoly. In our article, we focus on the most powerful input supply and machinery companies and analyze how these firms create value, both economic and otherwise, from big data. In digital capitalism, data is valorized across sec
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tors; personal data is aggregated into large-scale datasets, a practice that feeds economic concentration and monopolization. Big data also has become central to the business model for agricultural companies; it is a claim made by the companies themselves. Yet, little is known about their specific strategies to do so.We aim to fill this gap, asking how is agricultural data transformed into value by the most powerful agribusinesses and ag-tech firms? Through the lens of assetization, we examine corporate strategies for transforming agricultural data into value. We draw on literature from food studies, specifically political economic analyses of the historical practices of agricultural corporations, as well as literature from critical data studies that investigates data as an asset. For our analysis, we rely on a variety of gray literature and public-facing documents: financial documents, sustainability and shareholder reports, terms of use, license agreements, and news articles. Our results contribute to the critical data studies literature on agricultural big data by identifying three main strategies of assetization: securing relationships and dependence, price-setting and data sharing, and product development and targeted marketing. The strategies have socio-ecological implications; our results indicate the reproduction of asymmetrical power relations in the agri-food system favoring corporations and the continuation of long-standing dynamics of inequalities." (Abstract)
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"As a tool of political communication and information diffusion, social media has transformed the process of securitization, allowing (in)security messages to spread and scale up rapidly. Focusing on the case of the Amazon rainforest fires in 2019, this article seeks to answer two questions: How doe
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s securitization spread in online networks? And who are the actors that contribute to the diffusion of security messages? To explore this puzzle, the study develops a dictionary of query terms and performs a full-archive search to collect tweets posted between June and October 2019 and reconstruct the communication network of more than 3 million users. Drawing from theories of online activism and research on information diffusion in networks, the study uses both the structure of the Twitter network and the dynamics of activity in message exchange to identify four types of users and explore their roles in the spread of the message. The findings shed new light on the ways in which social media facilitates the definition of security problems and provide empirical evidence of the prominent position of influence taken by lay actors in the process of securitization." (Abstract)
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"For the second year in a row, all ten of the most under-reported crises are in Africa. From conflict in Angola to climate change in Zimbabwe, every entry in this report represents countless human tragedies taking place in the shadows of the world’s gaze. Our second most under-reported crisis coun
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try, Burundi, briefly hit the headlines in the summer of 2023, when ten Burundian handball players ran away from the Under-19 World Cup in Croatia. They later turned up in Belgium seeking asylum, after which the media spotlight turned away again – the individual stories behind Burundi’s shocking poverty statistics once again unheard." (Introduction, page 3)
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"Within the complex media and educational landscape of Afghanistan, characterized by the takeover by the de facto authorities, a study of the current Media-Based education was facilitated by the Afghanistan Independent Journalists Union (AIJU) and Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA) with the support o
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f UNESCO. The study aims to understand the current media landscape in the country particularly the creation and distribution of educational content. It has the objective of assessing the current context of consumption of educational content published on different media platforms, with a special focus on their accessibility and relevance for the communities, mapping the broadcast and digital learning environment within the country and of evaluating the needs of the communities. Aligned with UNESCO’s mission to promote freedom of expression and education, this research investigates the potential of media to provide alternative opportunities and tools for learning. The resulting report “Media Mapping on Educational Content Production and Dissemination in Afghanistan” provides narratives and perspectives of those working in the media sector, including media managers, who are working under very challenging conditions. It reflects the communities’ experiences, including those of girls - who face significant barriers and restrictions in accessing traditional educational opportunities. The report provides valuable insights into the opportunities and obstacles for Media-Based education within the Afghan media sphere. The detailed findings aim to guide stakeholders and present actionable insights that seek to enhance the work of the media sector in facilitating access to education in the current environment of Afghanistan." (Back cover)
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"This study examines the external influences that shape NGO-produced news content concerning humanitarian crises in East, West and Central Africa. Employing a thematic analysis of semi-structured in-depth interviews with humanitarian communicators and a content analysis of the humanitarian press rel
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eases of four major NGOs, it seeks to establish the types of content NGO communications staff consider most effective for achieving mainstream media coverage, how they access such content, and any forces influencing their eventual production of news. In line with notions of media logic (Altheide and Snow 1979; Cottle and Nolan 2007) and news cloning (Fenton 2010), it uncovers a reliance on hard-hitting humanitarian statistics and powerful first-person testimonies, which are considered essential for achieving news coverage. Statistics are found to be most often sourced from publicly available humanitarian datasets, often managed by the United Nations, and are considered susceptible to politicisation by authorities implicated in certain crises. First-person testimonies are usually gathered in-person by NGO staff and are affected by issues of physical access to crisis zones including monitoring by local authorities and demands for media sign-off. Additionally, a humanitarian NGO’s decision on whether to speak out publicly about a crisis is found to be often weighed up against threats to staff and programme safety. Examining these issues through a lens of agenda building theory (Cobb and Elder 1971), this study introduces the concept of agenda erosion, describing the phenomenon by which powerful actors, including host authorities and western governmental and intergovernmental donors, exert influence to undermine agenda building activities by NGOs in the context of humanitarian crises. Methods of agenda erosion might include demanding sign-off of media content, the control of physical access to crisis zones for communications staff, and the politicisation of humanitarian data. Unlike the traditional view of NGOs being producers of information subsidies (Gandy 1982), this concept recognises that, as news producers, NGOs also accept information subsidies, including humanitarian data, from other actors. These subsidies are used by NGOs to increase their own agenda building effectiveness but can also allow other, potentially conflicting, priorities to influence the media agenda too.
NGOs are now widely regarded as important players in the production of international news (Cottle and Nolan, 2007; Cooper, 2011; Powers 2018) and these findings suggest agenda erosion is in-part responsible for the continuing adherence of aid organisations to established patterns of news construction (Cottle & Nolan 2007; Fenton 2010; Waisbord 2011; Powers 2018). Only crises with hard-hitting data or emotive personal stories are likely to achieve mainstream media coverage but exposure to such sources is often closely guarded by the most powerful actors in certain crises. As a result, some crises continue to go underreported and NGOs risk being silenced or, worse, used as proxy mouthpieces by powers implicated in the humanitarian context to which they are attempting to respond." (Abstract)
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"ICT4D research is predominantly governed by discourses of instrumental usage of ICTs and measurable ends dictated by official policies. Particularly in agricultural production, farmers are cast as tool-users expected to use ICTs to achieve pre-determined goals. The article argues that such approach
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es undermine the multiple situated ways in which farmers transform through ICTs, and new thinking strategies are needed to legitimize undervalued meanings of ICT-driven change. Drawing from economic geography the article introduces the diverse economies framework as a tool that helps validate indigenous knowledge by unpacking the centrality of informal livelihood practices. This is explored empirically through a seven-year-long qualitative study with a farmers’ cooperative in South India. The findings reveal forms of ICT-enabled change and empowerment that do not fit with official discourses of development but are critical for farmers’ sustainability. The article concludes that legitimizing indigenous knowledge requires a concerted academic effort to make diversity visible." (Abstract)
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"This paper investigates everyday information seeking and misinformation among Internet users in rural and urban China. The research employs both quantitative and qualitative methods to identify user demographics and categories of misinformation encountered on mobile devices online. The paper makes
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two contributions: one is to bridge hitherto unconnected research on everyday information practices with the literature on misinformation. The second is to demonstrate that, despite the assumption that China’s tightly controlled online space leads to less of a misinformation problem, this is not the case in everyday life contexts. The findings may have wider implications, especially in the Global South." (Abstract)
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"This bulletin summarises the key findings and recommendations for strengthening collective efforts on communication and community engagement in the Libya floods response. The findings are drawn from a qualitative consultation with more than 30 representatives from the humanitarian community conduct
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ed in November 2023–January 2024." (About this bulletin)
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"Organisation-centric approaches in development communication and public relations that privilege the organisation can restrict communication to organisational mandates and goals. Organisation-centric approaches can reflect a modernist view of development or communication and have been critiqued for
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favouring technocratic development rather than serving marginalised groups. Currently, scholars in development communication and public relations place greater emphasis on publics or community participation and the processual nature of communication to overcome adverse organisational influence and propose better solutions. This article recognises theoretical advances in development communication and public relations and adopts the Collaborative Communication Approach, integrating current concepts from these two fields. The Collaborative Communication Approach facilitates an examination of communication in development in relation to five elements of power, context, participation, agency, and profession. This article shows how the five elements prove useful in addressing communication challenges in development through primary research and offers eight distinct categories to advance practice." (Abstract)
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