"WhatsApp und Facebook werden auch in Lateinamerika massiv genutzt, vor allem aufgrund ihres vermeintlich kostenlosen Charakters. Auch dort wird das Problem der rechten Meinungsmache und der Fake News diskutiert, denn die Tatsache, dass sich die Leute heute vor allem über Werbeplattformen informier
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en, die unzutreffend „soziale Medien“ genannt werden, hat handfeste politische Auswirkungen. In Brasilien und El Salvador wurden die jüngsten Wahlen nicht über Präsenz und Debatten in den traditionellen Medien gewonnen, sondern über gut vorbereitete und teure WhatsApp-Kampagnen. In Brasilien siegt so der Rechtsextremist Jair Bolsonaro, in El Salvador der politische Wende-hals und PR-Profi Nayib Bukele. Die brasilianischen WhatsApp-Nutzer*innen wurden während des Wahlkampfs mit gefälschtem, häufig explizit sexuellem Inhalt geflutet, wie etwa der Meldung, dass die Arbeiterpartei plane, Babyfläschchen mit Nuckel in Penisform zu verteilen, um die Homosexualisierung der Kleinkinder voranzutreiben.
Haarsträubendes postfaktisches Zeitalter – warum fallen Fake News auf fruchtbaren Boden? Klar ist: Klassische Medien haben ihre Funktion als „Gatekeeper“, als Instanzen, die sortieren und filtern, längst eingebüßt. Die Gesellschaften werden vielfältiger und unübersichtlicher: mehr Pluralität auf der einen Seite, andererseits immer tiefere Gräben, die sich durch die Gesellschaften ziehen. Die mediale Öffentlichkeit und die Zugangsbedingungen zu ihr wandeln sich. Die Menschen misstrauen „denen da oben“ durchaus zu Recht. Aber die kommerziellen Global Tech Player beherrschen die Räume für Kommunikation, Information und Meinungsbildung mit Algorithmen. Das hat Folgen. Das Geschäftsmodell basiert auf Datenschürfen, kombiniert mit persönlich zugeschnittener Werbung. Du bekommst das, was du sehen und hören willst, nicht was wahr ist und den Tatsachen entspricht. Und davon profitieren vor allem rechtspopulistische Akteure.
Gibt es dazu einen funktionierenden linken Gegenentwurf? Wir, die Macher*innen der ila und ähnlich Gesinnte, wollten eigentlich schon immer zur Bildung einer Gegenöffentlichkeit beitragen, positionierten uns gegen den „bürgerlichen Journalismus als Stellvertreterjournalismus“, wollten „Betroffenenberichterstattung“. Heute haben Rechte und Rechtsextreme den Begriff „Gegenöffentlichkeit“ für sich gekapert. Und jetzt haben wir den Salat.
Aktuell existiert eine Öffentlichkeit jenseits der Dichotomie „staatlich geregelt oder privat“. Wir haben kein Problem mehr damit, unsere eigenen Inhalte zu verbreiten und eigene Medien zu schaffen. Das stellt allerdings noch längst nicht sicher, dass wir auch gehört werden. Der springende Punkt ist nicht mehr der Zugang, sondern die Reichweite. Wir konkurrieren mit allen anderen Anbietern von welcher Information auch immer um Aufmerksamkeit. Und dabei verfügen wir, kaum anders als früher, immer noch über die schwächeren Möglichkeiten.
Wie sieht also das Überleben im „Plattformkapitalismus“ aus, wie sich darin bewegen, schützen, informieren, seine Meinung bilden und als politisch Aktive oder alternative Medienschaffende die eigenen Inhalte verbreiten? Dazu ein paar Ideen, die sich aus der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema und lateinamerikanischen Gesprächspartner*innen herauskristallisieren: Versteht, die Technik zu verstehen (in Lateinamerika ist die Rede von hackear la tecnología, also die Technologie für die eigenen Zwecke zu nutzen wissen), wahrt eine kritische Distanz, haltet eure Informationsquellen vielfältig (was vor allem auch Kindern und Jugendlichen vermittelt werden sollte), schafft und nutzt alternative Plattformen. Manchmal kann auch digitales Fasten das Gebot der Stunde sein. Handy aus und raus auf die Straße – oder in den Wald." (Editorial)
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"A scholar and activist tells the story of change makers operating within the Chinese Communist system, whose ideas of social action necessarily differ from those dominant in Western, liberal societies." (Publisher description)
"To conclude, current Internet-based innovations, including Web 2.0 tools and the wherewithal to use these tools, have given consumers a new form of freedom, and voice. As such, they are more apt to start campaigns, expose social injustices, and demand change from the institutions concerned. We cont
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end that activism in the online realm may contribute to creating a more empowered consumer who participates to the degree that he or she is able. While this ease of participation and the ability to start consumer campaigns from one’s home computer have added to the social conscience and social awareness of society, they have introduced new conundrums to contemplate. One wonders whether the plethora of petitions and viral videos on behalf of various causes have the desired effects or whether they confuse matters. After all, if there are 259 Facebook pages calling for stringent GMO policies, which one does the consumer join? Perhaps the most important contribution of this chapter is to be a starting point for additional empirical research on the various questions surrounding online consumer activism." (Page 364)
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"The most extreme damage inflicted by social media can be seen in South Sudan. As documented in the chapter by Theo Dolan, social media in South Sudan has contributed to hatred and conflict among ethnic groups. Many investigators, including UN investigators, have warned that South Sudan's social med
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ia are triggering violence against ethnic groups. Since the beginning of the civil war in late 2013, social media has fuelled waves of hate speech that have provoked deadly violence and ethnic conflict in South Sudan, including massacres and other atrocities. In that sense, social media has become a new variation of the "hate radio" phenomenon that flourished in Rwanda before and during the 1994 genocide … Social media is also emerging as a powerful way to harass and intimidate the opponents of a regime or a political party. In this sense, it adds another weapon to the arsenal of a powerful regime that already has multiple weapons at its disposal. A regime can mobilize its supporters to use social media in a targeted way against its foes, or it can use its financial resources to create a fake army of fictional users on social media. In either case, it is tilting the playing field against its enemies. A targeted attack through social media can be more effective than the telephone threats or messages often deployed in the past. The use of social media can be more intimidating because it belittles the targeted person in front of a much bigger audience. The presence of this audience means that the attack is more damaging, more difficult to ignore and has the potential to mobilize large numbers of people against the victim … While social media is often used for anti-democratic purposes in Africa's authoritarian states, it has also been used as a force for reform, accountability and justice. It has helped to safeguard the fairness of elections. It has allowed greater scrutiny of potential threats, such as vote-rigging or violence, allowing citizens to be alerted when there is still a chance to prevent the worst abuses. It has put a spotlight on corruption and political wrongdoing, allowing activists to mobilize pressure on governments to resolve these long-neglected problems. In some cases, as it did in the Arab Spring, social media has played a role in toppling an authoritarian state. When an election was called in the small West African state of Gambia, where the dictator Yahya Jammeh had ruled for 22 years, opposition candidates had little access to state-controlled media. So the main opposition party created more than a dozen WhatsApp groups, allowing it to communicate with voters. Other forms of social media also proliferated. A leading independent group, the Gambia Youth and Women's Forum, discussed election issues on a public Facebook group with 55,000 members. The government blocked access to WhatsApp and eventually extended the shutdown to the entire internet, but Gambians used virtual private network (VPN) technology to bypass the shutdown. The opposition won the election and Jammeh was forced to flee the country." (Pages 419-423)
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"Social media engagement alone can achieve limited results in promoting public accountability for police misconduct in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda but can and has served as a valuable tool in this endeavour. The percentage of the population in Africa that engages in discussions on social media platfo
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rms about the actions and behaviour of the police is currently small. This number has the potential to grow exponentially over the next decade with advances in mobile connectivity and as the public realise the power of harnessing social media as a tool to promote good governance and demand accountability from government. Social media engagement can facilitate communication between police agencies and the public, allowing for information to flow between these groups. Well-coordinated, strategic social media campaigns by civil society in the countries reviewed can mobilise the public, energise large groups of people and achieve tangible results. Civil society can develop systematic strategies to engage with the police in different ways. These strategies include using positive interactions to build trust and open the lines of communication, and using photographs and videos of specific events and incidents of police misconduct gathered through social media to demand accountability." (Key findings)
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"Son cuatro los capítulos que acá se incluyen que reúnen teoría, conceptos, casos, iniciativas, datos, ejemplos y, por supuesto, reflexión y análisis. Los capítulos abarcan: 1. Definiciones sobre Democracia Digital. Se revisa de manera teórica, clara y concisa lo que es la Democracia Digital
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: qué significa, su alcance y cómo afecta directamente a todos. Se explica la importancia de la e-participación y la deliberación en la era digital. El propósito es demostrar cómo Internet y las TIC pueden aportar favorablemente en la consolidación de la democracia. 2. Ciudadanía Digital: empoderamiento y cambio en la era digital. Se define al Ciudadano 2.0 y se exponen los casos emblemáticos en el Perú sobre cómo la ciudadanía se ha adaptado rápidamente a los procesos de digitalización; así como iniciativas que han logrado cambios y resultados importantes en la sociedad. Además, se destaca la importancia de la relación entre el mundo online y offline. 3. La política en tiempos digitales. Se inicia analizando cómo las redes sociales contribuyen a la polarización, a la desinformación y al surgimiento de populismos. Examina las campañas presidenciales de Obama y Trump; así como el papel de los partidos políticos en el Perú. Incluye los esfuerzos que se han impulsado desde el sector público para implementar las políticas referidas al Gobierno Abierto y la apertura de datos, además, de los procesos de digitalización que se han iniciado para lograr una transformación digital en el sector. 4. Gobernanza de Internet y los Derechos Humanos en línea. Se revisan los conceptos relacionados a la gobernanza de Internet, establecidos en la Cumbre Mundial de la Sociedad de la Información de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU). Se hace un repaso a los esfuerzos que ya se han emprendido para proteger los derechos humanos online y otros instrumentos internacionales en el marco de la ONU, Unesco y el sistema interamericano a fin de fortalecer el ecosistema digital." (Página 26-27)
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"[...] this pilot study in Siaya County sought to assess what makes for more effective public participation in Kenya. In contributing to a timely policy concern about how to best meet the imperatives/aspirations of devolution, it sought also to address the limited empirical evidence in scholarship a
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bout how to design effective public participation. The pilot study had two operational components, designed to generate new insights into public participation in the context of devolution in Kenya: 1) implementation of an intervention, designed to generate citizen engagement and feed insights from citizen voice into a Country policy process; 2) a study into the intervention, examining the extent to which its distinct elements make it an effective means of providing for public participation with County governments in Kenya." (Introduction, page 4)
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"Based on over 40 interviews with practitioners, this report identifies “civic media practice” as media and technology used to facilitate democratic process. It focuses specifically on those practitioners using media tools to form relationships and build trust - a practice that sometimes runs co
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unter to the apparent needs of organizations to enhance efficiency through technology. This report identifies civic media practice as a direct response to the crisis of distrust and describes the negotiation of values that takes place as media is designed and deployed in organizations.
The process of identification and evaluation of civic media practice is described in detail. The report presents a method of process evaluation that allows practitioners to measure their progress along two central axes: social infrastructure and objective. Civic media practice is always striving towards strong social infrastructure and longevity. As a means of measuring progress along these axes, we identify four activities that can be tracked. They include: 1) Network Building; 2) Holding Space for Discussion; 3) Distributing Ownership; 4) Persistent Input. We present reflective questions that can be asked throughout a civic media project to track progress in these areas.
Finally, we provide recommendations for practitioners and funders as they create and support civic media practice. The institution of civic media is nascent. This report is meant to solidify common principles and provide direction for those invested in transforming civic life through media practice." (Executive summary, page 5)
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"Dans ces quatre pays africains (Bénin, Kenya, Sénégal, Tunisie) où l’étude a été réalisée, il apparaît qu’à l’origine des civic tech se trouvent le plus souvent des citoyens et des citoyennes engagés, désireux de traduire leur frustration, et parfois leur colère, devant le déca
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lage observé entre l’affirmation officielle de principes démocratiques et une réalité de terrain assez éloignée des discours. Pour la grande majorité d’entre eux, les initiateurs de ces actions ont suivi des parcours universitaires exigeants et connu des expériences à l’étranger. Les hommes sont très largement majoritaires, à l’exception du Kenya où les femmes sont presque aussi nombreuses que les hommes. Elles considèrent toutefois qu’elles ne se trouvent pas sur un pied d’égalité, notamment lorsqu’il s’agit pour elles de prendre la parole publiquement ou de se lancer dans l’entrepreneuriat. Les difficultés d’une mobilisation à grande échelle Les jeunes adultes (20-25 ans) qui s’investissent dans les civic tech s’engagent généralement pour exprimer une forme d’irritation face aux dérives liées à la corruption ou au manque de prise en compte de l’avis des citoyens dans les décisions politiques. De l’avis général des « doyens » (activistes des civic tech ayant plus de 6 ou 7 ans d’expérience) que nous avons interrogés, la jeune génération est très prometteuse, car mieux formée sur les nouvelles technologies et très mobilisée sur les objectifs de bonne gouvernance et de participation citoyenne. En termes d’audience et de développement, l’étude montre que, dans les quatre pays concernés, les acteurs des civic tech rencontrent le plus souvent des difficultés à mobiliser de larges communautés de citoyens. Ils peinent à faire entendre leur message dans des pays où l’illettrisme au sens littéral et au sens numérique sont importants. Il en résulte des actions qui mobilisent essentiellement un petit nombre de citoyens, à la fois très engagés et très motivés. En général, le système d’organisation des initiatives civic tech varie selon les projets : le degré de structuration est plus ou moins formel et dépend surtout de l’ancienneté des initiatives, de l’ampleur des financements collectés et, in fine, du nombre de participants actifs impliqués à temps plein. Lorsqu’une forme de professionnalisation de l’action est évoquée, beaucoup de nos interlocuteurs mentionnent la difficulté à recruter et à fidéliser des profils combinant sensibilité aux questions de redevabilité et de transparence, savoir-faire en matière de gestion de projet, capacités technologiques et maîtrise des techniques de communication, notamment sur les réseaux sociaux." (Résumé analytique)
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"The results of the questionnaire showed that most Palestinian organizations do think about and deal with media work in general. Since ninety-three percent of the organizations surveyed were already dealing with media, while 58% employed at least one person in a specialist position. Only 32% had a s
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pecialized department dedicated to media work. In terms of a specific strategic approach to media, 61% of the organizations who took part in the questionnaire had a strategic plan for dealing with media; 51% had an annual work plan. However, only 42% stated that they allocated an annual budget for media. In other words, they used funds which are not deducted from project grants. Turning to social media usage, we found that 70% of the organizations tried to finance content through their networks at least once, whereas fifty-four percent of the organizations launched digital awareness campaigns on social media platforms; forty-nine percent of these digital campaigns were part of a media plan. Looking at the prevalence of social media platforms and how they are most widely used, we found that all organizations, even the ones with no website, usually had a Facebook account. In fact, 100% of the organizations surveyed had a Facebook account, hence this was not subject to testing in relation to the other influencing factors. YouTube followed with 75% of the organizations having an account. Fifty-one percent of the organizations had a Twitter account, while 27% had an Instagram account and 18% had a LinkedIn account. Two of the organizations used Soundcloud and two others used Flickr. Vimeo and Google+ were only used by a single organization for each one." (Results and conclsions, page 56-7)
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"This Is Not an Atlas gathers more than 40 counter-cartographies from all over the world. This collection shows how maps are created and transformed as a part of political struggle, for critical research or in art and education: from indigenous territories in the Amazon to the anti-eviction movement
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in San Francisco; from defending commons in Mexico to mapping refugee camps with balloons in Lebanon; from slums in Nairobi to squats in Berlin; from supporting communities in the Philippines to reporting sexual harassment in Cairo. This Is Not an Atlas seeks to inspire, to document the underrepresented, and to be a useful companion when becoming a counter-cartographer yourself." (Publisher description)
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"This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores how different theoretical paradigms speak of activism in relation to public relations. It focuses on the tactics employed in Turkey during the second-wave feminism. The bo
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ok analyzes how activist groups utilized public relations strategies and tactics during Gezi Demonstrations from 2013. It also focuses on the social movements and contentious politics aspect of protest and their progression to a global stage through diffusion, domestication and externalization. The book considers questions about protest, dissent and activist public relations: their definition, their description and their application. It shows that media continues to be an important element in activist communication. The book demonstrates how the activists' use of tactics, such as consciousness raising groups, demonstrations, festivals, petitions, magazines, periodicals and books influenced both policy and cultural changes." (Publisher description)
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"This book explores the complex and contradictory relationships between communication and information technologies and social movements by drawing on different case studies from around the world. The contributions analyse how new communication and information technologies impact the way protests are
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carried out and controlled in the current information age. The authors focus on recent events that date from the Arab Spring onwards and pose questions regarding the future of protests, surveillance and digital landscapes." (Publisher description)
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"This chapter investigates the relationship between civic networking coalitions and public interest communication, and an opportunity to explore how the coalitions produce 'public interest-forming practices'. It examines the ability of civic networking coalitions to act and, next, to investigate whi
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ch elements need to be in place in order for them to succeed. The chapter provides a theoretical foundation for our analytical framework. It examines the safety of journalists within the Mexican context and presents an examination of two civic networking coalitions, developed in response to the position of journalists in Mexico. The chapter draws some conclusions about the relationship between these civic forming coalitions, journalism and public interest-forming practices. It shows how media movements in the form of civic networking coalitions can successfully use public interest-forming practices, such as campaigning, community-advocacy journalism and media activism, both off- and online in order to disrupt the public space, set the agenda and enhance civic collaborative efforts." (Abstract)
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"Ciudadanía digital y democracia participativa trata de describir experiencias concretas y procesos de apropiación y rebelión frente al actual statu quo tecnocrático a través de dos ejes conceptuales claramente definidos:--Propuestas teóricas y analíticas para el estudio de la Ciudadanía Dig
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ital manifestada a través de prácticas de Democracia Participativa.--Estudios de caso que abarcan desde la apropiación y transformación de las tecnologías digitales por parte de comunidades indígenes; pasando por las prácticas de ingeniería social comunicativa como Comunitlán (Puebla, México); hasta los usos tecnopolíticos que entran en juego en la arena de la disputa política a lo largo de la región, desde Bolivia a México o Venezuela." (Cubierta del libro)
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"In times of increasing mediatization and digitalization media play an important role in political and societal transformation processes. The authors of this volume take an actor-centered perspective to shed light on current cases in Arab and Asian countries. They inquire into the ways processes of
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networking and mobilization evolve in the context of restricted media systems and state-dominated public spheres." (Publisher description)
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