"We conducted interviews with conflict journalists who covered the conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Iraq and who work for the major international news agencies and media companies. These journalists did most of their reporting from remote locations as the conflict zones were too dangerous to be
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physically present. We investigated how the journalist did their jobs with the communicative affordances of digital tools and how digital trust-building occurred. The trust-building process between journalists and sources shifted across platforms and according to the technologies’ communicative affordances. We established that reporters had embraced the flow of news material on social media platforms as a valuable source of information, but after exercising extreme caution. Journalists upheld the boundaries that separated them from amateurs by emphasizing their role in making sense of events. They also fortified their gatekeeping role through verifying and vetting information – a task needed to maintain credibility and protect readers and viewers from misinformation and propaganda. Encrypted messaging applications such as WhatsApp played a major role in speeding up communication with and protecting potential sources and verification." (Abstract)
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"This volume aims to deepen understanding of the dynamic intersections of war and media in the rapidly transforming media ecology and the reordered geopolitical context. The volume examines the ways in which the digital media and communication environment is involved in and shape the war in Ukraine.
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The chapters in the volume analyse expanding mesh of media-from mainstream broadcasting and press to social media platforms, and the latest digital technologies and addresses four key themes: media infrastructures and the interplay between platforms, technologies, institutions and civic actors; open-source intelligence contributing to (dis)information about the war; the everyday life of war performed and documented on social media; and different interplays between the local and the global in the news coverage of the war." (Publisher description)
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"Most scholars working on Russia’s use of strategic narratives recognize the importance of the Russian state. Nevertheless, the authors argue that much of the attention on strategic narratives has given insufficient appreciation for how Russia has developed its military and media policies in a coo
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rdinated manner: learning from its mistakes and failures as it went along, and becoming more efficient each time. In making their case, they examine three theatres of Russian military activity and their accompanying media coverage: the wars in Chechnya in 1994–1995 and 1999– 2000; war with Georgia in 2008 over the separatist territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia; and Ukraine, especially Crimea, since 2014. The Russian leadership addressed the shortcomings on each occasion, with the news media being increasingly weaponized as time went on. The authors argue that scholars should see Russia’s evolving uses of those military and media power resources as part of a single strategic process. How the Russian state goes about its media policy can accentuate the military intervention for better or for worse as far as its image is concerned." (Abstract)
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"Based on interviews with Syrian media practitioners, this article uses the notion of affective proximity to make sense of local media practitioners’ reporting and witnessing of suffering in their country and community. I argue that the life-risking, and sometimes deadly, media practices of local
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reporters and witnesses, as well as their emotional labour, often do not feature in understandings of journalism when it is conceived as a purely professional discursive pursuit. I explain affective proximity in terms of an imagined space (or the lack thereof) between a media practitioner, on the one hand, and the event they are representing and participating in, on the other. In relation to Syria, I use it to analyse the word ‘revolution’ and what it mediates, the shifting boundaries between activism and journalism, and experiences of, and in, violence. I make the case that the study of affect and emotion in global news should be contextualized within the unequal power relations that give shape to journalistic roles and modes of representaiton." (Abstract)
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"Background: A current need in journalistic frontline work is to understand the potential psychological and physical traumatic consequences that may result from on-duty appointments. Journalists are active in frontline zones to report on conflicts, crises, and natural disasters. In the Middle East a
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nd North Africa (MENA) region, reporters are not equipped or trained mentally or emotionally to handle stressful events. Most journalists suffer from certain degrees of post-traumatic mental and physical disorders associated with their frontline duties.
Objective: The objective of this exploratory study is to provide comprehensive insights into challenges faced by journalists reporting in conflict zones in the MENA region.
Methods: This research study is based on a qualitative research approach where data was collected by directly interviewing eight journalists who have covered frontline conflicts and disasters in the MENA region. The collected qualitative data was analysed by conducting a thematic analysis to appreciate emerging categories. The ontology of critical realism was adopted to recognise the real feelings and experiences of the responding journalists.
Results: This original study presents six themes emerging from the data and researcher triangulation. The health and social issues in MENA are found to be most critical for high-risk reporting. Conclusion: Amidst the psychological and physical problems, all journalists did not give up their jobs or ask for privileges. Media houses could consider a more robust training plan based on health and safety to prepare these journalists." (Abstract)
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"This article presents and discusses data from two research methods on journalism in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover of power in August 2021. News reports from the time of the intra-Afghan peace talks in September 2020 were analyzed using the Peace Journalism model. These were found to be pr
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edominantly War Journalism, leaving audiences cognitively primed for violent conflict responses and likely to overlook or fail to value peace initiatives. Interviews with 16 Afghan journalists revealed this pattern to be at odds with their aspirations and role perceptions. They wanted to report more in the style of Peace Journalism: revealing backgrounds and contexts; highlighting successes and achievements; giving a voice to all rival parties, and covering peace initiatives from whatever level. The constraints they identified, as impeding their preferred reporting approaches, were categorized using Reese and Shoemaker’s Hierarchy of Influences model. Some were attributed to the commercial competitive market structure of Afghan media under the internationally supported government, after an initial infusion of development aid was reduced. In any such intervention in future, it is argued, news can play a positive role in building a constituency for peace—but only if aid interventions ensure that media are not left to operate on a purely commercial basis." (Abstract)
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"This article analyses the dangers and threats faced by Syrian journalists covering the conflict since the pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011. While most Western research on the Syrian Revolution has focused on the working difficulties faced by correspondents, parachutists or foreign freel
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ancers, this article scrutinizes the working conditions for Syrian content providers. Syrian journalists' testimonials of fear and their perception of danger and vulnerability provide a humanistic lens not only on the scope of what revolution and war mean to many who have lived it and been transformed by it, but also on the reality of informing in dangerous contexts. The study contemplates the practitioners' working risks and perceptions of fear and threats, as well as their personal security measurements. The characterization of fear during the militarization of the rebellion as a semi-normalized way of life, suggested by Pearlman's article, 'Narratives of fear in Syria' (2016), allows the authors to place their study in a conceptual frame. The implementation of a survey answered by 82 Syrian journalists was complemented by semi-structured interviews with a selected group of 12 participants. In a context in which 86.6 percent of the respondents had colleagues who had died while working, the findings illustrate that Syrian reporters and media activists perceive their work as extremely dangerous. In the perception of fear, the adoption of personal safety measures by practitioners does not always contribute to decreasing it; the trauma experience can act both as a paralysing and empowering working factor." (Abstract)
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"Organisations ranging from violent extremist groups to the US Army have used online gaming, a popular form of entertainment among the world’s youth, for recruiting purposes. To date, efforts to curtail online recruiting have been siloed to reduce recruitment of certain groups, such as violent ext
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remist groups, or aimed at specific platforms, such as certain online games geared for children. Efforts to address online recruitment in gaming have engaged with governments, NGOs, and the gaming industry, leaving out gamers themselves. This Policy Brief describes why recruiting in online gaming should be understood as a more general problem, involving any armed group recruiting online, which has simple solutions. It then presents several concepts from peacebuilding that can be applied to counter recruiting efforts in online gaming." (Abstract)
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"This paper analyzes all the articles and corresponding comments of Al-Jazeera Arabic’s coverage of the Syrian war from 2011 to 2017. I propose a multilayered Critical Discourse Analysis Guided Topic Modeling method that includes context of social structures and processes in the analysis of topics
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. This article shows that the employment of topic modeling without Critical Discourse Analysis does not unravel the power relations embedded within the platform. Two different applications of this method are used to demonstrate how a guided topic modeling method can lead to more nuanced results that can unravel important social dynamics which would have remained unperceived if applying traditional computational methods." (Abstract)
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"Can dealing with a history of violent conflict through transitional justice help to rebuild social trust? Addressing three gaps in the current literature, we (1) analyse the effect of transitional justice on social trust, thereby going beyond the predominant focus on renewed violence; (2) use novel
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, handcoded data to take donor support for transitional justice into account, a relevant but mostly overlooked factor; and (3) systematically investigate the combined effect of transitional justice instruments using qualitative comparative analysis. The analysis covers 24 cases in 19 postconflict countries over the period 1990–2010. Our results indicate that transitional justice needs to go beyond a narrow focus on victims or perpetrators to foster trust in postconflict societies. We find that combining victim restitution with amnesties or taking a broader, societal approach by focusing on truth-finding or bridge-building activities can increase trust. Moreover, international transitional justice support can play an important role in fostering trust, even in the absence of major national transitional justice processes." (Abstract)
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"Before launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russia had maintained a low-scale war with Ukraine since early 2014. That conflict, which culminated in the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the ongoing Donbas war, received less international attention than the 2022 ful
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l-scale invasion. Due to the Kremlin’s propaganda channels, troll armies, and “useful idiots” in the West and beyond, Russia was able to control the narrative on the situation in Donbas and Crimea and significantly diminish both support and interest toward Ukraine throughout 2014–2022. Yet, things changed after the start of the full-scale war in 2022. In 2022, Ukraine shifted international views on the Russian invasion. Ukraine’s efforts significantly contributed to Russia’s digital isolation and mainstreamed Ukraine’s counter-narratives using open-source data, digital allies, and successful communication campaigns." (Abstract)
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"The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization is the first comprehensive and multidisciplinary reference source on the subject and an outstanding survey of the key concepts, issues, and debates within dehumanization studies. Organized into four parts, the Handbook covers the following topics: the histor
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y of dehumanization from Greek Antiquity to the 20th century, contextualizing the oscillating boundaries, dimensions, and hierarchies of humanity in the history of the 'West'; how dehumanization is contemporarily studied with respect to special contexts: as part of social psychology, as part of legal studies or literary studies, and how it connects to the idea of human rights, disability and eugenics, the question of animals, and the issue of moral standing; how to tackle its complex facets, with respect to the perpetrator's and the target's perspective, meta-dehumanization and self-dehumanization, rehumanization, social death, status and interdependence, as well as the fear we show toward robots that become too human for us; conceptual and epistemological questions on how to distinguish different forms of dehumanization and neighboring phenomena, on why dehumanization appears so paradoxical, and on its connection to hatred, essentialism, and perception." (Publisher description)
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"Throughout the twenty-first century, genocide denial has evolved and adapted with new strategies to augment and complement established modes of denial. In addition to outright negation, denial of genocide encompasses a range of techniques, including disputes over numbers, contestation of legal defi
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nitions, blaming the victim, and various modes of intimidation, such as threats of legal action. Arguably the most effective strategy has been denial through the purposeful creation of misinformation. Denial of Genocides in the Twenty-First Century brings together leading scholars from across disciplines to add to the body of genocide scholarship that is challenged by denialist literature. By concentrating on factors such as the role of communications and news media, global and national social networks, the weaponization of information by authoritarian regimes and political parties, court cases in the United States and Europe, freedom of speech, and postmodernist thought, this volume discusses how genocide denial is becoming a fact of daily life in the twenty-first century." (Publisher description)
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"This article analyses the dangers and threats faced by Syrian journalists covering the conflict since the pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011. While most Western research on the Syrian Revolution has focused on the working difficulties faced by correspondents, parachutists or foreign freel
...
ancers, this article scrutinizes the working conditions for Syrian content providers. Syrian journalists’ testimonials of fear and their perception of danger and vulnerability provide a humanistic lens not only on the scope of what revolution and war mean to many who have lived it and been transformed by it, but also on the reality of informing in dangerous contexts. The study contemplates the practitioners’ working risks and perceptions of fear and threats, as well as their personal security measurements. The characterization of fear during the militarization of the rebellion as a semi-normalized way of life, suggested by Pearlman’s article, ‘Narratives of fear in Syria’ (2016), allows the authors to place their study in a conceptual frame. The implementation of a survey answered by 82 Syrian journalists was complemented by semi-structured interviews with a selected group of 12 participants. In a context in which 86.6 percent of the respondents had colleagues who had died while working, the findings illustrate that Syrian reporters and media activists perceive their work as extremely dangerous. In the perception of fear, the adoption of personal safety measures by practitioners does not always contribute to decreasing it; the trauma experience can act both as a paralysing and empowering working factor." (Abstract)
more