"This article attempts to address this field of research in comparing South African and German approaches to the topic of media ethics. Firstly, it outlines theories of universal and specific cultural ethical principles in journalism. Secondly, it shows how the conception of universal ethical princi
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ples, so called protonorms, is interpreted differently in the two cultures and how specific cultural values of media ethics are rated among the two cultural frameworks of Germany and South Africa. An online survey conducted among German and South African journalism students found significant differences in the ranking of media ethics principles as well as similarities and differences in the interpretations of protonorm. The results support existing normative theories of universal media ethics, such as the theory of protonorms, in contributing explorative empirical data to this field of mainly theoretical research." (Abstract)
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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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"Research into journalism and gender to date has found somewhat contradictory evidence as to the ways in which women and men practice journalism. Some scholars claim that women have inherently different concepts and practices of journalism and that this has led to a feminization of journalism, other
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s have found little evidence to suggest that men and women differ significantly in terms of their role conceptions. While numerous studies have been conducted into this issue around the world, few have taken a truly comparative approach. This article presents results from a large-scale comparative survey into gender differences in journalists’ professional views in 18 countries around the world. Results suggest that women and men do not differ in any meaningful ways in their role conceptions on either the individual level or in newsrooms dominated by women, or in sociocultural contexts where women have achieved a certain level of empowerment." (Abstract)
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"Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World offers a broad exploration of the conceptual foundations for comparative analysis of media and politics globally. It takes as its point of departure the widely used framework of Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini's Comparing Media Systems, exploring
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how the concepts and methods of their analysis do and do not prove useful when applied beyond the original focus of their "most similar systems" design and the West European and North American cases it encompassed. It is intended both to use a wider range of cases to interrogate and clarify the conceptual framework of Comparing Media Systems and to proposed new nidels, concepts, and with processes of political transition. Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World covers, among other cases, Brazil, China, Israel, Lebanon, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Thailand." (Publisher description)
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"This paper presents the results of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) pilot survey on media statistics conducted in 28 countries in 2011. The survey instruments were designed to provide an initial set of quantitative indicators identified by UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators project. G
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iven the limitations of this sample survey, this report is intended to highlight the scope of the questionnaire items while describing initial results. Further analysis of the indicators and trends will be made in the future as the data collection is expanded to include a greater number of countries. Chapter 1 focuses on indicators related to the regulatory environment in which media operate across countries. Chapter 2 presents data on the supply of different types of media (radio, television, newspapers) before discussing distribution by ownership and geographic coverage, as well as the availability of radio and television equipment and related issues on the penetration of broadcast media channels within each country." (Introduction)
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"Der hier vorgestellte Ansatz untersucht die empirischen Leistungen der Medien für die demokratische Freiheit in Gesellschaften mit Hilfe einer Reihe von demokratietheoretisch abgeleiteten Indikatoren. Diese betreffen sowohl die gesamtgesellschaftlichen Medienstrukturen, als auch die konkreten Leis
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tungen einzelner Medienorganisationen. Die empirische Basis bilden Erhebungen aus neun europäischen Ländern und Australien, wobei insbesondere das relative Abschneiden Deutschlands im Vergleich mit den anderen Ländern dargestellt und erläutert wird." (Zusammenfassung)
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"The contributors to this volume consider whether it is possible to establish carefully tailored hate speech policies that are cognizant of the varying traditions, histories, and values of different countries. Throughout, there is a strong comparative emphasis, with examples (and authors) drawn from
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around the world. All the authors explore whether or when different cultural and historical setting justify different substntive rules given that such cultural relativism can be used to justify content-based restrictions and so endanger freedom of expression." (Back cover)
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"Building on the assumption that journalists' attitudes toward public institutions can contribute to a decline in public trust, this article sets out to identify the driving forces behind journalists' confidence in public institutions. Based on interviews with 2000 journalists from 20 countries, var
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iation in trust is modeled across the individual level of journalists, the organizational level of news media, and the societal level of countries. Our findings suggest that the principal determinants of journalists' trust emanate from a country's political performance, from state ownership in the media, and from the extent to which people tend to trust each other. Journalism culture and power distance, however, seem to have relatively little weight in the calculus of journalists' institutional trust." (Abstract)
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"Based on interviews with 300 journalists in Chile, Brazil and Mexico, this article describes similarities and differences in their professional cultures. Two competing conceptual explanations are tested: the dominance of political structures, levels of press freedom and the size and concentration o
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f media ownership vs the predominance of political cultures and political parallelism. Although the study provides some evidence in favour of the second scenario – overall in terms of the institutional roles supported by the journalists – neither of the two explanations can fully account for the differences between the countries. Meanwhile, the epistemological and ethical views of the journalists seem to be trapped in contesting terrains of ambiguity, where organizational, media routines and individual factors override country differences." (Abstract)
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"Audience segmentation is generally associated with strategic communication (such as advertising and public relations), where content is manipulated to suit reader preferences. News has generally been considered truth-telling unvarnished by such concerns. This article compares how news of the same h
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umanitarian crisis [in Darfur, Sudan] was designed by 10 news organizations in seven countries for different market segments. Comparisons showed statistically significant differences in representation, influenced in part by what the audience-market was. Like advertising, news seemed to share an attribute with the strategic design of advertising and public relations. Increasingly carried online, news will be vulnerable to click-based customization of content like advertising is, taking us beyond currently observed geopolitical influences on segmentation to advertiser and market-based differences." (Abstract)
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The general analysis of this Yearbook is divided into three parts. The first is an introductory chapter that contains a comparative synthesis of fiction in the Obitel countries. This comparison is made from a quantitative and qualitative point of view that makes it possible to observe the developmen
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t of fiction in each country, highlighting their main productions, as well as the topic of the year: “Quality in television fiction”. In the second part there are eleven chapters (one for each country), with an internal structure where the Yearbook sections are usually fixed, though some are more specific than others. The sections that make up each of the chapters are the following: 1. The country’s audiovisual context; 2. Analysis of premiere fiction; 3. Transmedia Reception; The most outstanding productions of the year; 5. Finally, there is the Topic of the Year, which in this issue is: Trasnationalization of Television Fiction. This phenomenon, which is at the same a growing tendency, is received in three dimensions: 1. The transnational element “behind” the screen, where we present a media ownership index in each country; 2. The transnational element “on” the screen, by locating the origin of the stories for the premiere Top Ten, the casting and the production locations; 3. The transnational element “beyond” the screens, where we place the import and export flows of the fiction products in the OBITEL countries. The third part is an Appendix.
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"Behaviour change communication is vital for increasing the enactment of particular behaviours known to promote health and growth. The techniques used to change behaviour are important for determining how successful the intervention is. In order to integrate findings from different interventions, we
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need to define and organize the techniques previously used and connect them to effectiveness data. This paper reviews 24 interventions and programs implemented to change four health behaviours related to child health in developing countries: the use of bed nets, hand washing, face washing and complementary feeding. The techniques employed are organized under six categories: information, performance, problem solving, social support, materials, and media. The most successful interventions use three or even four categories of techniques, engaging participants at the behavioural, social, sensory, and cognitive levels. We discuss the link between techniques and theories. We propose that program development would be more systematic if researchers considered a menu of technique categories appropriate for the targeted behaviour and audience when designing their studies." (Abstract)
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"This article examines the complexity of the internet control mechanisms in China by breaking it down to five layers, ranging from the government, service and content providers to webmasters and individual users. It inquires into the logic of the control mechanisms and how such logic is naturalized
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into organizations and individuals' everyday practices. It shows the dynamic between proactive, synchronized and reactive strategies and how the relationship between these components evolves in different phases. Through comparative online ethnography of the two most prominent Chinese forums located in China and the USA, QQ and MIT BBS, data analyses and interviews with regulators and content providers, this article aims at locating internet control in the historical trajectory and the socio-cultural specificity of China. More importantly, it reveals the effectiveness of these control mechanisms and the implications for the average internet user's everyday life." (Abstract)
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"This report addresses the challenges of supporting independent media in countries where media freedoms are restricted, based on country case studies in Bangladesh, Cambodia, South Sudan, Syria and Uganda. According to Myers, the dilemmas of foreign support include short-term donor strategies, the l
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ack of reliable local partners, the patchy evidence of the positive impact of past media support, the management of inflammatory media coverage and sometimes hate speech in countries that face inter-ethnic tensions or sectarian conflict. On the other hand, the publication also details strategies that have had some measure of success like foreign and UN broadcasting, training and advocacy from the outside, emphasizing neutral and 'public interest' topics when working from inside a country and supporting local rights organisations and media advocacy groups. The study concludes - among other factors - that media should be a key area of political economy analysis, that media assistance should be incorporated more explicitly within broader development systems, and that support should concentrate on media outlets and not just on individual journalists." (CAMECO Update 2-2012)
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