"This MeCoDEM working paper presents an overview of the main findings from a quantitative content analysis covering different types of democratisation conflicts (i.e., conflicts over citizenship, elections, transitional justice and distribution of power) in four countries: Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and S
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outh Africa. The sample involves 5162 newspaper articles and news stories in the four countries selected on the basis of two main criteria: the degree of independence of media outlets from government and political parties, and their relevance. The key findings from the content analysis are organised around several themes: causes of democratisation conflicts, portrayal of conflict parties, preferred solutions to conflicts, perceptions of democracy, role of the media, authoritarian past, and tone of reporting and polarisation. Although this paper focuses principally on description, we also speculate about the main factors that shape similarities and differences in media coverage of democratisation conflicts. The main finding from the content analysis is that cross-national variations that we found in media reporting of democratisation conflicts appear to depend on several factors." (Executive summary)
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"Key findings: Only 21% of news items on asylum and migration reference a refugee or migrant [...] Of the 21% of articles that mentioned a refugee or migrant, only in about one-quarter (27%) was that person a woman [...] Of the 21% of the news items that reference migrants or refugees, less than hal
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f (40%) of the articles quote them directly [...] Refugees and migrants are most often only identified by their displacement [...] Terminology and impartiality may be positive signs." (Pages 5-6)
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"Als Untersuchungsmaterial wurden die organisationseigenen, deutschsprachigen Veröffentlichungen ausgewählt, die auf der Website der DW Akademie dokumentiert sind [...] Insgesamt gingen 113 einzelne Textdokumente in die qualitative Inhaltsanalyse ein" (Seite 73-74) [...] "Unter der Einschränkung
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der angewendeten Methode der qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse als exploratives Verfahren hat die Untersuchung ergeben, dass der verfolgte Ansatz auf demokratietheoretischen Konzepten von Medien, Kommunikation und Entwicklung basiert. Er integriert die Konzepte Partizipation, Empowerment und soziale Gerechtigkeit sowie das Recht auf Informations- und Meinungsfreiheit als demokratische Grundwerte. Der Ansatz zielt auf einen strukturorientierten und partizipatorischen Entwicklungsprozess ab und ließ sich damit als Ansatz der strukturellen Medienentwicklung in den internationalen Forschungsstand einordnen. Dieser schließt sowohl Charakteristika von 'Media Development' als auch von 'Media for Development' ein." (Seite 110)
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"This book explores the state of European foreign conflict reporting by public-sector broadcasters, post-Cold war and post-9/11. It compares the values of three television news providers from differing public systems: BBC’s News at 10, Russia’s Vremya and France 2’s 20 Heures. The book examine
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s how these three news providers have reported and broadcast the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which pre-dates both the change in East-West relations and the events of 9/11. In doing so, the work identifies and analyses the role of public and state-aligned broadcasters and illustrates how certain news values are consistently prioritised by the broadcasters and the effect this has on how news stories are portrayed. The book is divided into two parts. Part I focuses on 2006 to 2008 and provides a detailed quantitative overview of the broadcasters’ news values. Part II provides an update of the analysis by examining coverage of the war in Gaza 2014 and discusses the findings from audience research into perceptions of this latter war. This book explains that not only do hierarchies in news values exist in foreign conflict reporting but that they are never arbitrary and can be explained, in part, by the structure of the broadcasters and by events occurring within, or associated with, the reporting country, resulting in nationally differentiated perceptions of conflict throughout the world." (Routledge.com)
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"This report outlines the methodology and processes of the Radio Content Analysis Tool, a prototype developed by Pulse Lab Kampala to analyse public radio content in Uganda and explore its value for informing development of UN projects and programmes on the ground. It distills the technology behind
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the creation of the Radio Content Analysis Tool and presents the lessons learned along the way. The report also details the results of several pilot studies that were conducted together with partners from the Government, UN agencies and academia to understand the validity and value of unfiltered public radio discussions for development [...] By sampling different indigenous languages, types of broadcasters, and locations within Uganda, the pilot studies assess the potential uses of radio talk across five topics: perceptions towards refugees in Uganda, the impact of small-scale disasters on livelihoods, perceptions around the delivery of healthcare services, understanding the spread of infectious diseases, and monitoring the effectiveness of awareness raising radio campaigns." (Executive summary)
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"A web-based system was developed to download and analyse news reports relevant to Ebola vaccine trials. This included monitoring major online newspapers in each country with planned clinical trials, including Ghana. All news articles were downloaded, selecting out those containing variants of the w
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ords “Ebola,” and “vaccine,” which were analysed thematically by a team of three coders. Two types of themes were defined: critiques of the trials and rebuttals in favour of the trials [...] The rumours captured through this research indicate the variety of strong emotions drawn out by the trials, highlighting the importance of understanding the emotional and social context of such research. The uncertainty, fear, and distrust associated with the trials draw from the contemporary context of the Ebola outbreak, as well as longstanding historical issues in Ghana. By analysing the debate from its inception, we can see how the controversy unfolded, and identify points of concern that can inform health communication, suggesting that this tool may be valuable in future epidemics and crises." (Abstract, page 2)
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"This study focuses on the role of media ownership on the press coverage of the 2015 presidential election campaign in Nigeria. Using content analysis, the aim of the study was to identify the themes and examine the direction of the coverage of election campaign news items between the two main polit
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ical parties in the country-Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) published in The Nation on one hand and the Nigerian Tribune on the other hand, between January 2015 and March 2015. Findings from the study indicate coverage replete with biases, although with some remarkable incidents of objectivity and balancing, and show that the two newspapers analysed in this study merely reflected the political leanings of their respective publishers." (Abstract)
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"The sixth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) co-hosted by China and South Africa in Johannesburg was historic in that it was an event to chart the next stage of China-Africa relations. The event was also symbolic in showcasing that FOCAC is co-owned by China and Africa. In view of the growin
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g China-Africa relationship under FOCAC, this study investigates how the media from four main regions in Africa framed this FOCAC. The voices that narrate the FOCAC story, dominant themes and tones were examined from the selected media in South Africa (The Star), Kenya (Daily Nation), Nigeria (Vanguard) and Egypt (Ahram Online). The findings shows that voices of Chinese officials dominated the media in South Africa and Kenya while African voices were given overwhelming focus in Nigeria and Egypt. Optimistic frames and themes were largely used by the media. On the whole, there is evident convergence of outcomes of FOCAC and the narratives in the media which suggests more balanced representation of the China-Africa relations. However, there is bias towards hard and event focused news at the expense of in-depth features that create understanding on fundamental issues such as how FOCAC interacts with the African development goals. Against this view, it is argued that the challenge for the media in Africa is to explore more approaches for effective narratives that dispel misrepresentations and resultant misunderstandings about FOCAC and the China-Africa relationship." (Abstract)
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"The main thing I really liked about this project is that UNHCR invested the resources for proper qualitative social media monitoring, as opposed to the purely quantitative analyses that we see so often and which rarely go beyond keyword counting. To complement the social media information, the team
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held focus group and other discussions with refugees who had arrived in Europe. Among other things, these discussion provided information on how the refugees and migrants are consuming and exchanging information [.] Monitoring the conversations on Facebook enabled the team to track trends, such as the rise and fall of prices that smugglers asked for different routes (see image). In addition, it provided fascinating insights into how smugglers are selling their services online. Among other things, the team found: More than 50 Facebook pages offer short-term accommodation in transit countries (mainly in Turkey); Over a hundred financial agents (sarafs) are present on Facebook. They not only keep the deposited smuggling fees as intermediaries between smuggler and client, but also manage financial transfers; Over 100 “asylum and immigration consultants” offer so-called “advice on asylum claims” and provide fake “proofs” of persecution; Occasionally up to 20 users will pretend to be “satisfied clients” posting messages of gratitude, or pictures to express their thanks, on certain smuggler pages. This usually occurs as a reaction to posts denouncing the irresponsibility or cruelty of smugglers; When business is booming, smugglers post vacancy notices as they are looking for additional staff on the ground, most often females. These vacancy notices contain very concrete requirements (language skills, experience with logistics and booking software etc.)." (http://sm4good.com/2017/05/10/fly-on-the-facebook-wall-how-unhcr-listened-to-refugees-on-social-media)
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"In this article, media coverage of the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) in Malawi as was reported in the Weekend Nation newspaper between 2005 and 2012 is examined from a critical political economy perspective. The FISP aimed at subsidising inputs for low income rural farmers. The Weekend Nation
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, a political weekly, was established by a key politician during the advent of democracy in 1995. Through institutional in-depth interviews and qualitative content analysis of editorials and opinion columns, the paper finds that overall, the political ownership of the newspaper had no bearing on editorial content on the issue of the FISP policy. This suggests that the coverage of a critical agricultural policy concerning, to a great extent, rural livelihoods of Malawi, was presented independently without political ownership influence." (Abstract)
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"Based on Galtung’s concept of peace/war journalism, this exploratory work attempts to advance an empirical method to develop a survey instrument for a reliable and valid assessment of journalists’ attitudes toward peace/war performance. The authors propose a measurement index of conflict report
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ing which combines several practices linked to peace/war journalism. The usefulness of the approach is then demonstrated by quantitative and qualitative evidence from a pilot study based on a survey of worldwide members of The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Benefits of the approach and implications for future peace/war survey research are discussed." (Abstract)
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"Au second chapitre, nous avons vu que, dans l’ensemble, cette mission du journaliste se heurte à pas mal de défis dont l’identité, la qualité de l’audience, le contenu, ainsi la formation de ses agents. Le journaliste catholique travaille dans une entreprise qui, naturellement répond aux
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lois structurelles, économiques, managériales et productives précises. L’information, pour être pondue, passe par des canaux classiques qui s’imposent au journaliste catholique. Tout de même, dans le monde obnubilé par l’argent et le prestige, les journalistes sont tentés de donner la parole aux leaders plus qu’au plus petits, aux peuples puissants plus qu’aux peuples "moins avancés [...] Au troisième et au quatrième chapitre, nous avons analysé six périodiques hebdomadaires sur une période de 5 mois, pour voir combien ils parlent de l’homme des périphéries. Notre analyse du contenu révèle que le journaliste catholique va dans les périphéries mais qu’il peut encore aller plus loin. Il y a des situations encore ignorées, des laissés-pour-compte. Il ressort de cette recherche que la communication pastorale de l’Église peut encore viser plus haut, ou mieux, plus profond, vers les plus oubliés. La news value de proximité est bel et bien un critère journalistique qui gagne les lettres de noblesse car elle permet d’actualiser l’invitation du Saint-Père d’aller vers les périphéries, d’actualiser la loi d’amour, d’imiter le Bon Samaritain et de laisser les quatre-vingt-dix-neuf brebis bien portante pour aller chercher celle qui s’est égarée.285 Le critère de proximité devient le principe d’action pour la fraternité humaine et la solidarité universelle aux dépens des contraintes économiques, politiques et socioculturelles qui régissent le monde des médias." (Conclusion générale, page 145-146)
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"In order to prepare media based support for reconciliation in Sri Lanka MICT conducted a discourse analysis that investigated media coverage of reconciliation issues in Sri Lankan newspapers. Under the supervision of MICT experts, a mixed group of 16 Tamil and Sinhalese journalists examined all art
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icles related to reconciliation in 9 Sri Lankan newspapers during the month of February 2016. Unsurprisingly, the results of the analysis confirm that newspapers differ significantly in their assessment of events. However, a huge overlap in the selection of topics demonstrates that there are shared interests between the Tamil and Sinhalese media which might provide common grounds for dialogue. In addition, the findings strongly suggest that differences between nationalist and government-supporting Sinhalese media are more far-reaching than differences between Tamil and Sinhalese media." (Publisher description)
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"The imprisonment of Al Jazeera English (AJE) journalists (Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian national Mohamed Fahmy, and Egyptian Baher Mohamed) in Egypt between 2013 and 2015 reflected the recent ten agenda items of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNES
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CO) about the safety of journalists (Pöyhtäri & Berger, 2015). Building on the relevance of press theories (Siebert, Peterson, & Schramm, 1956; Curran, 2002) as well as developmental and peace journalism (Carpentier, 2007 cited in Cammaerts & Carpentier, 2007) as a theoretical basis, this paper examines the twenty-one month reportage of the AJE case by public broadcasters such as AJE, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). It assesses whether the UNESCO’s Safety of Journalist agenda was covered. A “mixed method” (Kolmer, 2008), quantitative and qualitative content analysis research design, was used. Four hundred and ninety-five articles from the three broadcasters’ coverage were analyzed in two stages which overall began from the day (December 29, 2013) of arrest of the AJE trio until a week after Fahmy’s and Mohamed’s final release (September 30, 2015). The analysis found that items noted in the UNESCO’s Safety of Journalists’ agenda were not overtly spelt out in the coverage by the broadcasters but cloaked under a wider press freedom framework that hung over the case. Findings also reflected the critical need to address the safety of journalists in Egypt and other parts of Africa, despite the democratic awaking of the 2011 Arab Spring." (Abstract)
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"This descriptive, empirical study gives context to how print journalists in two politically different African nations, Senegal and Ethiopia, use Twitter and Facebook to report the news and to what extent. We ask, ‘how is this new model of online reporting manifesting itself in Ethiopian and Seneg
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alese newsrooms, given Senegal’s track record of democratic government and free press and Ethiopia’s infamously authoritarian control and censorship of the country’s journalists?’. The method is a content analysis of 60 days of posts on ten print newspapers’ Twitter and Facebook pages, to establish a comparative assessment of the two nations. Findings are also given context by comparing the print newspapers’ popularity on Twitter and Facebook against each nation’s top 20 most popular Twitter and Facebook pages. Results show Ethiopia to be markedly behind in Twitter posts, but the newspapers of each country show similar rates of posting to Facebook. Journalists in both nations are not livetweeting events, but instead are linking content on social media to the newspaper’s main home page." (Abstract)
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"Evidence from the study reveals that the visibility of women (candidates or voters) during coverage of the 2016 general elections in Uganda was significantly low relative to that of men, not only in terms of being read about or being heard, but also being seen in pictures. The study findings show t
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hat the representation of women as news subjects was only 20% as opposed to 80% for men; emanating from the study also is that there is a direct linkage between one’s status in Ugandan society – sex, occupation, and family status – and the likelihood of being covered in election related stories and providing additional information, in the case of the role, news subjects or the source play in the news stories." (Executive summary)
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"Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, ob Einwanderer in der Berichterstattung je nach Herkunft unterschiedlich dargestellt werden. Dazu wurden Artikel der Tageszeitungen Welt, FAZ, SZ und taz aus dem Jahr 2014 inhaltsanalytisch untersucht. Mittels hierarchischer Clusteranalyse auf Akteursebene (n = 596)
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lassen sich fünf Frames von Einwanderern ermitteln: Kriminelle, Nützliche, Kostenintensive, Integrationswillige und Willkommene. Einige dieser Frames korrespondieren stark mit bestimmten Nationalitäten. Einwanderer aus Herkunftsländern, die eine größere kulturelle Nähe zu Deutschland aufweisen (z. B. Südosteuropa) werden tendenziell negativer geframed als Einwanderer aus kulturell ferneren Ländern (z. B. Asien/ Naher Osten und Afrika). Politisch eher konservativ orientierte Zeitungen verwenden im Verhältnis mehr negative Frames." (Abstract)
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