"[Ce livre] examine les pratiques journalistiques qui ont caractérisé la couverture médiatique du conflit armé ayant opposé les Forces armées de la RDC à la rébellion du Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) dans la province du Nord Kivu. L’auteur scrute le positionnement des journalistes des radios
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congolaises et étrangères face aux discours et actions déployés par les protagonistes du conflit en vue d’exercer un contrôle absolu sur la production et la diffusion de l’information, une composante importante de la stratégie militaire en situation de conflit. Pas moins de trente heures d’informations diffusées sur cinq radios (Kivu One et VBR de Goma, Top Congo FM et Radio Okapi de Kinshasa, RFI émettant depuis Paris) sont confrontées aux discours de dix-neuf journalistes présents sur le terrain lors des événements. Cette confrontation éclaire sur l’incidence des conditions de production dans la construction des récits produits." (Dos de couverture)
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"Journalists play a critical role in the dissemination of health information to the public. This chapter explores the challenges created by COVID-19 for journalists in Pakistan. It also examines how the pandemic has shed light on the disparities and safety risks in the Pakistani journalism and expos
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ed fault lines in journalism practices in the country. The authors randomly selected 50 profiles of journalists from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan and analyzed the publicly available posts they created or shared on their profiles (n= 823). They found that the journalists were mainly concerned about their own well-being and the well-being of their families. They received threats for covering COVID-19 related stories. They were not trained enough to cover a health crisis like COVID-19, and therefore, a majority of the journalists did not follow standard operating procedures outlined by the Government of Pakistan. They suggest that the Government of Pakistan view these journalists as essential workers and frame precautions from healthcare organizations." (Abstract)
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"Twitter is a key site for understanding the highly polarized and politicized debate around climate change. We examined large datasets comprising about 15 million tweets from different parts of the world referencing climate change and global warming. Our examination of the twenty most active users e
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mploying the term ‘global warming’ are likely to be automated accounts or bots than the most active users employing the term ‘climate change’. We used a mixed method approach including topic modelling, which is a digital method that automatedly identifies the top topics using an algorithm to understand how Twitter users engage with discussions on ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’. The percentage of the top 400 users who use the term ‘climate change’ and believe it is human-made or anthropogenic (82.5%) is much higher than users who use the term ‘global warming’ and believe in human causation (25.5%). Similarly, the percentage of active users who use the term ‘global warming’ were much more likely to believe it is a results of natural cycles (18%) than active users who use the term ‘climate change’ (5%). We also identified and qualitatively analysed the positions of the most active users. Our findings reveal clear politically polarized views, with many politicians cited and trolled in online discussions, and significant differences reflected in terminology." (Abstract)
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"La mediática de la guerra y la paz consta de cuatro ensayos que estudian los discursos, las imágenes y la comunicación durante los años del proceso de paz en Colombia (2012-2016). La investigación principal es de Valeria Parra Gregory, politóloga y periodista, quien aborda las palabras mediat
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izadas durante estos diálogos. El texto de Omar Rincón, ensayista y profesor de la Universidad de los Andes, reflexiona sobre la figura de Santos y sus modos erroristas de habitar comunicativamente la paz. El análisis de Jorge Bonilla, estudioso de los medios de comunicación y profesor de la Universidad EAFIT, nos recuerda que para lograr la reconciliación debemos mirarnos en el horror que habita las imágenes. Y, finalmente, Rousbeh Legatis, experto internacionalista, nos lleva a comprender cómo desde la mediática se construye colectiva y solidariamente la paz." (Cubierta del libro)
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"This paper analyses the predominance of the ‘negativity’ factor as the primary determinant of news coverage in the German press – Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Tageszeitung and Der Spiegel – of events in Latin America. Based on a sample of 3831 articles published
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between January 2000 and December 2014, this study finds a general concentration of negative events (43.05%) with regard to 20 Latin American countries. However, since this number does not exceed 50%, the research assumption of a conflict-oriented news reporting has to be relativised. The ‘negativity’ rate stands out as sectorial depending on specific countries and areas of news coverage. Considerable interest in cultural issues helps to provide a more balanced image. While Honduras, Haiti, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Paraguay exhibit a strong negative balance, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Chile and Cuba boast a dynamic, positive image. Brazil and Mexico account for two ambivalent cases." (Abstract)
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"This doctoral dissertation analyzes participation in alternative media, taking the reader to the Russia of the late 2010s. Bringing together discourse theory, media and communication studies and political theory, it approaches participation in media production through the lens of performativity. Th
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e conceptualization of participation as a performance helps explore the material, embodied and spatial enactments of discourses that sustain the fragile and unstable process of production. The data of this study comprise several months of participant observations, interviews with media producers, and textual analysis of media content. The research employs a case-study method and focuses on media that explicitly delegate their participants the right to co-decide on matters of content production and internal organizing process. The three cases under study are Russia’s oldest anarchist medium Avtonom, the student medium DOXA, and the web-based zine Discours. Data analysis integrates qualitative content analysis and a discourse-theoretical approach, informed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory alongside its subsequent developments within the Essex School. The study looks into the distribution of power in alternative media amidst an internal diversity, material constraints, and an antagonistic relationship with the state. The analysis constructs a model of participation, which shows its embeddedness into multiple and partially overlapping communities. A vibrant sociality and the potential for a further expansion of the media communities emerge as two of the key conditions of the participatory process. Furthermore, participation is supported by an ongoing performance of a multiplicity of identities, in which the more elitist articulations of journalism are intertwined with some empowering and counterhegemonic notions of media production, media producers, and the audience. Retaining a critical-explanatory focus, the dissertation explores the limits of power-sharing, such as the persistence of journalistic professionalism, the scarce resources of the media and vulnerability inflicted by the state. The static representation of the state as the major confronting force reveals the paradoxical nature of social antagonism: while mobilizing the limited resources, it also reduces participatory intensities and triggers a politics of trust that restricts access to media production. This dissertation offers a number of theoretical and empirical contributions to several fields. Some of its key insights relate to participation beyond institutional politics, the hybridity of mainstream and alternative media, the interconnection of discourse, materiality and affect, and an empirical applicability of discourse theory." (Abstract)
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"At the global average level, mainstream news media are currently at the midway point to gender parity in subjects and sources. Between 2015 and 2020, the needle edged one point forward to 25% in the proportion of subjects and sources who are women. The single point improvement is the first since 20
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10 and is most visible in broadcast news media. Despite their three-point decline in the proportion of women subjects and sources since 2015, North American news media remain the best performers worldwide. European news media have made the most significant progress on this indicator since 1995 and Pacific region media in the past five years. Only Africa’s media have stagnated as the rest of the regions have improved by three to 12 points across the quarter century. The proportion of women as subjects and sources in digital news stories also incr eased one point overall from 2015 to 2020, with a three-point improvement on news websites and a three-point decline in news media tweets. The overwhelming majority of science/health news was related to Covid-19, the limelight story of 2020. The meteoric climb in this major topic’s news value due to the pandemic has been accompanied by a fall in women’s voice and visibility in the stories. While the news share of science/health stories was significantly higher in 2020 compared to earlier periods (from 10% in 2005 to 17% currently), women’s presence in this topic declined by five points after a steady rise between 2000 and 2015." (Executive summary, page 4)
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"Over the past two weeks, 7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media has worked to document and respond to the digital rights violations occurring during the 2021 Israeli attacks on Gaza, Palestinians in mixed cities in Israel and forcible displacement of Palestinians in East Jerus
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alem as a part of ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. There has been a dramatic increase of censorship of Palestinian political speech online, coupled with increasing examples of hate speech and incitement against Palestinians including organizing of violent Israeli lynch mobs online. This pattern of censoring Palestinian and Arabic political speech, while allowing hate speech directed towards Palestinians and Arabs to remain online, is exasterbating the human rights violations already occuring on the ground and is preventing people from exercising their fundamental rights and documenting violations." (Page 2)
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"This study attempts to contribute to literature that analyzes the role of Sri Lanka’s mainstream media as a producer and distributor of information disorder. For this purpose, a case study approach is used to evaluate reporting on Dr. Segu Siyabdeen Mohamed Shafi. The study focuses on the Sri Lan
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kan mainstream media’s role in three parts. First, it examines the phenomenon of information disorder in a global and Sri Lankan context. The case study of media reportage on Dr. Shafi is located within this broader phenomenon. The study next presents the quantitative and qualitative findings of five weeks of monitoring primetime TV and press news. Second, it analyzes the impact of the information disorder surrounding Dr. Shafi. Finally, the study examines responses by the government, media and media regulatory bodies to the production of information disorder in this specific case." (Introduction, pages 3-4)
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"La primera parte invita a reflexionar sobre los criterios de noticiabilidad y el uso de emociones en los contenidos comunicacionales, explora formas discursivas, propone una estructura de construcción de héroes y plantea algunas interrogantes para identificar estereotipos y falsos paradigmas en l
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as comunicaciones. La segunda parte está orientada hacia el lenguaje, la evolución del concepto de discapacidad y sus diferentes modelos. Asimismo, se sugieren ejemplos para reflexionar respecto al contenido y abarca algunas pinceladas mínimas de análisis del discurso y fundamentos de lingüística. En la tercera parte se expone un análisis crítico sobre el tratamiento de informaciones relativas a personas con discapacidad en el contexto dominicano, se presentan los resultados de un levantamiento hecho por nuestro equipo en los periódicos El Nuevo Diario, Hoy, Listín Diario, El Caribe y Diario Libre sobre el caso de La Lotería. El abordaje del estudio es propositivo, analiza conceptos y las interpretaciones narrativas que estos sugieren, invita a reflexionar respecto a cómo se construyen los relatos sociales a través de los canales de comunicación utilizados en los espacios periodísticos y organizacionales." (Página 7)
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"Social media increasingly shapes the way in which we perceive conflicts and conflict parties abroad. Conflict parties, therefore, have started using social media strategically to influence public opinion abroad. This book explores the phenomenon by examining, (1) which strategies of external commun
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ication conflict parties use during asymmetric conflicts and (2) what shapes the selection of these communication strategies. In a comprehensive case study of the conflict in Israel and Palestine, Bernd Hirschberger shows that the selection of strategies of external communication is shaped by the (asymmetric) conflict structure." (Publisher description)
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"This article presents new empirical insights into what people do with conspiracy theories during crises. By suppressing the impulse to distinguish between truth and falsehood, which has characterized most scholarship on the COVID-19 “infodemic,” and engaging with claims surrounding two popular
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COVID-19 conspiracies—on 5G and on Bill Gates—in South Africa and Nigeria, we illustrate how conspiracies morph as they interact with different socio-political contexts. Drawing on a mixed-method analysis of more than 6 million tweets, we examine how, in each country, conspiracies have uniquely intersected with longer-term discourses and political projects. In Nigeria, the two conspiracies were both seized as opportunities to extend criticism to the ruling party. In South Africa, they produced distinctive responses: while the 5G conspiracy had limited buy-in, the Gates conspiracy resonated with deep-rooted resentment toward the West, corporate interests, and what is seen as a paternalistic attitude of some external actors toward Africa. These findings stress the importance of taking conspiracy theories seriously, rather than dismissing them simply as negative externalities of digital ecosystems. Situating conspiracies in specific dynamics of trust and mistrust can make an important difference when designing responses that are not limited to broadcasting truthful information, but can also enable interventions that account for deeply rooted sentiments of suspicion toward specific issues and actors, which can vary significantly across communities." (Abstract)
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"This study aims to explore the characteristics and quality of suicide reporting by mainstream publishers via social media in China. Via the application programming interface of the social media accounts of the top 10 Chinese mainstream publishers (eg, People's Daily and Beijing News), we obtained 2
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366 social media posts reporting suicide. This study conducted content analysis to demonstrate the characteristics and quality of the suicide reporting. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, we assessed the quality of suicide reporting by indicators of harmful information and helpful information [...] Conclusions: The suicide reporting of mainstream publishers on social media in China broadly had low adherence to the WHO guidelines. Considering the tremendous information dissemination power of social media platforms, we suggest developing national suicide reporting guidelines that apply to social media. By effectively playing their separate roles, we believe that social media practitioners, health institutions, social organizations, and the general public can endeavor to promote responsible suicide reporting in the Chinese social media environment." (Abstract)
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"One-third of all African stories in news outlets on the continent are sourced from foreign news services. As a result, stories about Africa continue to be told through the same persistent and negative stereotypes and frames of poverty, disease, conflict, poor leadership and corruption. To understan
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d how the media in Africa covers Africa, we surveyed 38 African editors and analyzed content from 60 African news outlets in15 countries (Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, DRC, Egypt, Tunisia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal) between September and October 2020. In addition, four facilitated focus groups were held with 25 editors of African media, editors of Pan African outlets and international correspondents. The results confirm challenges and experiences that are common knowledge within the industry: advertising revenue and newsrooms are shrinking, influencing the kind of news that Africans read and that news is largely negative and conflict-filled. Key findings from the report show that the sources for news gathering on African countries are problematic, the resulting content continues to feed old stereotypes, and often the quality of local journalism doesn't allow for nuanced and contextualized storytelling that is critical for telling stories about the 54 countries in Africa." (Publisher description)
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"Depuis 2014, PeaceTech Lab a entrepris des recherches et travaillé avec des partenaires locaux dans 13 pays pour comprendre la dynamique des discours de haine et le lien entre la prolifération des récits haineux en ligne et les événements violents hors ligne. Cette recherche et les lexiques qu
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i en résultent cherchent à identifier et à contextualiser le type particulier de langage susceptible de provoquer la violence en exacerbant les tensions existantes et en approfondissant les crises en cours au sein des communautés en conflit. Plutôt que d’évaluer l’existence ou la prévalence générale des discours de haine, chaque lexique examine plutôt les termes provocateurs les plus répandus, leurs origines et leur contexte, ainsi que leur utilisation dans le contexte d’un pays particulier. Pour réussir à surveiller et à contrer les discours haineux dans leurs degrés de gravité, nous devons d’abord identifier le vocabulaire le plus couramment utilisé et le contexte social et politique qui rend ces termes offensants, provocateurs ou potentiellement dangereux [...] Comme illustré tout au long de ce document, les discours de haine sont à la fois un symptôme et une cause de ces divisions. Dans le contexte de la réalité actuelle d’insécurité et de conflit en RCA, les discours incendiaires sont utilisés comme un outil pour atteindre des objectifs politiques et matériels. Cela a pour conséquence d’approfondir les divisions entre les communautés religieuses et ethniques, de polariser davantage les opinions et de déshumaniser les groupes ciblés, d’exacerber les sentiments de frustration et de grief et d’abaisser le seuil des actes de violence." (Introduction)
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"Since 2014, PeaceTech Lab has undertaken research and worked with local partners in 13 countries to understand the dynamics of hate speech and the connection between the proliferation of hateful narratives online and violent events offline. This research and the resulting lexicons seek to identify
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and contextualize the particular type of language that is likely to cause violence by exacerbating ongoing tensions and deepening ongoing crises within communities in conflict. Rather than assessing the general existence or prevalence of hate speech, each lexicon instead examines the most prevalent inflammatory terms, their origins and context, and their use in a particular country context. To successfully monitor and counter hateful speech in its degrees of severity, we must first identify the vocabulary most commonly used and the social and political context that makes these terms offensive, inflammatory, or potentially dangerous [...] As illustrated throughout this document, hate speech is both a symptom and cause of these divisions. In the context of CAR’s current reality of insecurity and conflict, inflammatory speech is used as a tool to achieve political and material ends. This ultimately results in the deepening of divisions between religious and ethnic communities, furthering of polarizing opinions, dehumanization of targeted groups, exacerbation of feelings of frustration and grievance, and lowering of the threshold to acts of violence." (Introduction)
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