"This article explores the role of the radio listener clubs in the Rohingya refugee response in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The article demonstrates the unique potential of radio in reducing the challenges relevant to the lives of crisis-affected adolescents since the influx in 2017. Adolescents are
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the most vulnerable community in Cox’s Bazar. Drawing from findings derived from qualitative fieldwork in situ, the article demonstrates how the listener clubs serve as an inclusive environment where the affected youth can access life-saving information, express their needs, provide feedback for improvement of humanitarian response and act as change agents in the refugee context." (Abstract)
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"Should the media stand by refugees or maintain deliberate ‘neutrality’? Should the media dehumanize the refugees further in their humanitarian conditions? Are the media entitled to publish photographs of refugees without informed consent? Should the media stand by the state being responsible fo
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r generating refugee crisis or should the state be accountable for rendering its people refugees? What effective roles can media play in redressing the refugee ‘crisis’ in the world? The book brings together scholars across disciplines and continents who reflect on the nexus between media and refugees in contexts around the world." (Publisher description)
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"By the summer of 2020, when the coronavirus had fully entered our everyday vocabulary and our lives, religious communities and places of worship around the world were already undergoing profound changes. In Asian and Asian diaspora communities, diverse cultural tropes, beliefs, and artifacts were m
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obilized to make sense of Covid, including a repertoire of gods and demons like Coronasur, the virus depicted with the horns and fangs of a traditional Hindu demon. Various kinds of knowledge were invoked: theologies, indigenous medicines, and biomedical narratives, as well as ethical values and nationalist sentiments. CoronAsur: Asian Religions in the Covidian Age follows the documentation and analysis of the abrupt societal shifts triggered by the pandemic to understand current and future pandemic times, while revealing further avenues for research on religion that have opened up in the Covidian age. Developed in tandem with the research blog CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19, this volume is a “phygital” publication, a work grounded in empirical roots as well as digitally born communication. It comprises thirty-eight essays that examine Asian religious communities—Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist, and Christian as well as popular/folk and new religious movements, or NRMs—in terms of the changes brought on by and the ritual responses to the Covid pandemic." (Publisher description)
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"The contributors, ranging from prominent scholars to the Head of Newsgathering at the BBC, discuss a diverse range of key case studies, including the role of Bellingcat in conflict journalism; war and peace journalism in Bangladesh; visual storytelling in conflict zones; and rampant cyber-misogyny
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confronting women journalists in Finland, India, the Philippines and South Africa." (Publisher description)
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"Beginning in August 2017, the Myanmar security forces undertook a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Northern Rakhine State. A UN investigation found that the role of Facebook in the violence was “significant”. This report is based on an in-depth investi
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gation into Meta (formerly Facebook)’s role in the serious human rights violations perpetrated against the Rohingya. It reveals that in the months and years leading up to the 2017 atrocities, the Facebook platform became an echo chamber of virulent anti-Rohingya content in Myanmar. Meta’s algorithms proactively amplified and promoted content which incited violence, hatred, and discrimination against the Rohingya – pouring fuel on the fire of long-standing discrimination and substantially increasing the risk of an outbreak of mass violence. Despite its partial acknowledgement that it played a role in the 2017 violence against the Rohingya, Meta has to date failed to provide an effective remedy to affected Rohingya communities. However, Amnesty International’s systematic legal analysis of Meta’s role in the atrocities perpetrated against the Rohingya leaves little room for doubt: Meta substantially contributed to adverse human rights impacts suffered by the Rohingya and has a responsibility to provide survivors with an effective remedy." (Back cover)
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"Using expert interviews and focus groups, this book investigates the theoretical and practical intersection of misinformation and social media hate in contemporary societies. Social Media and Hate argues that these phenomena, and the extreme violence and discrimination they initiate against targete
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d groups, are connected to the socio-political contexts, values and behaviours of users of social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, ShareChat, Instagram and WhatsApp. The argument moves from a theoretical discussion of the practices and consequences of sectarian hatred, through a methodological evaluation of quantitative and qualitative studies on this topic, to four qualitative case studies of social media hate, and its effects on groups, individuals and wider politics in India, Brazil, Myanmar and the UK. The technical, ideological and networked similarities and connections between social media hate against people of African and Asian descent, indigenous communities, Muslims, Dalits, dissenters, feminists, LGBTQIA+ communities, Rohingya and immigrants across the four contexts is highlighted, stressing the need for an equally systematic political response." (Publisher description)
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"Wie sozial sind Soziale Medien? Es gibt mindestens zwei asoziale Dimensionen im jetzigen Regime der Sozialen Medien: Sie sind sozial vor allem für die Betreiber und ihre Eigentümer. Der in Deutschland geltende Verfassungsgrundsatz der "informationellen Selbstbestimmung" wird für Nutzer und Nutze
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rinnen de facto außer Kraft gesetzt: In den Vereinbarungen, die wir "freiwillig" mit den Plattformen durch ein paar lästige Klicks schließen, verzichten wir meist, ohne näher hinzusehen, auf vieles, was uns an Rechten zustünde. Das Geschäft mit unseren sozialen Beziehungen und Daten ist auch in Deutschland bisher wenig wirksam reguliert, angesichts ihrer weltweiten Macht steht die politische Einhegung der Konzerne noch am Anfang. Ohne öffentliche Debatten, organisierten Druck und unsere eigene massenhafte Beteiligung daran wird die Politik hier eher schwach bleiben." (Editorial, Seite 3)
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"This paper brings together the key findings of research into digital humanitarian action and inclusion, asking what the impact of new digital approaches has been on how inclusion is understood and operationalised in humanitarian action. The Humanitarian Policy Group undertook three thematic case st
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udies considering different technology areas: biometrics, geospatial mapping and social media. A total of 256 interviews were conducted with stakeholders and key informants, along with strategic engagement with the humanitarian and digital sectors. All the case studies drew on both global key informant interviews and country-level perspectives, including from the Rohingya response in camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, and interviews with refugees and aid responders in Jordan, Venezuela and Uganda." (Publisher description)
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"The common service for community engagement and accountability, through its consortium members BBC Media Action and Translators Without Borders (TWB), aims to help agencies and sectors working to support Rohingya refugees and local host communities living in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh to achieve thi
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s by providing a range of specialist, technical support services. Movement restrictions implemented since the beginning of the pandemic meant that humanitarian programmes were reduced to essential services only in the Rohingya camps, community engagement efforts were restricted, and many initiatives planned for the host community were cancelled. The common service adapted its activities in a number of ways: carrying out online training sessions with practitioners; conducting telephone research with communities; shifting the focus of communication products to meet communities’ information needs around Covid-19; and working with partners to use communication channels which would ensure information was still able to reach communities [...] This evaluation has shown that practitioners feel the common service played a critical role in getting important information to Rohingya communities during this time. It did this through:
- Helping partner agencies understand Rohingya communitiesf perspectives and concerns, and how to communicate with them, based on up to date research and a cultural understanding developed over time (using What Matters? as a vehicle for sharing this information, as well as providing practitioner training and bespoke advice).
- Creating and disseminating audio and visual content which is easy for Rohingya people to understand, and helps volunteers and field staff communicate effectively with them.
- Working in partnership with humanitarian agencies to adapt communication strategies and make sure information was reaching people despite Covid-19 restrictions, for example adapting audio programmes to be played through mosque loudspeaker systems; training Imams to communicate on Covid-19; ensuring content is played at food distribution points and other essential services; and equipping community health workers with simple and effective communication materials about Covid-19 to use in door to door visits." (Executive summary)
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"Those working in media face plenty of challenges when it comes to handling issues around conflict more sensitively. In some countries, these difficulties could include forced or unsolicited loyalty, a lack of information, or physical and psychological threats. In others, challenges could arise from
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prejudice fostered by excessive homogeneity in newsrooms, or a lack of consciousness for the limits of certain views. In DW Akademie’s publication, authors from around the world approach the question of how media workers can cover conflict better. This includes reflections on how to cope with the deluge of hatred online and on how to deal with trauma. Rather than academic, analytical texts, the publication is made up of thoughtfully written, carefully illustrated and often personal pieces." (Publisher description)
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"Since October 2017, the Common Service for Community Engagement and Accountability (‘the Common Service’) has been funded as a dedicated project providing key services and support to help humanitarian organisations engage effectively with Rohingya communities and Bangladeshis living near Rohing
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ya camps (host communities) in Cox’s Bazar. A sub-national working group on communicating with communities (CwC) already existed in Bangladesh and was activated in response to the Rohingya refugee crisis. The Common Service project operates alongside the working group carrying out a diverse range of activities including creating and sharing audio and visual content in the Rohingya language; supporting and training humanitarian agencies on language, communication, community engagement and accountability; and operating a collective feedback analysis service, collating and analysing community feedback and complaints data from different sources and producing a fortnightly bulletin" (Preface, page 4). –- "There is strong evidence to suggest that community members have improved access to coordinated, timely and responsive two-way community engagement as a result of the Common Service. The evaluation has found causal evidence to suggest that support the Common Service has provided to the humanitarian sector, through provision of communication materials and training has led to humanitarian agencies being better equipped to communicate with communities and in turn community members having access to key, useful information which has prompted them to take action." (Conclusions, page 50)
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"Access Now and the #KeepItOn Coalition documented at least 155 internet shutdown1 incidents around the world in 29 countries. When compared to 2018 and 2019, this is a lower number of shutdowns. However, the smaller number of shutdowns is not an indication of the lessened impact of a shutdown or an
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overall increase in digital rights. For a world that was and continues to be under lockdown or at least some forms of movement restriction, 155 intentional communication disruptions came at a high cost to the fundamental human rights of people around the world. Countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Yemen, Ethiopia, and others entrenched the use of shutdowns even during the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, Ethiopia’s national internet blackout affected more than 100 million people for more than two weeks during the height of the pandemic in the country. Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh implored the government of Bangladesh to turn on the internet as COVID-19 spread through the refugee camps, but they were ignored. In 2019 and 2020, Myanmar perpetrated one of the world’s longest internet shutdowns, affecting some of the world’s most vulnerable people. The Burmese government proceeded to expand mobile internet throttling across the nine townships in Rakhine and Chin states even as the pandemic spread, restricting residents of these townships from access to critical and life-saving information." (Pages 2-3)
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"This study examines the effects of media coverage on the Rohingya refugee crisis based on articles from two liberal, elite newspaper sources, The New York Times and The Guardian between 2010 and 2020. The study reveals that the attempts of international pressure to stop the crisis have increased th
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rough media coverage and political pressures; however, the number of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar intensified due to worsening violence and human rights violations committed by the Myanmar army. Findings are discussed using the lens of cultural and ideological context. The study suggests that in Myanmar, where authoritarian military culture is pervasive, there is a limited influence of the international press on the state-sponsored ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population and questions whether consistent international pressure could have changed the outcome." (Abstract)
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"The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration offers a comprehensive overview of media and migration through new research, as well as a review of present scholarship in this expanding and promising field. It explores key interdisciplinary concepts and methodologies, and how these are challenged by new r
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ealities and the links between contemporary migration patterns and its use of mediated processes. Although primarily grounded in media and communication studies, the Handbook builds on research in the fields of sociology, anthropology, political science, urban studies, science and technology studies, human rights, development studies, and gender and sexuality studies, to bring to the forefront key theories, concepts and methodological approaches to the study of the movement of people. In seven parts, the Handbook dissects important areas of cross-disciplinary and generational discourse for graduate students, early career researcher, migration management practitioners, and academics in the fields of media and migration studies, international development, communication studies, and the wider social science discipline." (Publisher description)
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"Due to the fighting between the Myanmar Army and the Rohingya militant group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in August 2017, hundreds of thousands of stateless Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh. The Myanmar Army was accused of committing torture, atrocities, arson and gang-rapes against the
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Rohingya Muslims during its operations to wipe out the ARSA. When covering this conflict, Myanmar journalists faced criticism from international media and monitoring groups that most of their stories were one-sided and lacked multiple voices. To discover which barriers have impeded Myanmar journalists in their reporting, I conducted in-depth interviews with 17 reporters and editors from 10 media outlets and also drew from my own experiences during 14 years as a Myanmar journalist. The analysis of interviews showed that journalists faced restricted access to the conflict area, limited cooperation from the government and the army, pressures from local Rakhine people, difficulty accessing Rohingya Muslims, barriers in the verification processes, personal safety concerns, and ethical dilemmas. The results suggested that as long as freedom of press is restrained and safety of messengers is threatened, journalists will find it hard to practice peace journalism or conflict sensitive journalism to the fullest. In addition, as previous studies on conflict reporting suggest, this study also revealed that some journalists favored what they believed to be in the national interest whenever they found themselves in an ethical dilemma." (Abstract)
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"Triangulating several methods including automated framing analysis and assessment of textual elements, this study examines how the elite press from three countries frames the Rohingya refugee crisis in 2017. Results from our framing and textual analysis show differences in how the press from the th
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ree countries portrayed the crisis. Specifically, The Irrawaddy (Myanmar) tends to incorporate a nationalist narrative into news content, playing down the violence used against Rohingyas. The New Nation (Bangladesh) frames the crisis according to the country's priorities, focusing its coverage on the humanitarian aspects of the crisis. The New York Times uses a Western hegemonic discourse. Textual analysis indicates that although the same words are used in the frames of the Rohingya crisis, some represent different meanings. Findings are discussed using the lens of ideological and cultural influence." (Abstract)
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"In this chapter I explore the challenge of gaining access, and remaining independent, in an ethnic state where you are expected to be on one side of the conflict or on the other. For decades the military junta restricted access to information and wielded a powerful propaganda strategy. This has had
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a long-lasting impact. There is a massive communication gap between the Burman lowlands and the ethnic states, characterized by historic misunderstandings and misinformation, especially now that social media platforms are the primary way to share information. This has both caused and perpetuated intercommunal conflict between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. Information is a power and a weapon, with all sides distorting and exaggerating it. It is hard to trust what people say and to do accurate media coverage. Even the words you use to describe northern Rakhine and the Rohingya are highly sensitive. The fact that the military has closed off a large area in the north of the state where the Rohingya historically lived makes access and understanding all the more difficult. In this chapter I use my own experiences doing fieldwork, conducting interviews and building trust to explore identity and language politics in Rakhine State and to explain the challenges of getting to the truth." (Pages 229-230)
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"Bangladesh hosts about one million Rohingya Muslim refugees from Rakhine State of Myanmar, majority of them fled to the country following a deadly military crackdown on the community in response to Rohingya militant attacks on Myanmar security forces on August 25, 2017. The United Nations termed th
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e clampdown ‘genocidal’ and aimed at ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Rohingya. The violence against this beleaguered community and their forcible displacement to Bangladesh garnered global media attention and international outrage. Under intense global pressure Myanmar signed a bilateral agreement with Bangladesh for repatriation of Rohingya refugees, and later both countries also inked a deal with United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for the same purpose. Despite the deal and two attempts in November 2018 and August 2019, not a single Rohingya has been repatriated, largely due to reluctance of refugees for an “unconditional return” without a concrete guarantee of basic rights including citizenship and safety in Myanmar. While Bangladeshi officials and media at large continue to blame Myanmar for gross failure in creating conditions conducive for a return of Rohingya refugees, official and media position in Myanmar point finger to Bangladesh’s inefficiency in convincing Rohingya refugees for the return. Thus, this paper will present arguments to show connection and similarities of state policies and media agenda on the issue of Rohingya refugee repatriation by analyzing various discourses and examining contents of media in Bangladesh and Myanmar. This research is likely to be more interpretative than statistics, figures and numeric." (Abstract)
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