"Inspired by Raymond Williams's 1976 classic 'Keywords', the timely collection Digital Keywords gathers pointed, provocative short essays on more than two dozen keywords by leading and rising digital media scholars from the areas of anthropology, digital humanities, history, political science, philo
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sophy, religious studies, rhetoric, science and technology studies, and sociology. Digital Keywords examines and critiques the rich lexicon animating the emerging field of digital studies. This collection broadens our understanding of how we talk about the modern world, particularly of the vocabulary at work in information technologies. Contributors scrutinize each keyword independently: for example, the recent pairing of digital and analog is separated, while classic terms such as community, culture, event, memory, and democracy are treated in light of their historical and intellectual importance. Metaphors of the cloud in cloud computing and the mirror in data mirroring combine with recent and radical uses of terms such as information, sharing, gaming, algorithm, and internet to reveal previously hidden insights into contemporary life. Bookended by a critical introduction and a list of over two hundred other digital keywords, these essays provide concise, compelling arguments about our current mediated condition." (Publisher description)
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"The observations shared in this book take the form of conversations about digital media and culture centered around four distinct thematic fields: politics and government, algorithm and censorship, art and aesthetics, as well as media literacy and education. Among the keywords discussed are: data m
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ining, algorithmic regulation, sharing culture, filter bubble, distant reading, power browsing, deep attention, transparent reader, interactive art, participatory culture. The interviewees (mostly from the US, but also from France, Brazil, and Denmark) were given a set of common questions as well specific inquiries tailored to their individual areas of interest and expertise. As a result, the book both identifies different takes on the same issues and enables a diversity of perspectives when it comes to the interviewees’ particular concerns." (Publisher description)
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"At DW Akademie, we are committed to ensuring all people can freely and confidently communicate in the digital realm. Our digital strategy “Akademie Beta” commits DW Akademie to five strategic objectives in order to realize people‘s right to freedom of expression in the digital world. Akademie
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Beta describes how we as an organization will adapt to the digital reality. Both internally and externally, we will equip ourselves today to meet and master the challenges of tomorrow, whatever these may entail. We will focus on what we do best, and on the needs of our partners and the people in our focus regions. For the next three years, our goals are: 1. Self-determined communication. People in our focus countries can use digital media independently and competently [...] 2. Media landscapes of quality. Our partners look to the future of their digital markets [...] 3. Visionary education. Universities, institutions and journalism schools train digital media professionals [...] 4. Digital rights. Our partners make a difference in shaping Internet regulations [...] 5. Innovative dialogue: People use digital tools and platforms to create newpublic spheres." (Pages 1-2)
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"For many years, the media development conversation regarding Cuba has largely focused on the country’s harsh censorship practices and other restrictions on freedom of expression. Those concerns remain. But with the opening of relations with the United States over the past two years, the conversat
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ion has widened. U.S. government and business interests have reengaged with Cuba, and the clock is highly unlikely to be rolled back. There is going to be more digital media in Cuba, and more Cubans are going to go online. The Internet will continue to advance, and the regime’s old monolithic message will become less possible to sustain. The future of journalism is impossible to predict in Cuba, other than to say it is bound to get better. The Cuban journalism of the future is likely to skew to online platforms." (Conclusion)
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"In this report, we examine how public service media in six european countries (Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom) are delivering news in an increasingly digital media environment. The analysis is based on interviews conducted between december 2015 and February 2016 [..
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.] Public service media organisations have high reach for news offline (via television and radio) in all six countries, but only in Finland and the United Kingdom do they have high reach for news online. In all countries but Finland and the United Kingdom, significantly more people get news online from social media than from public service media. Our interviewees highlight three particularly important issues facing public service news provision online today, namely: 1. how to change organisations developed around analogue broadcasting media to effectively deliver public service news in an increasingly digital media environment; 2. how to use mobile platforms more effectively as smartphones become more and more central to how people access news; 3. how to use social media more effectively as more and more news use is driven by referrals and in some cases consumed off-site on platforms like Facebook." (Executive summary)
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"Thinking through Digital Media" speculates on animation, documentary, experimental, interactive, and narrative media that probe human-machine performances, virtual migrations, global warming, structural inequality, and critical cartographies across Brazil, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Israel/Pa
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lestine, Italy, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, UAE, USA, and elsewhere." (Publisher description)
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"Kaum ein Ort der Erde, der nicht digital vermessen oder erfasst ist, kaum ein Lebensbereich ohne digitale Steuerung, Erleichterung und Optimierung. Die Schattenseite der Digitalisierung bestehe, so Andre Wilkens, in ihrem Potenzial zur Erfassung, Kontrolle und Manipulation. Er stellt in diesem Buch
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beides einander gegenüber: die noch immer nicht ausgelotete Fülle der Chancen, die Erde mittels digitaler Technik lebenswerter zu machen, und die bedrohlichen Szenarien von Gesellschaften, in denen nichts mehr individuell oder verborgen bleibt. Die schwierige Aufgabe, einen humanen Weg der Digitalisierung zu finden, habe, so Wilkens, jede und jeder für sich zu bewältigen." (Klappentext)
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"Blogs and online content contribute significantly to opinion diversity in Africa today. Because of that, they are increasingly monitored by federal agencies, which aim to more strictly define the grey zone between journalism, blog-writing and opinion stating in social media. It is especially agains
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t this backdrop that digital opinion makers deserve more attention and support." (KAS website)
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"Es ist inzwischen nahezu banal festzustellen, dass Digitalisierung für den Journalismus gleichermaßen Herausforderung und Chance darstellt. Die Überführung von Geschäftsmodellen und Wertschöpfungsketten in ein digitales Zeitalter und neue digitale Werkzeuge, mit denen sich Darstellungsformen
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und Inhalte weiterentwickeln lassen, zeigen dies sehr eindrucksvoll. In vielen Bereichen wird inzwischen deutlich, dass es nicht nur um eine neue Infrastruktur geht, sondern um eine grundsätzliche Neuorientierung des Journalismus. Die Reihe »Groundbreaking Journalism« vom iRights.Lab und dem Vodafone Institut hat eine Plattform zur Diskussion dieses Themas geboten. Gemeinsames Ziel dabei war, die Aufmerksamkeit auf den »Maschinenraum« des Journalismus zu lenken, wo die Formate und Inhalte entstehen, deren Produktion sich durch digitale Werkzeuge grundlegend ändert." (Vorwort)
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"The emergence of digital media in Indonesia coincided with the country’s transition to democracy beginning in 1998. In some ways, digitization has catalyzed the development of diverse and independent media. Market reforms in favor of liberalization have gone hand in hand with convergence and prol
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iferation to produce a radical increase in the number of media outlets. The number of national television channels has doubled since 1998; commercial radio stations have tripled; and the number of print newspapers has more than quadrupled. This has occurred alongside and in tandem with a rapidly growing online news sector populated by a mixed ecology of established brands and new entrants. In other ways, however, digitization has merely helped to shift the locus of concentrated power from the state to an increasingly consolidated media elite. Despite the growing number of outlets, new entrants in conventional sectors have been rare and have been hampered by policies that have tended to favor commercial incumbents." (Open Society Foundations website)
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"Digital Russia provides a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which new media technologies have shaped language and communication in contemporary Russia. It traces the development of the Russian-language internet, explores the evolution of web-based communication practices, showing how they have
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both shaped and been shaped by social, political, linguistic and literary realities, and examines online features and trends that are characteristic of, and in some cases specific to, the Russian-language internet." (Publisher description)
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"Two out of three Malaysians regularly use the internet (even though large areas of the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, where nearly a fifth of the population lives, pose logistical challenges regarding infrastructure) and a third of the population have a 3G mobile subscription. Broadban
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d household penetration in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, is 112 percent because many citizens have both fixed and mobile accounts. Nearly half the population is on Facebook with an average of 233 friends each, the greatest proportion in the world, all on social networks for an average nine hours a week. And they still seem to find enough time to watch television for three and a half hours a day and to listen to the radio for three hours. The outlook is for an expansion of internet and mobile-based platforms for news, comment, social networking, activism, and entertainment. However, a change of government is probably a prerequisite for the kinds of changes that would usher in greater diversity in broadcast and print, such as regulatory independence, repeal of the Printing Presses and Publications Act, and the dismantling of monopolies, rules on cross ownership, and political parties’ ownership of media companies." (Open Society Foundations website)
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"After a significant delay, the transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting in Bulgaria is scheduled to be finished in 2013. While cable television appears to have peaked since 2007, satellite television continues to increase its penetration, more often through bundled services. On the other hand
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, Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is also growing, albeit from a low base. Although Bulgarians enjoy some of the fastest internet connections in the world, overall broadband penetration is low. However, except for the ubiquitous popularity of torrent trackers, there is a lack of e-government services and on-demand audiovisual content. Press and radio are declining in revenue, and the press in particular has welcomed investors with hidden sources of financing that use newspapers for their own business interests. Shedding more light on media ownership, prohibiting concentration, and securing sustainable business models for quality news outlets remain key." (Open Society Foundations website)
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"In online journalism, the virtues associated with ethics—accuracy, honesty, truth, impartiality, fairness, balance, respect for autonomy of ordinary people—are barely respected, largely because there is no effective way of policing this, and there are no legal penalties. Concentration of owners
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hip has increased in the last five years and transparency in ownership of media has improved only slightly over the past five years. The government controls media licensing—a process that is shrouded in secrecy, so that it is difficult to establish who owns which media house. The overall framework of policy and law is not yet adequate for digitized media in Kenya. The national ICT policy of 2006 committed the government to support and encourage pluralism and diversity. While this led to a proliferation of channels, it did not do much for content diversity due to the level of concentration of media. A lack of resources to build the digital infrastructure, consumer ignorance of what the switch means and whether the public can afford the end-user devices are some of the challenges faced in Kenya’s digital switchover." (Open Society Foundations website)
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