"Following the revolutions, the battle for the Arab blogosphere has turned from being a competition over accessing the Internet and circumventing government controls to a cyberwar for the predominant narrative through Facebook, Twitter, and traditional media [...] Social media is reinvigorating trad
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itional print and broadcast media, including satellite networks, which are adopting multi-platform strategies [...] Social media is serving as political cover: News outlets are recognizing the benefit of using social media to preempt official repercussions by disseminating sensitive stories first on social media sites and in other cases to gauge possible reaction before going to print or air [...] Numerous media observers and professionals have complained that professional journalists, citizen journalists, bloggers, activists, and pro-government contributors in the region lack ethics, do not understand libel, practice incitement, and fail to meet other international journalism and legal standards [...] While user-generated content is plentiful, authenticating this content can take up valuable resources. Training for citizen journalists and non-journalists who are online would help established media outlets and the public to gauge the accuracy and authenticity of news and information." (Executive summary, page 8-9)
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"Social media and social networking sites (SNS) in particular have become popular in current humanitarian campaigns. This article assesses the optimism surrounding the opportunities that SNS communication offers for humanitarian action and for the cultivation of cosmopolitan sensibilities. In order
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to evaluate the mediation of suffering and humanitarian causes through social media, I argue that we need to understand the architectures of social media and SNS in addition to analysing the content of the campaigns drawing on the literature on humanitarian communication. Focusing on the analysis of two humanitarian campaigns through social media, the phenomenally popular and controversial Kony 2012 campaign and WaterForward, the article observes that the architectures of SNS orientate action at a communitarian level which heightens their post-humanitarian style. However, an emerging new genre of reporting and commenting which is termed “polymedia events” can potentially extend beyond the limitations of SNS communication by opening up the space for reflexivity and dialogical imagination." (Abstract)
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"The ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is increasingly being played out in parallel on the internet. Recently, a great deal of media attention has been devoted to a series of spectacular hacker attacks that caused dozens of Israeli and Palestinian websites to crash, including thos
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e of the secret service agencies Mossad and Shin Bet. However, for Israelis and Palestinians who are willing to participate in dialogue, the internet also offers much needed opportunities for contact and the peaceful exchange of ideas." (Page 6)
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"The objective of this study is to look at how two prominent Arab-language news organisations, BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA), have used social media and user-generated content — photos, videos and comments — to provide coverage of the uprising in Syria. Due to the unique pressures in co
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vering Syria, especially in the early months of the uprising, how did these news organizations manage the heavy use of UGC and social media while being true to their editorial guidelines? How have the news organizations in this study verified this material? With activists playing a role in producing and distributing this material, how have the news organizations informed their audiences of the provenance of this material? In terms of UGC management both BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera Arabic publish information about their corporate-wide editorial guidelines that set out guidance for dealing with sources and assuring transparency for their audiences. In the case of the BBC generally, there is very detailed guidance about user-generated content for news. An investigation into the verification practices at BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera Arabic indicates that detailed guidance is in place." (Executive summary, page 3)
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"This is the first scholarly analysis of how young women used social media and cyberactivism to help shape the “Arab Spring” and its aftermath. It argues that women's engagement with social media has coincided with a shift in the political landscape of the Middle East, and it is unlikely that th
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ey will ever retreat from the new arenas they have carved out for themselves because they have reconfigured the public sphere in their countries, as well as the expectations of the public about the role women can and should play in the political lives of their countries."
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"The present text explains how the Media Sustanability Index has refined its instrument and procedures to better capture the impact of social media." (Abstract)
This book features case studies and reports on the use of web 2.0 and social networking applications and services to increase the impact of research on policy in Latin America. During 2010 and 2011 Fundación Comunica, with funding from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada) an
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d assistance from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), supported a series of small research projects examining the use of online social networking services to link research and policy in the region. For the Impact 2.0 projects, the most successful uses of web 2.0 and online social networking to connect research and policy were those that involved the public in campaigns and consultations. Less successful were those projects that focused on the direct relationships between researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders.
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"Drawing on evidence from the popular protests in Tunisia between December 2010 and January 2011, expert interviews with Tunisian bloggers, and a web survey conducted among Tunisian Facebook users, this paper argues that social media (1) allowed a “digital elite” to form personal networks and ci
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rcumvent the national media blackout by brokering information for outside mainstream media; (2) helped to overcome the “free rider” problem of collective action by reporting the magnitude of protest events; and (3) facilitated the formation of a national collective identity which was supportive of protest action and transcended geographical and socio-economic disparities by providing a shared, mobilizing element of emotional grievance." (Abstract)
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"The rise of new media in Thailand has occurred during one of the toughest periods in Thailand’s recent political history. A political crisis since 2005 has created an increasingly divided society. Whilst Thailand’s press freedom was previously considered “free,” existing political challenge
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s are immense and challenge directly Thailand’s taboo topic - the monarchy. The state controlled and anti-competitive nature of Thailand’s traditional media has meant a siding with the status quo. State censorship and even self-censorship in the media is common. New media seems to be the only way people can discuss freely their political beliefs. Or is that really so? This report is an investigation into the political usage of new media in Thailand from varying viewpoints of politicians, activists and Thai internet users." (Abstract)
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"In the 2012 elections, the internet – and particularly the social networks – became more important than ever before and took up an unprecedented amount of space in the media. The role played by Web 2.0 in the 2012 elections in Mexico cannot be assessed without bringing the #YoSoy132 movement in
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to the equation. This phenomenon brought together the two elements of “youth participation” and “Web 2.0 tools” to enliven the political debate during the election campaign." (https://www.kas.de)
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"The Philippines is a palimpsest where traditional, modern and postmodern influences manifest themselves contemporaneously. Its politics is traditional, its culture modern and its media postmodern. Understanding the role of new technologies, such as digital media, under these circumstances requires
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an appreciation of incommensurable factors that are nevertheless intercalated. The surface of Philippine politics appears imperturbable but underneath it, notions of the political are being reformulated as a consequence of the new media and its globalizing influence." (Abstract)
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"This publication is an outcome of the Ørecomm Festival 2011 and presents Paula Uimonen (The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions), Petter Åttingsberg (International Media Support) Stine Kirstein Junge (United Nations Development Programme), Birgitte Jallov (independent consultant), and R
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afael Obregon (United Nations Children’s Fund) and their experiences and reflections on social media in development cooperation. The publication addresses social media in relation to various subjects such as external communication, community radio, the Arab Spring, youth and equity, the credibility of social media, as well as new and innovative ways of using social media in development cooperation." (Introduction, page 10)
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"The United Nations pointed out in 2010 that more Indians have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet. There are over 800 million mobile connections, although the number of unique users (excluding inactive connections) is estimated at around 600 million. Together with the fact that 60 percent of
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all households have cable and satellite television, providing access to many of the 700-plus television channels licensed to broadcast, it becomes clear that in garrulous India, mass poverty and marginalization do not result in a perfect “digital divide.” This, together with the fact that the public broadcaster’s prime terrestrial channel, DD National, covers about 92 percent of the 1.2 billion-plus population, clearly suggests that the users of digital technologies in India include many of the 300 million still below the official poverty line. In the case of the digital switchover, it is broadly in this area of public interest that most attention needs to be focused, whether it be in the area of greater accountability and autonomy of the state broadcaster, the governance of private media infrastructure, transparency and equity in licensing criteria and in mechanisms of allocating resources, and compliance with global standards of professional journalism. These values will go some way toward giving India a plurality of voices and media outlets that would properly reflect what may be the most diverse social and political landscape on the planet." (Open Society Foundations website)
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"A compilation of 13 articles that discuss social media developments and trends in Asia. For this publication we invited eleven alumni from the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism (ACFJ) at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines to share their views on social media issues based o
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n their inside knowledge and hands-on experience. The authors from six different countries provide insight into various new media trends and present diversified approaches, ranging from Cambodia, with comparably low Internet penetration, to Indonesia, which is considered the second biggest Facebook “nation” in the world. Topics include: Integration of social media in traditional newsrooms; Issues and challenges of social media; Social media and newsprint advertising; Social media and television networks; Ways to maximise and monetise social media; Investigative journalism and social media; Censorship and social media." (Back cover)
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