"In some of the countries, to a greater extent Spain and the Hispanic USA, fiction consistently occupies at least 40% of the programming time. This occurs in countries that, due to income levels, should be those with a higher degree of access to other sources of fiction audiovisual content, such as
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pay TV or streaming platforms. In contrast to these cases, we can observe Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, where fiction barely exceeds 15% in the years of greatest participation and is close to 10% in others. Paradoxically, both Brazil and Mexico are fiction producers and exporters to the rest of the region. Halfway between both extremes, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Portugal, Uruguay and Venezuela can be observed in the years in which it has been possible to observe their behavior. Since open television is a system of contents structured in schedules associated with household routines, it is worth asking about differences in roles and uses of television by audiences or the eventual substitution of these roles by alternative media or genres. The second aspect is one of trends. Except for the case of Spain, the general trend seems to be towards a decrease in the involvement of fiction in programming. And, although the Top 10 most watched fiction productions offer a very partial view of the whole, they also show a decrease in time of the audience levels reached." (Pages 24-25)
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"The year 2021 was a mixed bag for freedom of expression in Southern Africa, with the freedom of expression environment improving in some countries, stagnant in others, while others recorded declines. Malawi led the way with the adoption of its access to information legislation, while Lesotho adopte
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d its long-awaited media policy. In Tanzania, the assumption of the presidency by Samia Sulu Hassan, raised hope for improved relations between the media and the government following a sharp deterioration during the late John Magufuli’s tenure. A change of government in Zambia also brought optimism that the media environment would improve in that country. Despite these improvements, there is need for MISA to remain vigilant, as the media environment in Southern Africa can be very unpredictable and vulnerable to shock developments. The COVID-19 pandemic provided ample illustration on how vulnerable the rights to freedom of the media and freedom of expression are in the region as a number of countries enacted legislation that infringed on these rights." (Page 4)
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"Over the past five years, approximately 85 percent of the world’s population experienced a decline in press freedom in their country. Even in countries with long traditions of safeguarding free and independent journalism, financial and technological transformations have forced news outlets, espec
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ially those serving local communities, to close. With readership and advertising markets moving online, advertising revenue for newspapers plummeted by nearly half in the ten-year period ending in 2019. The subsequent COVID-19 pandemic and its global economic impact have exacerbated this trend, now threatening to create an “extinction level” event for independent journalism outlets. The 2021/2022 global edition of the flagship series of reports on World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development examines these questions with a special focus on “journalism as a public good”." (Abstract)
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"In November 2020, with support from Public Safety Canada, Tech Against Terrorism launched the Terrorist Content Analytics Platform (TCAP). The world’s largest database of verified terrorist content, collected in real time from verified terrorist channels on messaging platforms and apps, the TCAP
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is a secure and transparent online tool to detect and verify terrorist content and notify technology companies of the presence of such content on their platforms. The TCAP is developed using a transparency-by-design approach. This is the first TCAP transparency report, which is one of several initiatives Tech Against Terrorism has taken in compliance with our core principles. The report provides a detailed breakdown of the core metrics for the reporting period between 1 December 2020 and 30 November 2021, and of key TCAP policies and processes." (Executive summary, page 2)
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"Privacy is necessary for journalists to communicate freely with sources, receive confidential information, investigate corruption, and guarantee their safety and that of their sources. Therefore, it is worrying that governments and big corporations are working to undermine the right to privacy by a
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cquiring advanced software to spy on citizens and, by extension, journalists. The acquisition of digital surveillance tools and other forms of spyware will translate to fewer people willing to pass confidential information to journalists and this will undermine the right to access to information and ultimately affect democracy. In Southern Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe are some of the countries that have been reported to have acquired sophisticated software to surveil their citizens. These governments have so far not been transparent about how they intend to use these technologies in the surveillance of their citizens. A common retort is that surveillance tools will aid in the fight against crime. However, there is need to strike a balance between fighting crime and protecting citizens’ rights, such as the right to privacy and to access information." (Foreword, page 4)
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"Digitalization has significantly changed disaster preparedness and management. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are used in all phases of disaster management for knowledge acquisition, information dissemination, communication, as well as control. Examples include the use of global d
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atabases for risk analysis, digital early warning systems, apps for recording damage, and communication with those affected via social media platforms. Prerequisites for the application of ICT in a disaster context include access to an ICT infrastructure, digital literacy, uniform guidelines regarding data protection and accountability, particularly in cooperation with private-sector tech companies, the provision of open data and scalable digital applications, and an orientation toward the needs of the affected persons whom the applications are intended to serve. Digital risks that arise in the course of the digitalization of disaster management are many and diverse. They can arise in connection with the design, use, and regulatory environment of technologies. Critical for risks is the interplay between technology, policy, and human factors. While some risks are inherent in the technology itself, such as the susceptibility of digital infrastructure to extreme natural events, other risks arise only through the human factor, such as data misuse or disinformation. All these risks can significantly impact the use and effectiveness of digital apps in disaster management." (Key findings, page 7)
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"Wie jedes Jahr wird der WeltRisikoIndex durch ein Fokusthema ergänzt. Dieses Jahr beschäftigen wir uns mit der Digitalisierung. Die Autor:innen analysieren auf der Basis qualitativer Forschung die große Bedeutung digitaler Lösungen für die Katastrophenrisikoreduzierung und die vorausschauende
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humanitäre Hilfe, etwa im Rahmen der Frühwarnung, bei der Verarbeitung komplexer Datensätze zur Bedarfsermittlung und der Übermittlung von „Cash Transfers“. Sie machen aber auch deutlich, dass mit der Digitalisierung viele noch ungelöste Probleme einhergehen, auf die Antworten gefunden werden müssen. Aus der Perspektive von Wissenschaft und Praxis erarbeitet der Bericht Forderungen an die nationale und internationale Politik für eine nachhaltige und sozial gerechte Digitalisierung." (Vorwort)
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"The Report is a unique mechanism within the UN system for monitoring the killings of journalists. It was first published in 2008, upon a Decision of the Intergovernmental Council of the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC). The report is published every two years, mak
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ing an occasion for Member States to take stock of global developments and discuss challenges linked to promoting the safety of journalists and combatting impunity." (https://www.unesco.org/reports/safety-journalists/2022/en)
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"South Asia witnessed major political and economic upheaval this past year, even as the region was slowly emerging from the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic. While 23 journalists lost their lives and others were subjected to more than 60 attacks by the police, armed militia, vigilante mobs, politicians
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, local mafia and others, the broader political events continued to impact the security of journalists and their ability to carry out their professional duties. From the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in August 2021, to the massive democratic protests against the Sri Lankan government that led the country into its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, the media in South Asia has borne witness to some watershed moments in history, taking severe beatings but also standing strong to speak truth to power." (Overview, page 5)
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"The 2022 Europe and Eurasia Vibrant Information Barometer (VIBE) sees the addition of the five countries of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) to the study, bringing the total number of countries examined to 18. With VIBE, IREX strives to capture a moder
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n and evolving media space where people are simultaneously producers, transmitters, consumers, and actors in the information that influences their lives and environments [...] For countries in Europe and Eurasia (E&E) included in this year’s publication, country-level scores were, again, mainly split into two VIBE classifications: Somewhat Vibrant (North Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, Armenia, Moldova, and Ukraine) and Slightly Vibrant (Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Serbia). Azerbaijan held the lowest score in E&E, putting it in the Not Vibrant classification. In Central Asia, this year’s study put Kyrgyzstan the Somewhat Vibrant category, while Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan were Slightly Vibrant. While Uzbekistan’s score characterized it as Slightly Vibrant, Turkmenistan joined Azerbaijan in the Not Vibrant classification." (Executive summary)
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"In 2021, 105 incidents of media violations were recorded. The violations recorded by SMSJ largely targeted on-duty journalists and included: two cases of murder, 66 arrests, 14 media outlet raids, 14 physical assaults, 13 cases of harassment, and two sham trials. The figures represent an overall 62
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percent increase from 2020 (65 cases: two killed, four injured, 56 arrested, and five media shutdowns), and the highest caseload recorded in almost a decade. Two senior Somali journalists were targeted for their work and killed by Al Shabaab. Since 2017, 15 Somali journalists were killed, and according to CPJ, Somalia’s fatalities represent more than half of all journalists murdered in Africa. The scale and frequency of violations has seen a sharp dramatic rise as the government’s term expired in early 2021, and political tension caused by illegal mandate extension ensued. Street protests, violent armed clashes, and insurgency rocked the country, and the media suffered the brunt of various armed actors and political groups. Banadir region took the unenviable top spot for the third consecutive year as the most dangerous location for journalists. It accounted for nearly half of all violations, 71% of physical beatings, 37% of arrests, and 69% of threats and harassment targeted at media workers. In a bid to enforce media blackout on unfavorable political events, police and NISA officers in Banadir raided four media outlets, confiscating equipment and damaging the facilities." (Executive summary)
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"The fourth edition of the Global State of Democracy Report comes at a time when democracy is under both literal and figurative assault around the world. The steady drumbeat of such warnings—included in the previous edition of this report, which was produced at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic
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always runs the risk of becoming background noise, as today’s crisis can quickly become tomorrow’s new normal. But the dangers are real. Beyond the lingering pandemic, today’s wars and a looming global recession, lies the challenge of climate change and all it entails—severe weather events, the necessary green transition and multi-fold consequences for democratic governance [...] But contrary to what democratic pessimists may suggest, authoritarian countries and alternative systems of government have not outperformed their democratic peers. Discontent at the neverending stream of Chinese lockdowns and the tens of thousands of draft dodgers fleeing Russia for an uncertain existence in the South Caucasus and Central Asia show that it is not just in democracies where the social contract is in urgent need of renewal." (Preface)
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"In some of the countries, to a greater extent Spain and the Hispanic USA, fiction consistently occupies at least 40% of the programming time. This occurs in countries that, due to income levels, should be those with a higher degree of access to other sources of fiction audiovisual content, such as
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pay TV or streaming platforms. In contrast to these cases, we can observe Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, where fiction barely exceeds 15% in the years of greatest participation and is close to 10% in others. Paradoxically, both Brazil and Mexico are fiction producers and exporters to the rest of the region. Halfway between both extremes, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Portugal, Uruguay and Venezuela can be observed in the years in which it has been possible to observe their behavior. Since open television is a system of contents structured in schedules associated with household routines, it is worth asking about differences in roles and uses of television by audiences or the eventual substitution of these roles by alternative media or genres. The second aspect is one of trends. Except for the case of Spain, the general trend seems to be towards a decrease in the involvement of fiction in programming. And, although the Top 10 most watched fiction productions offer a very partial view of the whole, they also show a decrease in time of the audience levels reached." (Pages 24-25)
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"En algunos de los países, en mayor medida España y los EE.UU. Hispanos, la ficción ocupa de un modo consistente al menos el 40% de los tiempos de programación. Esto, en países que por niveles de ingreso deberían ser los con un mayor grado de acceso a otras fuentes de contenidos audiovisuales
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de ficción, como la televisión de pago o las plataformas de streaming. En contraste a estos casos, se observa a Argentina, Brasil y México, donde la ficción apenas supera el 15% en los años de mayor participación y se acerca al 10% en otros. Paradojalmente, tanto Brasil como México son países productores y exportadores de ficción al resto de la región. A medio camino entre ambos extremos se observa a Chile, Colombia, Perú, Portugal, Uruguay y Venezuela, en los años en que ha sido posible observar su comportamiento. Siendo la televisión abierta un sistema de contenidos estructurados en horarios asociados a las rutinas del hogar, cabe preguntarse por diferencias de roles y usos de la televisión por parte de las audiencias o la eventual sustitución de estos roles por medios o géneros alternativos. El segundo plano es de tendencia. Salvo por el caso de España, la tendencia general pareciera ser hacia una disminución de la participación de la ficción en la programación. Y, aunque los Top 10 de títulos de ficción más vistos ofrecen una mirada muy parcial del conjunto, en ellos también se observa una disminución en el tiempo de los niveles de audiencia alcanzados." (Página 24-25)
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"From August 2020 until August this summer, we recorded almost 800 cases of digital rights violations in eight countries of south-eastern Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. Violations took place not just on TikTok, but also on F
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acebook, Twitter and Instagram and were also spread via Viber and WhatsApp. Our report shows that vulnerable groups, including women, minority groups, LGBT +, Roma and Jewish communities, minors and migrants, are particularly exposed to online attacks. Similarly, political and religious tensions, which still continue to mark the cultural and political life of our societies, also surged, further polarising society. All of this suggests that what happens in the virtual space is not much different from the “physical world”. Ongoing tensions and cultural controversies are simply migrating from one place to another and prevention or protection mechanisms are far from successful. It comes as no surprise that the two most common violations this year were “pressure because of expression and activities on the internet” and “manipulation and propaganda in the digital environment”. Journalists were most frequently the target of online threats in two countries – Serbia and Hungary. In both countries, pro-government social media accounts were involved in smear campaigns against independent journalists." (Foreword, page 4)
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