"This state-of-the-art Handbook provides unique insights into the governance practices and institutions shaping digitalized public spheres. Focusing on the power relations involved, it presents diverse approaches to key debates in media and communication governance, showcasing groundbreaking advance
...
s in the field. Contributing authors explore the impact of long-standing trends such as commercialization, digitalization and transnationalization on media and communication governance, highlighting urgent new developments including algorithmization and datafication. Combining theoretical inquiry with cutting-edge empirical analysis, they address governance challenges at the regional, national and global levels to provide a broad view of the social ordering of media systems. Ultimately, the Handbook explores how to protect the public sphere in the digital age and ensure that media organizations and platforms meet democratic expectations." (Publisher description)
more
"This open access handbook presents a multidisciplinary and multifaceted perspective on how the 'digital' is simultaneously changing Russia and the research methods scholars use to study Russia. It provides a critical update on how Russian society, politics, economy, and culture are reconfigured in
...
the context of ubiquitous connectivity and accounts for the political and societal responses to digitalization. In addition, it answers practical and methodological questions in handling Russian data and a wide array of digital methods. The volume makes a timely intervention in our understanding of the changing field of Russian Studies and is an essential guide for scholars, advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying Russia today." (Publisher description)
more
"Disinformation is an endemic and ubiquitous part of politics throughout the Western Balkans, without exception. A mapping of the disinformation and counter-dis in for mation landscapes in the region in the period from 2018 through 2020 reveals three key disinformation challenges: external challenge
...
s to EU credibility; disinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic; and the impact of disinformation on elections and referenda. While foreign actors feature prominently – chiefly Russia, but also China, Turkey, and other countries in and near the region – the bulk of disinformation in the Western Balkans is produced and disseminated by domestic actors for domestic purposes. Further, disinformation (and information disorder more broadly) is a symptom of social and political disorder, rather than the cause. As a result, the European Union should focus on the role that it can play in bolstering the quality of democracy and governance in the Western Balkans, as the most powerful potential bulwark against disinformation." (Abstract)
more
"Contributors to the volume explore various questions concerning the opportunities and constraints for governance associated with the startling growth in digital technologies in the Global South. In areas of limited statehood, places where the reach of the state is limited and weak, can mobile phone
...
s, geographical information systems, and other digital technologies help fill the governance vacuum? In general, Livingston and Walter-Drop conclude with the contributors that where missing governance is information-based (bits), digital technology has a tremendous impact. Yet a major constraint is found in its ability to fill the governance vacuum concerning the provision of material collective goods (atoms)." (Abstract)
more
"This paper explores the use of new information technologies in Russia to examine the next generation of media development and to ask how the ability of the “network society” – and the new forms of collective action it allows to contribute to social change can be supported. Building on the ide
...
a of the “fifth estate,” and how networked individuals and institutions can use the Internet as a platform to challenge the influence of other more established bases of authority, these examples of social media and online activism – specifically blogging and crowdsourcing – show how Russia’s networked society is helping invigorate the country’s civil society and traditional media." (Executive summary, page 1)
more