"To support joint efforts to protect journalism, there is a growing need for research-based knowledge. Acknowledging this need, the aim of this publication is to highlight and fuel journalist safety as a field of research, to encourage worldwide participation, as well as to inspire further dialogues
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and new research initiatives. The contributions represent diverse perspectives on both empirical and theoretical research and offer many quantitatively and qualitatively informed insights. The articles demonstrate that a new important interdisciplinary research field is in fact emerging, and that the fundamental issue remains identical: Violence and threats against journalists constitute an attack on freedom of expression." (Back cover)
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"This study examines the existence of criminal defamation and insult laws in the territory of the 57 participating States of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In doing so, it offers a broad, comparative overview of the compliance of OSCE participating States’ legislat
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ion with international standards and best practices in the field of defamation law and freedom of expression. The primary purpose of the study is to identify relevant provisions in law. Although the study does include examples of the usage of these provisions, it is not an analysis of legal practice [...] The study is divided into two sections. The first section offers conclusions according to each of the principal categories researched and in reference to international standards on freedom of expression. The second section provides the detailed research findings for each country, including relevant examples. As the study’s title suggests, the primary research category is general criminal laws on defamation and insult. However, this study also covers special laws protecting the reputation or honour of particular persons or groups of people (e.g., presidents, public officials, deceased persons); special laws protecting the ‘honour’ of the state and state symbols; and blasphemy and religious insult laws." (About this study, page 2)
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"National and Regional Internet Governance Forums (NRIs) are the stars of the 2017 Global Information Society Watch. The story of NRIs began two years after the first global IGF held in 2006. In 2008, stakeholders from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda organised national forums and a subsequent Eas
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t African IGF, to prepare for and discuss common concerns in anticipation of the global forum held later that year in Hyderabad. Soon after, many other national and regional initiatives emerged, impacting the global forum from the bottom up, enhancing inclusiveness and the broad engagement of multiple stakeholders. Today there is widespread agreement that national and regional forums constitute an important part of the IGF process, that their rise has added significance to the global forum and, at the same time, strengthened national and regional initiatives in their quest for inclusive, participatory decision making on their home turf. This GISWatch edition is the first comprehensive look at national and regional IGF initiatives from a critical, civil society perspective. In all, 54 reports are presented, including seven reports addressing cross-cutting themes, 40 covering national IGFs, and seven examining regional initiatives." (Preface)
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"This edited volume addresses various aspects of social and political development in Turkey and the latter's role within a global context. Paradigmatically and theoretically, it is situated in the realm of communication and/for social change. The chapters thread together to present a fresh and innov
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ative study that explores an array of issues related to the Gezi protests and their aftermath by scholars and activists from Scandinavia, Turkey and India. Through its thorough analysis of the government's repressive policy and the communication strategies of resistance, during the protests as well as in the dramatic on-going aftermath, the volume has wide international and interdisciplinary appeal, suitable for those with an interest in globalization, communication and media, politics, and social change." (Publisher description)
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"About two-thirds of Turkish adults (65.0%) currently say they go online for news at least weekly. Among Kurdish speakers, that figure is much higher at 70.8%. Half of all residents (50.2%) say they use newspapers or magazines for news every week. While four in five adults (80.5%) say they get news
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from friends or family members at least weekly. Almost all households in Turkey (98.0%) have a working TV set, and most have a computer (72.9%) and internet access (83.9%) via computer or mobile device." (Page 2)
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"The report provides an overview of the most recent rules, case law and policies across Europe with regard to the privileges that are given to journalists when exercising their activities. As a rule, when identifying the relevant legal aspects, three features are taken into account: the correspondin
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g provisions shall a) be aimed at guaranteeing through special information rights that media are able to fulfil their opinion-shaping function, b) ensure through special procedural mechanisms that freedom of the media is safe from state interference, and/or c) prevent people affected by media reporting from being in a position to suppress it under civil or criminal law without taking into account the freedom of the media." (Foreword)
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"This study aims at finding the relationship between elderly people’s perceived state of loneliness and their choice of (old and/or new) media instruments. The sample of the study consists of randomly selected 300 elderly people over 60 who reside in rest homes in two different cities, Hatay and
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stanbul in Turkey. Participants were given a questionnaire with three sections. The first section included questions related to the participants’ demographic characteristics. Adapted from Russell’s (1996) “Loneliness Scale (Version 3)”, the second part was related to participants’ perceived state of loneliness. Final section was about their choice of media and related details such as aim and time spent on them. Analyzed by statistical methods, study findings show that elderly people from two different social settings and with changing demographic features display differing degrees of loneliness with a significant relationship between the forms of media they used, their related choices, aims and perceived state of loneliness." (Abstract)
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"International trade in creative industries showed sustained growth in the last decade. The global market for traded creative goods and services totaled a record $547billion in 2012, as compared to $302 billion in 2003. Exports from developing countries, led by Asian countries, were growing faster t
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han exports from developed countries. Among developed country regions, Europe is the largest exporter of creative goods. In 2012, the top 5 creative goods exporters included Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium. Exports of creative goods from developed economies grew during the period 2003 to 2012, with export earnings rising from $134 billion to $197 billion. Among developing countries, China is the largest exporter of creative goods. In 2012, the top 5 exporters were China, Hong Kong, China, India, Turkey and South Korea. Exports of creative goods from developing economies grew during the period 2003 to 2012, with export earnings rising from $87 billion to $272 billion. Developing countries are playing an increasingly important role in international trade in creative industries." (Executive summary)
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"Media concentration has been an issue around the world. To some observers the power of large corporations has never been higher. To others, the Internet has brought openness and diversity. What perspective is correct? The answer has significant implications for politics, business, culture, regulati
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on, and innovation. It addresses a highly contentious subject of public debate in many countries around the world. In this discussion, one side fears the emergence of media empires that can sway public opinion and endanger democracy. The other side believes the Internet has opened media to unprecedented diversity and worries about excessive regulation by government. Strong opinions and policy advocates abound on each side, yet a lack of quantitative research across time, media industries, and countries undermines these positions. This book moves beyond the rhetoric of free media and free markets to provide a dispassionate and data-driven analysis of global media ownership trends and their drivers. The book covers thirteen media industries, including television, newspapers, book publishing, film, search engines, ISPs, wireless telecommunication, and others across a 10- to 25-year period in thirty countries. After examining these countries, this book offers comparisons and analysis across industries, regions, companies, and development levels. It calculates overall national concentration trends beyond specific media industries, the market share of individual companies in the overall national media sector, and the size and trends of transnational companies in overall global media." (Publisher description)
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"The first book in Why We Post, a book series that investigates the findings of nine anthropologists who each spent 15 months living in communities across the world, including Brazil, Chile, China, England, India, Italy, Trinidad and Turkey. This book offers a comparative analysis summarising the re
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sults of the research and exploring the impact of social media on politics and gender, education and commerce. What is the result of the increased emphasis on visual communication? Are we becoming more individual or more social? Why is public social media so conservative? Why does equality online fail to shift inequality offline? How did memes become the moral police of the internet? Supported by an introduction to the project’s academic framework and theoretical terms that help to account for the findings, the book argues that the only way to appreciate and understand something as intimate and ubiquitous as social media is to be immersed in the lives of the people who post. Only then can we discover how people all around the world have already transformed social media in such unexpected ways and assess the consequences." (Back cover)
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"This book presents an ethnographic study of social media in Mardin, a medium-sized town located in the Kurdish region of Turkey. The town is inhabited mainly by Sunni Muslim Arabs and Kurds, and has been transformed in recent years by urbanisation, neoliberalism and political events. Elisabetta Cos
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ta uses her 15 months of ethnographic research to explain why public facing social media is more conservative than offline life. Yet, at the same time, social media has opened up unprecedented possibilities for private communications between genders and in relationships among young people. Costa reveals new worlds of intimacy, love and romance. She also discovers that, when viewed from the perspective of people's everyday lives, political participation on social media looks very different to how it is portrayed in studies of political postings separated from their original complex, and highly socialised, context." (Publisher description)
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"Internet freedom has declined for the sixth consecutive year, with more governments than ever before targeting social media and communication apps as a means of halting the rapid dissemination of information, particularly during antigovernment protests. Public-facing social media platforms like Fac
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ebook and Twitter have been subject to growing censorship for several years, but in a new trend, governments increasingly target messaging and voice communication apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. These services are able to spread information and connect users quickly and securely, making it more difficult for authorities to control the information landscape or conduct surveillance. The increased controls show the importance of social media and online communication for advancing political freedom and social justice. It is no coincidence that the tools at the center of the current crackdown have been widely used to hold governments accountable and facilitate uncensored conversations." (Page 1)
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"The 45 country reports gathered here illustrate the link between the internet and economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs). Some of the topics will be familiar to information and communications technology for development (ICT4D) activists: the right to health, education and culture; the socioec
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onomic empowerment of women using the internet; the inclusion of rural and indigenous communities in the information society; and the use of ICT to combat the marginalisation of local languages. Others deal with relatively new areas of exploration, such as using 3D printing technology to preserve cultural heritage, creating participatory community networks to capture an “inventory of things” that enables socioeconomic rights, crowdfunding rights, or the negative impact of algorithms on calculating social benefits. Workers’ rights receive some attention, as does the use of the internet during natural disasters. Ten thematic reports frame the country reports. These deal both with overarching concerns when it comes to ESCRs and the internet – such as institutional frameworks and policy considerations – as well as more specific issues that impact on our rights: the legal justification for online education resources, the plight of migrant domestic workers, the use of digital databases to protect traditional knowledge from biopiracy, digital archiving, and the impact of multilateral trade deals on the international human rights framework. The reports highlight the institutional and country-level possibilities and challenges that civil society faces in using the internet to enable ESCRs. They also suggest that in a number of instances, individuals, groups and communities are using the internet to enact their socioeconomic and cultural rights in the face of disinterest, inaction or censure by the state." (Back cover)
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"Documentary film is proving to be a particularly complex tool for the Kurdish social and political existence, as Kurds lack the official tools of history-writing and cultural preservation that are categorically associated with the capacities of a state. By delving into Kurdish documentary films as
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products of complex societal, political, and historical processes, the articles in the volume highlight the intersections of media production, film text, and audience reception, and expand on vibrant debates in the field of film and media studies through situated case studies." (Publisher description)
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"This year we have evidence of the growth of distributed (offsite) news consumption, a sharpening move to mobile and we can reveal the full extent of ad-blocking worldwide. These three trends in combination are putting further severe pressure on the business models of both traditional publishers and
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new digital-born players – as well as changing the way in which news is packaged and distributed." (Overview & key findings)
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