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Media and Information Literacy Education in Asia: Exploration of Policies and Practices in Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines

Masato Kajimoto, Misako Ito, Ming-Kuok Lim (eds.)

Bangkok: UNESCO Office Bangkok and Regional Bureau for Education in Asia and the Pacific (2020), 75 pp.

Global Information Society Watch 2020. Technology, the Environment and a Sustainable World: Responses from the Global South
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Alan Finlay et al.

Association for Progressive Communications (APC);Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) (2020), 268 pp.

"The world is facing an unprecedented climate and environmental emergency. Scientists have identified human activity as primarily responsible for the climate crisis, which together with rampant environmental pollution, and the unbridled activities of the extractive and agricultural industries, pose ... more

How We Worked from Home: Findings from the WFH Experience in Response to the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis in Malaysia

UNDP (2020), 41 pp.

"The findings from the study represent a mixed bag. There is much to celebrate—improved quality of life, enhanced productivity owing to factors such as reduced commute time, and, at scale, the evident reduction of the pollution load on the planet. Further, it sheds light on the possibility that gi ... more

Hope for Humanity: Spiritual Immunity in a Pandemicised World

Sherman Kuek (ed.)

Christian Institute for Theological Engagement (CHRISTE) (2020), 102 pp.

"The authors contributing to this book do not mean to provide solutions to the pandemic. We mean only to offer resources, based on our studies and experiences, to help our readers to better cope with situations resulting from this crisis, and to assure you that even in the darkest moments of humanit ... more

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Digital News Report 2020

Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Anne Schulz, Simge Andi, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2020), 111 pp.

"The bulk of this report is based on data collected by a survey of more than 80,000 people in 40 markets and reflects media usage in January/February just before the coronavirus hit many of these countries. But the key trends that we document here, including changes in how people access news, low tr ... more

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Postcolonial Hangups in Southeast Asian Cinema: Poetics of Space, Sound, and Stability

Gerald Sim

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (2020), 224 pp.

"Postcolonial Hangups in Southeast Asian Cinema explores a geopolitically situated set of cultures negotiating unique relationships to colonial history. These particular Singaporean, Malaysian, and Indonesian identities are discussed through a variety of commercial films, art cinema, and experimenta ... more

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Press Freedom in Contemporary Asia
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Tina Burrett, Jeff Kingston (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2020), xii, 402 pp.

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Mediatized Religion in Asia: Studies on Digital Media and Religion

Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, Xenia Zeiler (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2019), xv, 231 pp.

"This edited volume discusses mediatized religion in Asia, examining the intensity and variety of constructions and processes related to digital media and religion in Asia today. Individual chapters present case studies from various regions and religious traditions in Asia, critically discussing the ... more

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Digital News Report 2019
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Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2019), 153 pp.

"Despite the efforts of the news industry, we find only a small increase in the numbers paying for any online news – whether by subscription, membership, or donation. Growth is limited to a handful of countries mainly in the Nordic region (Norway 34%, Sweden 27%) while the number paying in the US ... (16%) remains stable after a big jump in 2017. • Even in countries with higher levels of payment, the vast majority only have ONE online subscription – suggesting that ‘winner takes all’ dynamics are likely to be important. One encouraging development though is that most payments are now ‘ongoing’, rather than one-offs. In some countries, subscription fatigue may also be setting in, with the majority preferring to spend their limited budget on entertainment (Netflix/Spotify) rather than news. With many seeing news as a ‘chore’, publishers may struggle to substantially increase the market for high-priced ‘single title’ subscriptions. As more publishers launch pay models, over two-thirds (70%) of our sample in Norway and half (50%) in the United States now come across one or more barriers each week when trying to read online news. In many countries, people are spending less time with Facebook and more time with WhatsApp and Instagram than this time last year. Few users are abandoning Facebook entirely, though, and it remains by far the most important social network for news. Social communication around news is becoming more private as messaging apps continue to grow everywhere. WhatsApp has become a primary network for discussing and sharing news in non-Western countries like Brazil (53%) Malaysia (50%), and South Africa (49%). People in these countries are also far more likely than in the West to be part of large WhatsApp groups with people they don’t know – a trend that reflects how messaging applications can be used to easily share information at scale, potentially encouraging the spread of misinformation. Public and private Facebook Groups discussing news and politics have become popular in Turkey (29%) and Brazil (22%) but are much less used in Western countries such as Canada (7%) or Australia (7%). Concern about misinformation and disinformation remains high despite efforts by platforms and publishers to build public confidence. In Brazil 85% agree with a statement that they are worried about what is real and fake on the internet." (Summary, page 9) more

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Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication

Scott Slovic, Swarnalatha Rangarajan, Vidya Sarveswaran (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge;Earthscan (2019), xxi, 412 pp.

"Ecocriticism and environmental communication studies have for many years co-existed as parallel disciplines, occasionally crossing paths but typically operating in separate academic spheres. These fields are now rapidly converging, and this handbook aims to reinforce the common concerns and methodo ... more

Trust in the Media

Ipsos (2019), 48 pp.

"People across 27 countries are divided on whether they trust traditional media (magazines and newspapers, TV and radio). These sources are equally trusted as they are distrusted. However, levels of trust in media sources vary greatly at the country level. Trust in traditional media is perceived to ... more

Harmful Disinformation in Southeast Asia: “Negative Campaigning”, “Information Operations” and “Racist Propaganda” – Three Forms of Manipulative Political Communication in Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand

Melanie Radue

Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia, volume 18, issue 2 (2019), pp. 68-89

"When comparing media freedom in Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand, so-called “fake news” appears as threats to a deliberative (online) public sphere in these three diverse contexts. However, “racist propaganda”, “information operations” and “negative campaigning” might be more accurat ... more

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Monetising the Dividual Self: The Emergence of the Lifestyle Blog and Influencers in Malaysia

Julian Hopkins

New York; Oxford: Berghahn (2019), xiii, 221 pp.

"Combining theoretical and empirical discussions with shorter thick description case studies, this book offers an anthropological exploration of the emergence in Malaysia of lifestyle bloggers – precursors to current social media microcelebrities and influencers. It tracks the transformation of pe ... more

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Spiritual News: Reporting Religion Around the World
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Yoel Cohen (ed.)

New York et al.: Peter Lang (2018), vii, 418 pp.

"The media's coverage of religion is an important question, given the central role which news media play in ensuring that people are up-to-date with religion news developments. The book examines it in different countries. After an introductory section looking at trends in religion news in print, on- ... more

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Mindful Communication for Sustainable Development: Perspectives from Asia
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Kalinga Seneviratne (ed.)

New Delhi et al.: Sage (2018), xiv, 353 pp.

"The model of journalism we practice in Asia is an adversarial one driven by conflict reporting, a model we have borrowed from the West. This book is an outcome of a project implemented by the Faculty of Communication Arts of Chulalongkorn University and funded by the International Program for the D ... more

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Communication, Culture and Ecology: Rethinking Sustainable Development in Asia

Kiran Prasad (ed.)

Singapore: Springer (2018), ix, 199 pp.

"This book offers comprehensive insights into the cultural and ecological values that influence sustainable development across Asia, addressing the cultural, religious and philosophical moorings of development through participatory and grassroots communication approaches. It presents a range of cont ... more

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Journalisme pour la paix et résolution de conflit dans les médias, tome 2;Peace journalism and conflict resolution in the media;Periodismo de paz y resolución de conflictos en medios

Andi Faisal Bakti, Pierre Gigùere, Yves Théorêt (eds.)

Paris: Les Editions de l'Immatériel;ORBICOM (2018), 296 pp.

Case Studies on Paywall Implementation: Gazeta Wyborzca and Malaysiakini

Marius Dragomir, Dumitrita Holdis, Ian M. Cook

New York; Prague: Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) (2018), 27 pp.

"When Wyborcza.pl was launched back in 2008, besides its quality, one of the best things about it was that its content was freely accessible. Once the paywall was up in 2012, the publisher had to find a way to present this content differently. According to Bregula, this was the most important task w ... more

Online Supplement to Working Paper 2018.1. Challenging Truth and Trust: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation

Samantha Bradshaw, Philip N. Howard

Oxford: University of Oxford, Oxford Internet Institute;Computational Propaganda Research Project (2018), 81 pp.

"These are the background case notes complied for MEMO 2018.1: Challenging Truth and Trust: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation. For details on the methods behind this content analysis please see the methodology section of the report. This document contains data from over 500 s ... more