"This ground-breaking three-year global study on gender-based online violence against women journalists represents collaborative research covering 15 countries. It is the most geographically, linguistically, and ethnically diverse scoping of the crisis conducted up until late 2022. The research draw
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s on: the inputs of nearly 1,100 survey participants and interviewees; 2 big data case studies examining 2.5 million social media posts directed at Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa (The Philippines) and multi award-winning investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr (UK); 15 detailed individual country case studies. The Chilling illuminates the evolving challenges faced by women journalists dealing with prolific and/or sustained online violence around the world. It calls out the victim-blaming and slut-shaming that perpetuates sexist and misogynistic responses to offline violence against women in the online environment, where patriarchal norms are being aggressively reinforced. It also clearly demonstrates that the incidence and impacts of gender-based online violence are worse at the intersection of misogyny and other forms of discrimination, such as racism, religious bigotry, antisemitism, homophobia and transphobia. Further, it identifies political actors who leverage misogyny and anti-news media narratives in their attacks as top perpetrators of online violence against women journalists, while the main vectors are social media platforms - most notably Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube." (Exexutive summary)
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"Drawing on an original dataset of survey responses collected in the summer of 2022 across four countries - Brazil, India, the UK, and the US - they examine the relationship between trust in news and how people think about news on digital platforms, especially Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, and YouTube
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, some of the most widely used platforms around the world. What they find is somewhat nuanced; how people think about information on platforms varies considerably. It depends on the platform, it depends on the country, it depends on the audiences within those countries, and it depends on the kinds of news those audiences are encountering in these varying spaces." (Executive Summary and Key Findings, page 3)
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"The article analyzes the QAnon phenomenon and the anti-vaxxer movement of COVID-19 deniers as typological manifestations of conspiratorial “alternative rationality.” A number of hypotheses have been proposed: during a pandemic and a parallel infodemic, conspiracy thinking quickly becomes transb
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oundary; all conspiracy theories share certain features; they are discursive (according to Foucault) and underlain by the question of power; growing public distrust of the government is one of the fundamental reasons for the popularity of conspiracy theories. The article proves that the transboundary nature of information contributes to the global spread of conspiracy theories, but they cannot be universalized because they have local specifics in each country (region)." (Abstract)
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"What’s working to generate revenue and sustain journalism collaborations, beyond philanthropy? To answer this question, the Center for Cooperative Media, The Lenfest Institute for Journalism and the Solutions Journalism Network conducted a survey, interviewed collaborative project managers, funde
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rs and ecosystem support staff from around the country, and ultimately identified eight innovative examples of collaborative revenue experiments in progress to share with you. These experiments range from new reader revenue streams to newsletter sponsorships, monetizing events and sharing back-office services." (About this report)
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"An international survey reveals that Internet users' trust on the Internet has dropped significantly since 2019. That is among the key findings of a 20-country Ipsos survey released by The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany. Only six in ten (63%) Internet users on average across the 20 countries sai
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d they trust the Internet. That is down 11 points since a similar survey was conducted in 2019. The singular exception is Japan, which showed a 7 percentage-point increase in trust. But Japan is the rare exception, as the findings reveal that Internet trust shrunk by double-digits in India (-10 points), Kenya (-11), Sweden (-10), Brazil (-18), Canada (-14), the United States (-12), and Poland (-26)." (Publisher description)
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"In this report, we use online survey data collected in August and September 2022 to document and understand how people in eight countries - Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Pakistan, the UK, and the USA - access news and information about climate change. A large majority of our respondents ac
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ross these countries recognise that almost all climate scientists believe that climate change is caused by humans and are worried about the impact, but above and beyond basic understanding of the scientific consensus and recognition of the climate crisis, it is important to understand people's attitudes towards climate change news, including who they trust as sources of information, how climate news makes them feel, and how well they think news media are performing covering it. Finally, we take some preliminary steps in understanding how each of these are correlated with climate change beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours." (Executive summary)
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"Over the past decade, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has employed unorthodox foreign policy tools with increasing frequency, intensity, and success. Perhaps the most effective of these tactics has been the use of information warfare designed to affect decision-making in countries Russia considers to be
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its adversaries. In the target countries, these measures aim to destabilize civil society, erode trust in democratic institutions, and foster uncertainty among allies. If the United States and Europe hope to defend their economies, institutions, and identities, an immediate and effective policy response is required. To date, however, the United States and many of its European partners have struggled to develop policies that combat and counter Russian information warfare. The articles gathered here examine the tools that Russia has used against Ukraine, Poland, the United States, and the European Union, as well as the strategies that these countries have employed to combat Russian information warfare. The joint article by the four authors concisely summarizes the findings and proposes policy options by means of which the democratic countries of the West can address the challenges information warfare poses. The final article looks at Russia, examining controversies around the political role of the aggregator Yandex.news in prioritizing media news." (Introduction, page 2)
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"This cross-cultural comparison study between China and the US aimed to examine the short video-sharing social media platform, TikTok/Douyin, particularly its use in the two countries. Because China and the US have some evident differences in cultural values, they are ideal for cross-cultural compar
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ison between Western and Asian countries. Other than knowing the platform itself, how people use it, and their influencer video use, the study further explored how cultural values influenced user behaviors on TikTok/Douyin. Two survey studies were conducted in each country. The questionnaire asked the same question but in two language versions Chinese and English. Questions asked about participants' demographic information, TikTok/Douyin use preference, influencer preference, and cultural values. In general, Chinese participants had a more extended time experience of using Douyin, and they spent more time on Douyin every day. Participants had a different preference for influencers' expertise on each platform. US participants favored music influencers while Chinese participants favored food influencers. Moreover, Chinese participants were more likely to be persuaded by influencers to make purchase decisions than US participants. Besides, Chinese participants claimed a higher individualism score and a lower power distance score than US participants, which contradicts with Hofstede's original cultural scores for each country." (Abstract)
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"The volume analyses the ambivalent relationship between human rights and modern technologies since 1945. Tools of suppression or agents of emancipation? Modern technologies have become a major subject of human rights policy. Surveillance technology, the military use of drones, and the possibilities
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of Big Data analysis pose new challenges for the international human rights movement. At the same time, these techniques offer new ways to document and denounce violations of human rights and to promote mass mobilization. The volume analyses this ambivalent relationship between human rights and technological change in a historical perspective. Showing how the spread of modern technologies both challenged and served human rights policies, the volume focuses on four key areas of technological change: 1) development politics, infrastructures and large technical systems, 2) population politics and demographical knowledge, 3) media cultures and communication technologies, and 4) the societal impact of computerization. By sketching these debates since 1945, the volume adds a historical perspective to current debates about the political and ethical challenges of new technological developments." (Publisher description)
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"This book is a fascinating look at how the United States waged the Cold War through the international broadcasting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Mark G. Pomar served in senior positions at VOA and RFE/RL from 1982 to 1993, during which time the Reagan and B
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ush administrations made VOA and RFE/RL an important part of their foreign policy. VOA is America's "national voice," broadcasting in more than forty languages, and is charged with explaining U.S. government policies and telling America's story with the aim of gaining the respect and goodwill of its target audience. During the Cold War, the VOA Russian Service broadcast twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. RFE/RL is a private corporation, funded until 1971 by the CIA and afterward through open congressional appropriations. It broadcast in more than twenty languages of Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia and functioned as a "home service" located abroad. Its Russian Service broadcast news, feature programming, and op-eds that would have been part of daily political discourse if Russia had free media. Pomar takes readers inside the two radio stations to show how the broadcasts were conceived and developed and the impact they had on international broadcasting, U.S.-Soviet relations, Russian political and cultural history, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Pomar provides nuanced analysis of the broadcasts and sheds light on the multifaceted role the radios played during the Cold War, ranging from instruments of U.S. Cold War policy to repositories of independent Russian culture, literature, philosophy, religion, and the arts. The volume breaks new ground as Pomar integrates his analysis of Cold War radio programming with the long-term aims of U.S. foreign policy, illuminating the role of radio in the peaceful end of the Cold War." (Publisher description)
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"Global Sceptical Publics is the first major study of the significance of different media for the (re)production of non-religious publics and publicity. While much work has documented how religious subjectivities are shaped by media, until now the crucial role of diverse media for producing and part
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icipating in religion-sceptical publics and debates has remained under-researched. With some chapters focusing on locations hitherto barely considered by scholarship on non-religion, the book places in comparative perspective how atheists, secularists and humanists engage with media – as means of communication and forming non-religious publics, but also on occasion as something to be resisted. Its conceptually rich interdisciplinary chapters thereby contribute important new insights to the growing field of non-religion studies and to scholarship on media and materiality more generally." (uclpress.co.uk)
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"An international line-up of authors first discuss communication practices, strategies, and media uses by NGOs, providing insights into the specifics of NGO programs for social change goals and reveal particular sets of tactics NGOs commonly employ. The book then presents a set of case studies of NG
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O organizing from all over the world—ranging from Sudan via Brazil to China – to illustrate the particular contexts that make NGO advocacy necessary, while also highlighting successful initiatives to illuminate the important spaces NGOs occupy in civil society." (Publisher description)
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"The eighth edition of The Media Handbook continues to provide a practical introduction to the media planning and buying processes. Starting with the broader context in which media planning occurs, including a basic understanding of competitive spending and target audiences, the book takes readers t
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hrough the fundamentals of each media channel, leading to the creation of a media plan. Throughout, concepts and calculations are clearly explained. This new edition reflects the changes in how people consume media today with: a new chapter on how audiences are defined and created reorganization of the media channel chapters to cover planning and buying together; expanded coverage of digital formats in all channels; added discussion of measurement; completely updated data and examples." (Publisher description)
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"This book offers a critical and systematic survey of the study of religion and digital media. It covers religious engagement with a wide range of digital media forms and highlights examples of new media engagement in all five of the major world religions. From mobile apps and video games to virtual
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reality and social media, the book provides a detailed review of major topics including ritual, identity, community, authority, and embodiment, includes a series of engaging case studies to illustrate and elucidate the thematic explorations, considers the theoretical, ethical, and theological issues raised [...] Thoroughly updated throughout with new case studies and in-depth analysis of recent scholarship and developments, this new edition provides a comprehensive overview of this fast-paced, constantly developing, and fascinating field." (Publisher description)
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"Why co-create—and why now? The many coauthors, drawing on a remarkable array of professional and personal experience, focus on the radical, sustained practices of co-creating media within communities and with social movements. They explore the urgent need for co-creation across disciplines and or
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ganization, and the latest methods for collaborating with nonhuman systems in biology and technology. The idea of “collective intelligence” is not new, and has been applied to such disparate phenomena as decision making by consensus and hived insects. Collective wisdom goes further. With conceptual explanation and practical examples, this book shows that co-creation only becomes wise when it is grounded in equity and justice." (Publisher description)
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"Trust in the news has fallen in almost half the countries in our survey, and risen in just seven, partly reversing the gains made at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic. On average, around four in ten of our total sample (42%) say they trust most news most of the time. Finland remains the countr
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y with the highest levels of overall trust (69%), while news trust in the USA has fallen by a further three percentage points and remains the lowest (26%) in our survey.
• Consumption of traditional media, such as TV and print, declined further in the last year in almost all markets (pre-Ukraine invasion), with online and social consumption not making up the gap. While the majority remain very engaged, others are turning away from the news media and in some cases disconnecting from news altogether. Interest in news has fallen sharply across markets, from 63% in 2017 to 51% in 2022.
• Meanwhile, the proportion of news consumers who say they avoid news, often or sometimes, has increased sharply across countries. This type of selective avoidance has doubled in both Brazil (54%) and the UK (46%) over the last five years, with many respondents saying news has a negative effect on their mood. A significant proportion of younger and less educated people say they avoid news because it can be hard to follow or understand – suggesting that the news media could do much more to simplify language and better explain or contextualise complex stories.
• In the five countries we surveyed after the war in Ukraine had begun, we find that television news is relied on most heavily – with countries closest to the fighting, such as Germany and Poland, seeing the biggest increases in consumption. Selective news avoidance has, if anything, increased further – likely due to the difficult and depressing nature of the coverage.
• Global concerns about false and misleading information remain stable this year, ranging from 72% in Kenya and Nigeria to just 32% in Germany and 31% in Austria. People say they have seen more false information about Coronavirus than about politics in most countries, but the situation is reversed in Turkey, Kenya, and the Philippines, amongst others." (Summary, page 10)
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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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"Iranian Feminism and Transnational Ethics in Media Discourse explores how U.S. news and social media discourse hierarchies overshadow transnational feminist politics and reinforce femonationalist narratives, thereby unpacking how protesters' voices on the ground are obscured in favor of elite sourc
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es who reaffirm U.S Islamophobia." (Publisher description)
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