"Many mediators and peacebuilders are interested in using information about actors and narratives on social media to inform programming. Our starting assumption is that users of this toolkit do not have the resources to either hire a specialist social media analysis firm or to pay for commercial soc
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ial media analysis tools. Therefore, this toolkit is a practical how-to guide for mediators and peacebuilders who want to conduct their own social media analysis, offering an overview of what is possible, a practical guide to a handful of technology tools, and suggestions on analysis methods. The toolkit is also a why-to guide, offering ideas on what programming social media analysis can inform and when it is worth investing resources in this kind of analysis. The toolkit is structured in three sections:
Section 1 outlines what it is possible to do with social media data. It covers how to select the social media platforms on which to conduct analysis and explains what data it is possible to gather from each platform. It also offers three main use cases for social media analysis that can support the work of peacebuilders and mediators, explaining the kind of insights we can glean from social media data, and how they connect to relevant programming.
Section 2 outlines in detail how to work with Facebook and Twitter data. It includes how to come up with search parameters, how to decide whether to download data or view it in a search tool, how to access data from Facebook and Twitter, and how to organise data that has been collected. It also looks at analysis methods to find patterns in this data that can help peacebuilders and mediators understand what is the general narrative (netnography or narrative analysis), what people are talking about most and how (quantitative analysis), what is the tone and emotion of a narrative (sentiment analysis), and who is talking about what with whom (network analysis).
Section 3 offers case studies of social media analysis conducted to support peacebuilding or mediation programs. The case studies connect to the previous sections, illustrating how the methods and tools outlined are used in practice in our fields." (Introduction)
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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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"Drawing on the author’s and other media trainers’ experiences over a 25-year period, this book provides important insights into tailoring training programs to specific regions and countries. Case studies describe training in radio and television management, broadcasting, and media sustainabilit
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y, and are contextualized against the cultural and historical backgrounds of each region." (Publisher description)
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"The Strong Cities Network (SCN) conducted an online investigation into the scale and scope of Russian-language stigmatisation and abuse of Central Asian labour migrants. Through a mixed-methods approach that combined natural-language processing technology with manual qualitative research, the SCN w
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as able to identify key narratives and terminology used to dehumanise and ostracise Central Asians. This paper presents the SCN's findings and provides a series of recommendations for addressing anti-migrant hateful and polarising content online." (Executive summary)
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"The contributions of this special issue are grouped in three sections: context, theoretical framework and empirical research. The first articles set up two important dimensions of the context we are living in that have to be definitely improved if we want to take advantage of the positive sides of
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Covid-19’s effects to bring about real social relations and a good communication of science [...] The following articles deal with three important core components needed to set up a theoretical framework, from which this issue intends to start a serious scholarly conversation around the lessons learned from the Covid’s impact on social communication: (1) how a person knows and shapes his/her judgment in practical affairs when s/he is critically involved in them, (2) why and how science has surrendered to technology in the last decades, (3) and how practical knowledge is socially shared [...] The context and theoretical framework having been set up, the issue enters into the empirical part of our research: several papers examine the news coverage of the Church dealing with the pandemic in a good sample of newspapers around the world, one paper looks at how social media have engaged in the response to the pandemic by the Catholic Church, and another at how local churches have managed the challenges of the pandemic [...] The analysis of worldwide media coverage aims to find out how the mainstream press has portrayed the role of Christian churches and other religious bodies in dealing with the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. All researchers have broadly shared a common qualitative methodology: looking for the frames and inducing the topoi (common places) underlying the resulting frames of the examination of news and editorial items." (Pages 2-4)
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"The Global Handbook of Media Accountability brings together leading scholars to 'de-Westernize' the academic debate on media accountability and discuss different models of media self-regulation and newsroom transparency around the globe. With examination of the status quo of media accountability in
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forty-four countries worldwide, it offers a theoretically informed, comparative analysis of accountability regimes of different varieties. As such, it constitutes the first interdisciplinary academic framework comparing structures of media accountability across all continents and represents an invaluable basis for further research and policy-making. It will therefore appeal to scholars and students of media studies and journalism, mass communication, sociology and political science, as well as policy-makers and practitioners." (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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"What are root causes of trust and distrust in media in different political contexts? How is media use shifted from one source to another with the change of political culture? What factors shape media perception across cultures and across political regimes? Are there commonalities or are they differ
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ent? Given the common instrumentalization of media in conflict environments and the growing ubiquity of political media capture, we may also ask, whether unfettered trust in media is normatively desirable under any circumstances. Put differently: Isn’t distrust a healthy response to propaganda and media manipulation? How is the concept of media literacy connected to trust or media scepticism? Do we need to be more sceptical rather than gullible? Against the backdrop of these (and other) questions, the Forum Media and Development (fome) dedicated its 2021 annual symposium to the question of trust in media, namely the question how media perception is shaped differently by different political contexts and media structures across the globe. Fome is the German platform for international media development initiatives (fome.info), a network that includes 24 organizations working towards strengthening free and independent media in developing and transitioning countries. The 2021 fome-symposium ran under the heading “Believe it or Not! Enquiries about TRUST in media (assistance)” and was organized by MiCT. The proceedings of the conference can be found online at https://fome.info/symposium-2021-documentation. Finally, this themed issue of the Global Media Journal – German Edition is curated as an extension of the conference and an effort to follow up upon some of the most pressing questions deriving from it." (Editorial)
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"As the Russian invasion of Ukraine erupted, the country’s authorities declared a war on Western social media as well. In March, such social media giants as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were blocked in Russia, giving their local competitor—named VK—a virtual monopoly in the country. Millio
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ns of Russian Facebook and Instagram users have flocked to this social network. Though VK may seem similar to Facebook, it is drastically different due to its proximity to the Russian government. The article examines the core peculiarities of VK and the risks its users may face, especially, in the context of war." (Abstract)
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"The Russia-Ukraine war’s ramifications for Vietnam are felt beyond the economic and diplomatic realms. It has in fact become an online hotbed of conflicting and confounding narratives that demonstrate different worldviews and political leanings among Vietnamese netizens. An examination of 28 Face
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book pages/groups active in trending pro-Russia narratives finds an ‘echo chamber’ that is on a constant lookout for Russian, Western and even Chinese news sources that peddle and amplify pro-Russia and anti-Western voices. The most salient pro-Russia narratives in Vietnam’s cyberspace revolve around justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, echoing anti-America and anti-imperialist worldviews, and lionising Russia while demonising Ukraine. These online groups have likely carved out a niche for the conservative segment of the Vietnamese state to shape a propaganda environment where there is space for pro-Russia and anti-Russia narratives, so that pro-Ukraine sentiments will not become predominant in the public discourse. Pro-Russia narratives in Vietnam’s cyberspace are the result of cross-pollination between sentimental attachment since the Soviet era, psychological bias towards Russia embedded in Vietnam’s education and propaganda system, and the overriding imperative to preserve the Vietnamese state’s political and ideological interests." (Executive summary)
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"Since gaining independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine has lurched along an unsteady path toward accountable democratic governance. Yet despite the country's volatile politics and the escalating conflict with Russia leading up to the full.scale invasion of Ukraine in
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February 2022, Ukrainian reformers and their allies have made significant progress in reshaping the country's media climate." (Page 1)
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"International assistance actors have played an important role in supporting media reforms in Ukraine. Their long-term, continuous efforts planted the seeds for groundbreaking media environment changes during Ukraine’s democratic transition. International donors’ sustained engagement in Ukraine
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laid the groundwork for the major transitions, primarily by facilitating the emergence and development of the vibrant and powerful local civil society. Notwithstanding the prolonged periods of “lost hope” and stagnation, which might have discouraged some other activists from policy development and advocacy, Ukrainian CSMOs have managed to pursue their strategic priorities even under challenging circumstances and quickly consolidated their efforts at a crucial moment in Ukraine’s modern history — right in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity, in the spring of 2014. Ukrainian CSOs were ready and courageous enough to step in when the state and its institutions were extremely weakened and to assume their roles in certain fields. Both the CSMOs and donors jumped at the opportunity presented by the revolution: several innovative media reforms, which had been drafted and redrafted over many years, were adopted in a matter of few weeks in the spring of 2014. That success would have been impossible without the preparatory work done during the preceding years." (Conclusion, page 20)
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"Wiktor Chrul ist Anfang März aus Russland geflohen, ein potentieller Job hat ihn auch für einige Tage nach Aachen geführt. Der Universitätsprofessor und Journalist sieht die Gefahr, dass er in seiner Heimat hart bestraft wird – weil er die Wahrheit sagt. Wo Wiktor Chrul in den nächsten Tagen
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sein wird, weiß er nicht. Vielleicht Bochum, vielleicht Luxemburg, vielleicht auch Vilnius. Der Universitätsprofessor sucht nach einem Job, in Europa, in den USA, Hauptsache nicht in Russland. Als Spezialist auf dem Gebiet Medienethik kann und will er schließlich nicht verschweigen, was wirklich in der Ukraine geschieht. Doch genau das müsste er, wollte er weiterhin sicher in Russland leben. Deshalb hat er das Land Anfang März verlassen. Auf seiner ungewissen Reise hat er auch einige Tage in Aachen verbracht. Multimedia-Volontärin Svenja Stühmeier hat sich mit ihm zum Tag der Pressefreiheit über die Situation der Medien in Russland unterhalten." (Einführung)
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"This series of articles produced by local journalists follows the Hungarian money invested in media abroad, and also offers an insight into the influence exercised by the Hungarian government." (Introduction)
"This Media Landscape Guide provides a snapshot of the current media in Ukraine, including the historical background to the media, media trends and freedoms, languages in the different media, media access and barriers for different groups in the community, audiences and their preferences. It conside
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rs why people use the different types of media and what content they consume. The guide looks at the impact of fake news and misinformation and the role of the media in addressing these. It also considers the role the media is playing in facilitating two-way communication in Ukraine. Finally, it gives an overview of each media sector, including digital and social media, radio, television, print and other traditional forms of mass communication." (Introduction)
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"[...] in recent years – particularly since the 2014 Ukraine conflict – Russia’s use of media to leverage broader influence campaigns has gained notoriety, both domestically and internationally. Russia’s state-owned media outlets are central to the Kremlin’s strategy and are drivers of its
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soft power in Africa. Services like Sputnik and RT (formerly Russia Today) find resonance among African editors. Building on anti-imperialist credentials and positioning itself as an alternative news source, state-owned media is able to provide a more balanced image of Russia in Africa, while combatting Western narratives. The Kremlin has successfully adapted to the digital age, broadening its operations to include online news sites in several languages. African news websites are, in turn, republishing content from Kremlin-sponsored media on a large scale. The narratives are amplified far beyond their original source, the main message being that Moscow is ready to engage with Africa on mutually beneficial terms. Influence-building using social media is another key aspect of Russia’s media strategy in Africa. It is used to sow doubt and build trust in alternative news sources. And, Russian networks are increasingly working with local actors in African countries to better disguise their activities. Interestingly, much of the content being shared on social media by Russian networks is not ‘fake news’, but in most cases is hyper-partisan and polarising." (Abstract)
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"The media situation in Belarus has never been easy. With Aliaksandr Lukashenka being elected president of the country for the first time in 1994, the necessary reforms to provide media freedom have never materialised. Instead, over the years various laws have lessened the rights of independent jour
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nalists and imposed limits on both traditional and electronic media. Following the August 2020 presidential election, which ignited a brutal crackdown against the democratic opposition, the situation has worsened. Harassment, a hijacking, and politically motivated jail terms, both short and long, intimidate Belarusians who want to exchange ideas, report wrongdoing or fight for freedom of expression and freedom for the country. In January 2022, the Belarusian Association of Journalists confirmed the presence of at least 32 journalists in Belarusian jails. On the positive side, new electronic media cannot be banned effectively and absolutely. While the regime slowly expands its presence on the internet, Belarusians trust independent media more and use it more eagerly. However, society’s distancing of itself from traditional state-controlled media is increasingly met with an angry reaction from the state apparatus, which in turn further tightens related laws. The European Union, and the European Parliament in particular, actively support independent media and civil society in Belarus, and the Council of the EU and the Parliament both address the challenges to media freedom in the country. Financial help is also provided to Belarus and was even increased at the end of 2021, with priority areas of support including ‘systematically repressed’ independent media." (Summary)
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"This briefing document provides an overview of key developments in digital authoritarianism in 11 countries and explains the theoretical framework and methodology behind The Unfreedom Monitor project. The document also provides a basis for expanding this research to other countries to deepen our un
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derstanding of digital authoritarianism globally, as well as its crucial implications for the future. The preliminary sample of 11 countries was chosen to reflect a range of factors: system of government, approach to human rights (including rankings in indexes), and corporate relations. The countries are: Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Morocco, Myanmar, Russia, Sudan, Tanzania, Turkey, and Zimbabwe." (Publisher description)
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"The Russian state-funded international broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today) has attracted much attention as a purveyor of Russian propaganda. To date, most studies of RT have focused on its broadcast, website, and social media content, with little research on its audiences. Through a data-driven
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application of network science and other computational methods, we address this gap to provide insight into the demographics and interests of RT’s Twitter followers, as well as how they engage with RT. Building upon recent studies of Russian state-sponsored media, we report three main results. First, we find that most of RT’s Twitter followers only very rarely engage with its content and tend to be exposed to RT’s content alongside other mainstream news channels. This indicates that RT is not a central part of their online news media environment. Second, using probabilistic computational methods, we show that followers of RT are slightly more likely to be older and male than average Twitter users, and they are far more likely to be bots. Third, we identify thirty-five distinct audience segments, which vary in terms of their nationality, languages, and interests. This audience segmentation reveals the considerable heterogeneity of RT’s Twitter followers. Accordingly, we conclude that generalizations about RT’s audience based on analyses of RT’s media content, or on vocal minorities among its wider audiences, are unhelpful and limit our understanding of RT and its appeal to international audiences." (Abstract)
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"Since it first began substantial implementation in 2018, the MDP has enabled UNESCO’s Communication and Information Sector to immediately respond to emerging priorities and needs affecting freedom of expression, the safety of journalists, access to information, and community media. Before its cre
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ation, UNESCO Officers in the field were limited to regular programme funds, and few extrabudgetary projects limited in time and scope, therefore, at times, were unable to provide the urgent support requested by local stakeholders or respond to any emerging need. Through its inherent flexibility, the MDP has over the past four years been able to provide core funding for initiatives, or co-fund projects, as well as maintain momentum when field offices experienced delays in receiving funds between two extrabudgetary projects. It has also enabled UNESCO to immediately respond to urgent needs and not miss windows of opportunity. During the reporting period, this flexibility has allowed the MDP to respond to crises as they appeared, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Beirut port explosions, the 2021 crisis in Gaza, or political events in Afghanistan and Myanmar. The MDP’s response to emergencies has been critical and, maintaining this approach, it will continue to respond to urgent needs in countries such as Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Ukraine in the coming biennium." (Summary, page 6)
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