commbox Central Asia & Caucasus

Violent Extremism in Central Asia 2018: A Preliminary Survey of Groups, Digital Dimensions and State Responses

Ottawa; Bishkek: SecDev;Civil Initiative on Internet Policy (CIIP) (2018), 45 pp.

"Over the past decade, radicalisation to violent extremism (VE) has become a matter of pressing public and political concern in Central Asia. Between 2000 and 5000 Central Asians responded to calls to join jihad in Syria and Afghanistan, most of them radicalised while foreign workers in the labour c ... 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

Media Sustainability Index 2018: The Development of Sustainable Independent Media in Europe and Eurasia

Linda Trail (ed.)

Washington, DC: IREX (2018), xx, 314 pp.

"Macedonia and Montenegro saw the largest overall score increases this year, in comparison to 2017. The improvement across all objectives this year for Macedonia’s media sector can be attributed to political changes that prioritize media in democratic reforms. Although Montenegro’s score improve ... more

Global Information Society Watch 2018: Community Networks

Association for Progressive Communications (APC);International Development Research Centre (IDRC) (2018), 259 pp.

"The 43 country reports included in this year’s Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) capture the different experiences and approaches in setting up community networks across the globe. They show that key ideas, such as participatory governance systems, community ownership and skills transfe ... more

Pressefreiheit: Nicht überall erhältlich

iz3w, issue 365 (2018), pp. 13-36

"Die iz3w erscheint in einem Land mit einer »guten Situation« für Presseerzeugnisse (globaler Index der Reporter ohne Grenzen). In vielen Ländern ist die Lage infolge von Repressionen »sehr ernst«, zum Beispiel in China, in Iran oder Sudan. Auch in Ländern zwischen diesen Extremen kann freier ... more

Monitoring Media Pluralism in Europe: Application of the Media Pluralism Monitor 2017 in the European Union, FYROM, Serbia & Turkey. 2018 Policy Report

Elda Brogi, Iva Nenadic, Pier Luigi Parcu, Mario Viola de Azevedo Cunha

European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies;Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) (2018), 86 pp.

"2017 was marred by the assassination, in Malta, of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, an event which represented the darkest hour for media freedom and media pluralism in the European Union since the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre in France. This crime has profoundly shaken Europe an ... more

Anti-Western Propaganda

Tamar Kintsurashvili

Tblisi: Media Development Foundation (MDF);UN Association of Georgia;USAID (2018), 38 pp.

"As many as 1,967 anti-Western comments were detected in the 17 monitored media outlets in 2017. In contrast to 2016 and 2015, when negative messages targeted human identity and rights, in 2017, a dominant topic was the foreign policy with the messages aimed at increasing the polarization on the for ... eign policy orientation of the country. This change in the strategic communication of pro-Kremlin actors shows that “loss of identity” was a rather tactical message that prepared the ground, while the messaging aimed at demonizing Georgia’s strategic partners (USA, NATO, EU) is of strategic nature. The United States of America accounted for the highest share of negative comments (25.9%), up by almost three times as compared to the previous year, followed by NATO (18,4%) and the West (14,1%). Compared to 2016, messages against the European Union have almost doubled (13.4%) whereas the comments about the loss of identity and human rights in anti-Western context have almost halved (12.9%). Comments against nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and the US philanthropist George Soros have trebled, as compared to 2016, and comprised 7.3%; this increase can be explained by a stepped up activity of far-right groups and their campaign to smear Open Society Georgia Foundation. Yet another change as compared to the previous years were clearer messages showcasing Russia as an alternative to the West and idealizing the Soviet system (7.2%). Comments against Great Britain (0,8%) have been mainly detected in two pro-Kremlin online media outlets – Georgia and the World, and Sakinformi. Alike previous years, the main source of anti-Western messages was media (827), followed by politicians (463), society (411), civil organizations (230) and the clergy (37). The structure of the Kremlin narrative in the Georgian discourse consists of three stages and aims at: 1. Creating threats; 2. Sowing distrust towards partners and Western institutions; 3. Ingraining a belief that Russia is the only option in fighting against the threats and that authoritative/Soviet-style governance is necessary. Four major threats were emphasized by pro-Kremlin actors: threat of war; threat of loss of territories; threat of bio subversion; threat of loss of identity." (Key findings, page 7) more

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Social Media in Turkey as a Space for Political Battles: AKTrolls and other Politically Motivated Trolling

Erkan Saka

Middle East Critique, volume 27, issue 2 (2018), pp. 161-177

"This article focuses on AKTrolls, defined as pro-government political trolls in Turkey, while attempting to draw implications about political trolling in the country in general. It examines their methods and effects, and it interrogates whether (and how) Turkish authorities have attempted to shape ... more

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Speech and Society in Turbulent Times: Freedom of Expression in Comparative Perspective

Monroe Price, Nicole Stremlau (eds.)

Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press (2018), xix, 334 pp.

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Social Media in Turkey as a Space for Political Battles: AK Trolls and Other Politically Motivated Trolling

Erkan Saka

Middle East Critique, volume 27, issue 2 (2018), pp. 161-177

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Khashoggi case and the issue of human rights protection of journalists

Migel Apriliyanto, Made Maharta Yasa

Kertha Patrika, volume 40, issue 3 (2018), pp. 131-140

"Jamal Khashoggi is known for his very sharp critics to Saudi Arabian Governments. He was murdered at the Consulate facility of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul-Turkey. The case has become a concern of international society, put the questions of freedom of expression and press as well the security of journa ... more

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Theorizing Digital Divides

Massimo Ragnedda, Glenn W. Muschert (eds.)

London: Routledge (2018), vi, 211 pp.

"Although discussion of the digital divide is a relatively new phenomenon, social inequality is a deeply entrenched part of our current social world and is now reproduced in the digital sphere. Such inequalities have been described in multiple traditions of social thought and theoretical approaches. ... more

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"You Can’t See Them, But They’re Always There": Censorship and Freedom of the Media in Uzbekistan

Steve Swerdlow et al.

Human Rights Watch (2018), 32 pp.

"For more than two decades, Uzbekistan has been a country with severe restrictions on free speech and media and some of the longest-imprisoned journalists in the world. There are now tentative signs of change in Central Asia’s most populous country. Opportunities for more open debate and independe ... more

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Online Activism in Politically Restricted Central Asia: A Comparative Review of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan

Bahtiyar Kurambayev

In: Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change

Jan Servaes (ed.)

Singapore: Springer (2018), pp. 961-976

"This comparative study examined the Internet’s role and wider social media in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, three Central Asian countries in the democratization process. Specifically, this work aims to discuss how the Internet and social media are allowing Internet users wider opportuni ... more

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Digital News Report 2018

Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, David A. L. Levy, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2018), 143 pp.

"The use of social media for news has started to fall in a number of key markets after years of continuous growth. Usage is down six percentage points in the United States, and is also down in the UK and France. Almost all of this is due to a specific decline in the discovery, posting, and sharing o ... more

Culture and Crisis Communication: Transboundary Cases from Nonwestern Perspectives

Amiso M. George, Kwamena Kwansah-Aidoo (eds.)

New York: Wiley (2017), xxix, 376 pp.

"Culture and Crisis Communication presents an examination of how politics, culture, religion, and other social issues affect crisis communication and management in nonwestern countries. From intense human tragedy to the follies of the rich, the chapters examine how companies, organizations, news out ... more

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Media, Diaspora and Conflict
Top Insights

Ola Ogunyemi (ed.)

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (2017), xxiii, 240 pp.

"This edited collection argues that the connective and orientation roles ascribed to diasporic media overlook the wider roles they perform in reporting intractable conflicts in the Homeland. Considering the impacts of conflict on migration in the past decades, it is important to understand the capac ... more

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Reporting the Middle East: The Practice of News in the Twenty-First Century
Top Insights

Zahera Harb (ed.)

London; New York: Tauris (2017), xii, 226 pp.