"The mapping shows that the funding opportunities for media development and journalism support in the Asia region are concentrated in six countries of South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) and four countries of Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia and the
...
Philippines), with large grants predominantly packaged as broader civil society-focused development interventions on democracy and human rights that also include provisions for media support. The funding situation was disrupted by the U.S. funding freeze on foreign aid initiated in January 2025 and will continue to affect the media development landscape in Asia for the foreseeable future. Core institutional assistance to independent news media organisations and local media development organisations remains limited, even though new mechanisms during 2020-24 such as the Google News Initiative’s Innovation Challenge and the Media Development Investment Fund’s Amplify Asia programme have provided significant but highly competitive opportunities for local independent news media in the region. Media development aid transparency is still limited and many notable funders do not provide disaggregated data on funding awards, thereby limiting the potential data and impact of such mapping exercises." (Conclusions)
more
"Digital Journalism: Perspectives from South Asia is a descriptive, exploratory book on digital journalism practices and policies followed in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. It brings in-depth perspectives on content, communication, and community between communication theory and the
...
digital news ecosystem rooted in a South Asia. What makes this book interesting to read is the integration of forms with manifestations on ground intersecting identities and ideologies. The book thoroughly investigates changes in the regulatory framework, regulations, policies, and code of conduct. Various chapters in the book pursue significant and exciting topics on the changing spaces of news production and consumption, the inter relationship between old and new media, everyday digital news usage and engagement, social media for news, revenue models for digital journalism among others. The highlight of this book is engaging debates on digital journalism practices modeled around mobile journalism, immersive storytelling, gamification, in the context of local and hyper local communities in South Asia. Since Digital Journalism draws extensively from algorithms, matrices and analytics, this book has exclusive chapters on data journalism, data visualization and big data." (Publisher description)
more
"Television has a prime role to play in the formation of discursive domains in the everyday life of South Asian publics. This book explores various television media practices, social processes, mediated political experiences and everyday cultural compositions from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan
...
and Sri Lanka. With the help of country-specific case studies, it captures a broad range of themes which foreground the publics and their real-life experiences of television in the region. The chapters in this book discuss gendered television spaces, women seeking solace from television in pandemic, the taboo in digital TV dramas, television viewership and localizing publics, changing viewership from television to OTT, news and public perception of death, redefining ‘the national’, theatrical television and post-truth television news, among other key issues." (Publisher description)
more
"By the summer of 2020, when the coronavirus had fully entered our everyday vocabulary and our lives, religious communities and places of worship around the world were already undergoing profound changes. In Asian and Asian diaspora communities, diverse cultural tropes, beliefs, and artifacts were m
...
obilized to make sense of Covid, including a repertoire of gods and demons like Coronasur, the virus depicted with the horns and fangs of a traditional Hindu demon. Various kinds of knowledge were invoked: theologies, indigenous medicines, and biomedical narratives, as well as ethical values and nationalist sentiments. CoronAsur: Asian Religions in the Covidian Age follows the documentation and analysis of the abrupt societal shifts triggered by the pandemic to understand current and future pandemic times, while revealing further avenues for research on religion that have opened up in the Covidian age. Developed in tandem with the research blog CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19, this volume is a “phygital” publication, a work grounded in empirical roots as well as digitally born communication. It comprises thirty-eight essays that examine Asian religious communities—Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist, and Christian as well as popular/folk and new religious movements, or NRMs—in terms of the changes brought on by and the ritual responses to the Covid pandemic." (Publisher description)
more
"What might feminist approaches to the protection of journalists look like, and what benefits might they bring? From national organisations to grassroots networks, our findings document women’s monumental efforts to make structural changes, tackle entrenched patterns of gender-based discrimination
...
and violence, and enhance the safety of women journalists. The initiatives showcased in these case studies are a testament to the creativity and resilience of those working on the feminist frontlines. The case studies: In 2021, ARTICLE 19 set out to make these sometimes invisible practices more visible, building on our existing programmes on the safety of women journalists worldwide. We undertook original research globally and specifically in six countries – three in Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) and three in Latin America (Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay)." (Abstract)
more
"This policy brief is an Access Now publication. It gives context about the Personal Data Protection Bill in the Parliament of Sri Lank, states the key areas of concerns in the present bill, and proposes nine (9) recommendations." (commbox)
"This strategy, prepared through a consultative process, identifies some approaches and interventions in counter speech in the context of Sri Lanka's socio-political realities. It is meant to help streamline and scale up various efforts already being pursued by different individuals or groups. The f
...
ocus is on promoting strategic thinking and strategic communication in deciding when (and if) to respond to problematic speech, and how best to do so. Investing sufficient time in thinking through these early, important steps can help make subsequent material production and dissemination activities more effective." (Executive summary)
more
"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
...
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)
more
"This document was produced by the IFJ and focuses on the following issues that the media faces in Sri Lanka: The severe economic crisis in the country poses yet another challenge to a media barely recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic; existing issues in the media industry such as poor wages and wo
...
rking conditions of media workers rapidly deteriorated; digital security threats and state authorities confiscating and accessing digital equipment belonging to journalists; female journalists at the entry level are almost equally represented in many media institutions; arrests and detention of writers, journalists, whistle-blowers and activists under charges of 'terrorism' using repressive laws; among others." (commbox)
more
"This book explores case studies across India, Kenya, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, and global, comparative settings, and asks what positive impact ICT applications (Health Information Systems, Pandemic response systems, Early Warning and Response Systems, Hospital Information System and Smartphone based Ap
...
ps) can have on today’s most pressing challenges. The authors use this lens to discuss a wide range of issues facing communities around the world, including public health and pandemic management; the mitigation of ethnic violence and violence against women; the emergence of an informal economy; and the displacement of refugees. The case studies are analyzed through a wide means-process-ends framework, which is complemented with micro-level observations of people’s experience, such as empowerment, agility and trust within communities. This interplay between the macro framework and micro concepts helps us to understand how and why digital interventions can contribute to positive outcomes, and which stories of hope may inspire other development channels." (Back cover)
more
"Using a narrative style, this book draws on stories and examples from seven South Asian countries—Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka—to highlight how communities in South Asia are building resilience to climate change. A total of 58 authors have contributed to t
...
his volume, and I am delighted that most of them are from the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE) representing all the seven South Asian countries, five of which are from the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. The 29 chapters in the book are organised under six themes: concepts and models; traditional knowledge and sustainable agriculture; technology adoption; disaster risk reduction; urban sustainability; and alternative livelihoods. These chapters highlight stories of creativity, community engagement, and locally applicable solutions. They are powerful and instructive. They offer valuable lessons for researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers." (Foreword, page xv)
more
"This report provides an overview of the innovation capacity of the Asia-Pacific region through ICT-centric innovation activity and offers an insight to how good practice can strengthen Member State capacity to integrate ICT innovation into development agendas.
Although the Asia-Pacific region has a
...
strong tradition of innovation, there is room for improvement, for example, some countries have healthy innovative ecosystems that perform well in some elements of the ecosystem but need further support in others to develop a thriving digital innovation ecosystem.
This report uses international indices to monitor the current state of innovation ecosystem performance, aspects of growth, gaps, and discrepancies. The information from these major indices has been analysed to create an ICT-centric innovation performance monitor that provides a comparative assessment of the innovation ecosystems both within and among countries in the region and a threshold for action by decision-makers.
There are many good practices in the region. Each practice presented in this report has been assessed according to three engines of growth (innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology) and the current state of the seven enablers of digital transformation. In addition, the ecosystem maturity map helps to assess stakeholder levels of engagement, for example where the first stage of the journey for entrepreneurs is entrepreneurial interest, and for the public sector it is having a vision and developing a strategy. These monitoring tools enable stakeholders to visualize the maturity of the ICT-centric innovation ecosystem and identify practices to keep, those that must be improved, and those to be replaced." (Introduction)
more
"This study attempts to contribute to literature that analyzes the role of Sri Lanka’s mainstream media as a producer and distributor of information disorder. For this purpose, a case study approach is used to evaluate reporting on Dr. Segu Siyabdeen Mohamed Shafi. The study focuses on the Sri Lan
...
kan mainstream media’s role in three parts. First, it examines the phenomenon of information disorder in a global and Sri Lankan context. The case study of media reportage on Dr. Shafi is located within this broader phenomenon. The study next presents the quantitative and qualitative findings of five weeks of monitoring primetime TV and press news. Second, it analyzes the impact of the information disorder surrounding Dr. Shafi. Finally, the study examines responses by the government, media and media regulatory bodies to the production of information disorder in this specific case." (Introduction, pages 3-4)
more
"Social media technology is having a dramatic impact on social and political dynamics around the world. The contributors to this book document and illustrate this "techtonic" shift on violent conflict and democratic processes. They present vivid examples and case studies from countries in Africa, So
...
uth and Southeast Asia, Latin America as well as Northern Ireland. Each author maps an array of peacebuilding solutions to social media threats, including coordinated action by civil society, governments and tech companies to protect human minds, relationships and institutions. Solutions presented include inoculating society with a new digital literacy agenda, designing technology for positive social impacts, and regulating technology to prohibit the worst behaviours." (Publisher description)
more