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The Unfreedom Monitor: Kyrgyzstan Country Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2023), 24 pp.

"[...] The research has revealed that the incumbent Kyrgyz government is actively suppressing dissent by engaging in information manipulation, passing restrictive laws and attacking free media and investigative journalism. The Kyrgyz government has introduced new laws to regulate online activity, an ... d is proposing additional legislation on foreign agents to control and to limit the activity of NGOs and foreign media, and on mass media to gain greater control over bloggers and social media accounts with more than 5,000 followers. The government has been using the “Law on Protection from False Information,” also known as the fake news law, to silence its critics. This has included shutting down the website of Azattyk, a foreign-funded media outlet critical of the state, and detaining and censoring individuals who share or repost information critical of the government on social media. Similarly, investigative reporters in Kyrgyzstan have had to deal with multiple accusations, various attacks, or legal action taken against them. One of them, Temirov Bolot, was forced to leave Kyrgyzstan and move to Russia in November 2022. Furthermore, the research has examined how the Kyrgyz leadership is exploiting social media platforms to launch influence campaigns and boost the president’s popularity. Pages and groups supportive of Zhaparov on various social media platforms, including Instagram, Telegram, Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp, have emerged with the aim of garnering backing for the president during critical moments, and are run by individuals associated with his informal network, while receiving funding from unknown pro-president groups or individuals. The support pages promote the current regime’s decisions and policies by creating pro-regime content (usually videos) that is disseminated through multiple social media platforms, while also commenting on contentious news items published by critical media channels. These videos are directed towards under-educated Kyrgyz-speaking people who tend to trust unverified sources, conveying unconfirmed and intentionally exaggerated information. Overall, the situation with media freedom and freedom of opinion in Kyrgyzstan is worsening and these developments are worrying because the country has been a champion of democratic reforms in the region since 1991." (Analysis and conclusion, page 21) more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Cameroon Country Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2023), 22 pp.

"This research indicates that the government criminalises free speech by using a vague and broad definition of fake news, and clamps down on dissent and criticism, and that journalists who criticise the government are seen as enemies of the state — as in the case of the jailing of Kingsley Fomunyu ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Hungary Country Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2023), 32 pp.

"Incidents that illustrate how digital authoritarianism works in Hungary can be grouped into three categories: gaining control over critical digital infrastructure, silencing and intimidation of dissenting voices, and the use of law to undermine people’s rights. The report demonstrates how these d ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Observatory Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2023), 62 pp.

"Authoritarian practices are not strictly limited to authoritarian states; they are employed by regimes that span the political spectrum. The research approach argues for expanding the understanding of key authoritarian strategies to include persuasion alongside coercion and cooptation, which are id ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Venezuela Country Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2023), 23 pp.

"With the crackdown on radio, TV, and newspapers since 2007, the Venezuelan population is largely dependent on digital spaces: social media is generally the main source of information across the country, and digital media has taken over other types of press and completely changed the media ecosystem ... more

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Putins Armee der Trolle: Der Informationskrieg des Kreml gegen die demokratische Welt

Jessikka Aro

Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb), Sonderausg. (2023), 397 pp.

"Im Ringen um die globale Deutungshoheit setzt die russische Regierung seit Jahren auf die Verbreitung von Desinformation. Die finnische Journalistin Jessikka Aro hat nicht nur derartige Propagandataktiken aufgedeckt, sie wurde auch selbst zur Zielscheibe orchestrierter Drohungen durch vom Kreml unt ... more

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Why Does the Kremlin's Propaganda Remain Effective in Wartime?

Fyodor Krasheninnikov

Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) (2022), 10 pp.

"This paper will outline the technologies and mechanisms of Putin's information machine, how it operates during the war and the obstacles to anti-war propaganda among Russians. At the very end, we will offer some recommendations for confronting Putin's information machine at war, both of a general n ... more

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Turkey’s Communicative Authoritarianism

Burçe Çelik

Global Media and Communication, volume 16, issue 1 (2022), pp. 102-120

"The majority of current political communication studies focus on discursive dimensions of communications and disregard how communications partake in the governing of populations through economic, material and institutional practices. By focusing on Turkey’s case, here I move beyond this approach ... more

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Russian Disinformation Efforts on Social Media

Elina Treyger, Joe Cheravitch, Raphael S. Cohen

Santa Monica: RAND Corporation (2022), xviii, 202 pp.

"We sought to better understand Russia's disinformation on social media and generate recommendations to better meet and counter this evolving threat. We relied on an analysis of Russian military literature, investigative efforts, official reports, academic and policy literature, media reporting, and ... more

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Digital Journalism in China

Shixin Ivy Zhang (ed.)

London: Routledge (2022), xiii, 120 pp.

"This volume explores the implications of digital media technologies for journalists’ professional practice, news users’ consumption and engagement with news, as well as the shifting institutional, organizational and financial structures of news media. Drawing on case studies and quantitative an ... more

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Trapped in a Web: The Exploitation of Personal Data in Hungary’s 2022 Elections

Human Rights Watch (2022), 94 pp.

"On April 3, 2022, Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party won a fourth term in national elections, cementing its dominance with a two-thirds majority that will allow it to continue traveling what critics of the party and many others would describe as the path of centralizing power and rolling back democrat ... more

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The Evolution in the Taliban’s Media Strategy

Weeda Mehran

Program on Extremism George Washington University (2022), 8 pp.

"In the mid-1990s, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan for the first time. They banned photography, TV, music, and all forms of entertainment. Soon after, the Taliban banned the internet in early 2001, and then-Foreign Minister Mawlavi Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil famously stated, “We want to establ ... more

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How Big Data Can Bolster Autocratic Legitimacy (Via the Rhetoric of Safety and Convenience)

Prithvi Subramani Iyer

Tokyo: Toda Peace Institute (2022), 14 pp.

"This Policy Brief examines the different ways in which big data collection serves autocratic agendas by hiding the oppressive potential of heightened surveillance through promises of enhanced safety, convenience, and modernisation. Political actors with autocratic agendas can package their governan ... more

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Russian Social Network VK Gains Carte Blanche Following the Closure of Instagram and Facebook in the Country

Daria Zakharova

Russia Analytical Digest, issue 280 (2022), pp. 20-21

"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 ... more

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Content Moderation in autoritären Staaten: Wie soziale Medien zu Komplizen autoritärer Herrscher zu werden drohen

Paula Köhler, Daniel Voelsen

Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) (2022), 8 pp.

"Täglich gibt es Berichte darüber, wie private Betreiber sozialer Medien sich problematischen Vorgaben autoritärer Herrscher beugen. Ob in Thailand, Kasachstan oder Russland, immer wieder werden als Teil von Content Moderation (CM) gezielt Inhalte entfernt oder Konten gelöscht, weil Regierungen ... more

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A battle of two pandemics: Coronavirus and digital authoritarianism in the Arab World

Sahar Khamis

In: Cyber War & Cyber Peace: Digital Conflict in the Middle East

Eliza Campbell, Michael Sexton (eds.)

London; New York: Tauris (2022), pp. 161-178

"This chapter explores the current wave of coronavirus-related digital crackdowns in the Arab region, which are unfolding in multiple forms, and analyzes its causes, contexts, and consequences. It explores why and how the stifling of media freedom and freedom of speech online in the Arab region has ... more

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Medienkooperationen mit chinesischen (Staats-)Medien: Ein Handbuch für Journalistinnen, Journalisten und Medienhäuser
Key Guidance

Reporter ohne Grenzen (2022), 24 pp.

"Chinas Streben nach weltweiter medialer Dominanz und Diskursmacht ist eine konkrete Gefahr für demokratische Länder. Wenn sich Demokratien dem nicht widersetzen, werden chinesische Bürgerinnen und Bürger jegliche Hoffnung auf Pressefreiheit im eigenen Land verlieren und der Journalismus, wie wi ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Russia Country Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2022), 28 pp.

"The internet gained centrality as a space of public opinion and political activity that became important for the Russian state to co-opt and control as part of the broader push for control of political elites and public perceptions as Putin and his ruling party pushed to eliminate any functioning o ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Turkey Country Report

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2022), 27 pp.

"Since its ascent to power twenty years ago, the ruling AKP has tightened the screws on all forms of freedom of expression, both online and offline. It has introduced draconian laws, imposed internet restrictions, blocked content, and has arrested and intimidated critics on an unprecedented level. I ... more

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The Unfreedom Monitor: Sudan Country Report

Khattab Hamad

Amsterdam: Global Voices Advox (2022), 25 pp.

"There is a clear digital divide in Sudan as the number of internet users is a very low part of the population. Despite the high contribution of the telecommunication field to the GDP, the Sudanese authorities are not using this contribution to enhance and develop the ICT field to fill the gap of di ... more

Medienkooperationen mit chinesischen (Staats-)Medien: Ein Handbuch für Journalistinnen, Journalisten und Medienhäuser Key Guidance

Medienkooperationen mit chinesischen (Staats-)Medien: Ein Handbuch für Journalistinnen, Journalisten und Medienhäuser
Key Guidance