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Disinformation and Fake News

Shashi Jayakumar, Benjamin Ang, Nur Diyanah Anwar (eds.)

Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan (2021), xii, 158 pp.

"While much has been said about individual disinformation campaigns in specific countries, this book offers a panoramic view of how these campaigns are conducted, who they target, and how they are spread. By bringing together research on specific countries and international data mined from questionn ... more

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WorldCat (185)

Le récit politique chinois: Soft power, communication, influence

Olivier Arifon

Paris: L'Harmattan (2021), 145 pp.

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The COVID-19 Story: Unmasking China's Global Strategy

Louisa Lim, Julia Bergin, Johan Lidberg

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) (2021), 7 pp.

"China has used Covid to benefit its global image through the activation of existing media dissemination channels overseas and the use of new tactics such as disinformation and misinformation. China’s largescale medical diplomacy campaign has also provided propaganda wins in many developing countr ... ies, burnishing Beijing’s image as a reliable partner. Anecdotal reports indicate that Beijing has stepped up its content offerings, in particular by tailoring content including disinformation for specific countries and translating state-run messages into local languages. In some countries, China was also seen as the purveyor of the most accurate information about the new coronavirus, showing its growing influence over global narratives. For Beijing, Covid diplomacy clearly offers another means through which it can exert its influence. This research shows that countries that are recipients of China’s Covid vaccine clearly have more positive coverage of China, but it cannot draw conclusions as to the factors behind that. This strategy has largely been acceptable to global journalists, who — judging by the results of our focus groups in three separate countries — do not perceive China’s advances as a threat at a national level. Such views are in part due to the incremental nature of the changes, the clumsiness of China’s propaganda effort and the irrelevance of much of the material provided to local audiences. However, the survey does reveal that when viewed globally, there does appear to be more concern about China’s influence, in particular in the Asia Pacific region. The survey indicates that the overall impact of Beijing’s outreach is a redrawing of the global media landscape — one story at a time, one country at a time — shifting the China coverage in a more positive direction. China is using a multi-pronged approach to redraw the information landscape to benefit its own global image. In 2020, Beijing effectively shut down journalistic access to China, through visa denials and freezes, partly driven by international border closures. This had the effect of creating a vacuum in China coverage, creating a demand for stories from China, which could then be filled with statesponsored content already available through content-sharing agreements." (Conclusions, page 7) more

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Comparing Post-Socialist Media Systems: The Case of Southeast Europe

Zrinjka Peruško, Dina Vozab, Antonija Cuvalo

Routledge (2021), xvii, 301 pp.

"This book explains divergent media system trajectories in the countries in southeast Europe, and challenges the presumption that the common socialist experience critically influences a common outcome in media development after democratic transformations, by showing different remote and proximate co ... more

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Reclaiming the Public Sphere in a Global Health Crisis

Hans-Jörg Trenz, Annett Heft, Michael Vaughan, Barbara Pfetsch (eds.)

Javnost: The Public, volume 28, issue 2 (2021), pp. 111-235

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Professional Journalism and Media Literate Public: Crucial for Increasing Trust in Media

Vesna Nikodinoska

Ljubljana: South East European Network for Professionalization of Media (SEENPM) (2021), 30 pp.

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The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Journalism

Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, Xenia Zeiler (eds.)

Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge (2021), xv, 441 pp.

"The handbook is divided into five parts, each taking global developments in the field into account: Theoretical Reflections, Power and Authority Conflict, Radicalization and Populism, Dialogue and Peacebuilding, Trends. Within these sections, central issues, debates and developments are examined, i ... more

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Catalyst or Destabiliser? COVID-19 and its Impact on the Media Landscape Worldwide

Berlin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) (2021), 159 pp.

"In terms of quality of media coverage, there are various outcomes: In Asia, for example, small and independent outlets, able to provide reliable information, gained momentum, whereas citizens in the MENA-region turned to social media in search of trustworthy facts on the coronavirus. In South-Easte ... more

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Evolution of Interactive Elements in Socio-Political Talk Shows in Post-Soviet Russia

Petr Gulenko, Yulia Dolgova

Global Media and Communication, volume 17, issue 1 (2021), pp. 25-43

"The article studies the place and degree of interactivity of interactive elements in socio-political talk shows on Russian television during the period of the presidency and premiership of Vladimir Putin (2000–2017), and comprises unique material that allows us to analyse the interactive elements ... more

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Online Intimidation: Controlling the Narrative in the Balkans. Annual Digital Rights Report 2021

Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) (2021), 64 pp.

"From August 2020 until August this summer, we recorded almost 800 cases of digital rights violations in eight countries of south-eastern Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. Violations took place not just on TikTok, but also on F ... more

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I am an Estonian illustrator: Let me mark the book for you

Eva Laantee Reintamm, Ulla Saar

Estonian Children’s Literature Centre (2021), 127 pp.

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Report: Media Perception Index (MPI)

Bojan Klacar, Ivo Colovic, Emilija Orestijevic, Sladana Komatina et al.

USAID; Center for Free Elections and Democracy (2021), 76 pp.

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Ukraine Country Report. Media Literacy Sector Mapping in Georgia, Latvia, Moldova and Ukraine

Solvita Denisa-Liepniece et al.

Riga: Baltic Centre for Media Excellence (BCME) (2021), 28 pp.

"• A wide range of actors work in the media literacy field, but the lack of strategic policies and coordination creates inconsistencies and sometimes even collisions on the very definition of media literacy and approaches towards the development of media literacy. Future strategic policy documents ... have to take this into account and suggest a consistent approach among diverse actors. • Existing inconsistencies and insufficient coordination of activities should also be addressed by the donors and international organisations that have the capacity to encourage collaborations, and more active exchange of knowledge and best practices. It is also critical to elaborate and set up a mechanism for effective coordination of activities among the different media literacy actors. • Funding of media literacy projects and initiatives remains one of the biggest challenges. Ukrainian civil society organisations predominantly rely on financial support from foreign donors and international organisations. The government of Ukraine should create conditions to attract new actors that would provide financial assistance to media literacy initiatives. Suggesting incentives, including tax rebates, could stimulate businesses to get engaged in media literacy projects. • Development of media literacy policy, approaches and projects should be based on rigorous research of the audiences, both quantitative and qualitative. Both the government and donors should stimulate and support such research. NGOs and academic institutions should develop and design research projects that would help to understand the patterns of media consumption, perception of information and gaps in media literacy among Ukrainian citizens. • There is a need for a more effective monitoring and evaluation system in order to make relevant adjustments to the design of media literacy projects. This concerns both projects implemented by the NGOs and educational institutions. • Promotion of media literacy among a broad audience requires involvement of big TV channels and radio stations, local media, as well as the network of public broadcasting. While there is no consensus among different actors about the engagement of oligarch-owned media into media literacy efforts, the issue should be addressed and discussed by the key stakeholders. • As media education should be continuous, the government has to create appropriate conditions for this in the system of formal and informal education." (Conclusions, page 26) more

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How Journalists Can Address Misinformation on Telegram

Bermet Talant

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2021), 35 pp.

"As of July 2021, Telegram had 550 million active users worldwide – more than the individual user bases of Twitter, Snapchat or Discord. It is the fifth most-popular messaging app after Facebook-owned Whatsapp and Messenger, and WeChat and QQ which dominate the Chinese market [...] For this paper, ... more

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National Regulatory and Self-Regulatory Framework Against Hate Speech and Disinformation: Factsheet Serbia

Jelena Jovovic, Dubravka Valic Nedeljkovic

Ljubljana: South East European Network for Professionalization of Media (SEENPM) (2021), 26 pp.

"In the process of accession to the European Union, Serbia is harmonizing laws with the EU legislation. In this process, the majority of regulations related to the prevention of hate speech and the spread of disinformation generally meet standards or are in the process of being amended. This factshe ... more

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Trust in Institutions

Church, Communication and Culture, volume 5, issue 3 (2020), pp. 293-510

"Speaking of trust in the Catholic Church necessarily leads to talking about the management of the crisis of clerical sexual abuse by its leaders. The focus is on managing responsibility and information, with case studies by Paulina Guzik and Patrick O'Brien. The first deals with the case of Poland, ... emphasizing the need for accountability and suggesting five actions to regain trust. O'Brien offers a map of the management of abuses in the 197 dioceses of the United States, and points to transparency in communication and government as a key to regaining trust. As you will read in these pages, neither the communicator nor the communication serves to mask a negative reality. The institution must justify its existence only if it is a good for society, even if it makes mistakes. This question is approached from a theological point of view: Is it still possible to trust the Church? To answer this question, Marco Vanzini highlights the tensions that characterize and define the identity of the Church: such as her divine origin and her human composition, or the inner coexistence of holiness and sin, among others. On the other hand, Gabriel Magalhães, taking a cue from passages of sacred and universal literature, invites reflection on the contrast between human and divine justice, highlighting the excessive and almost ‘scandalous’ nature of divine mercy. Faced with the reality of a certain human solidarity in evil, he explores the need for collective guilt and forgiveness as a common horizon that allows trust to be recovered at the social level. It is precisely ‘the Church communicator’ on whom the article by Professors Gil and Gili puts the focus. His role as spokesman for an institution and bearer of a message gives him great responsibility. The credibility that he demands and needs, the authors maintain, depends to a great extent on his human and professional virtues. Creative fidelity, reliable transmission of an ideal and embodiment of the values he communicates are expected from him. Internal communication in organizations, with the transformation of the channels through which trust travels – more horizontal and collaborative than vertical and hierarchical (Botsman Citation2017) – represents a challenge for those who govern the organization. Receiving trust from the leadership in turn generates confidence in the workers. To put these ‘spirals of trust’ into action, Gara and La Porte analyze one of the most important moments in the relationship between an employee and an organization: recruitment. Trust, they say, must be considered one of the great strategic tools of the Human Resources department. In the legal field, Moreno and Díaz show with a case study the ‘legal defense of corporate reputation’, where law and communication work in a complementary way. In recent years, especially with the digital revolution, new fields of interaction have opened up with their own followers, as well as new spaces for vulnerability (e.g. privacy, personal data, copyright…). In this context of the Internet, the authors present the crisis of reputation of an NGO linked to the Church and show how law and communication are two strategic tools of the organizations destined to collaborate. Looking at trust management in the public sector is a necessary source of inspiration for an institution like the Church. María José Canel conducts the academic interview with Steven Van de Walle on trust in public administration. He deals with a wide range of topics: from the ways of measuring trust and its typologies, to the influence of emotions on the inspiration of trust. The interview offers some comparative considerations between some other institutions, such as NGOs, and the Church. It also includes a final reflection on the new scenario created by COVID-19, which is testing citizens’ trust in the state and the health system. In the public sphere, the management of vulnerability takes on a particular nuance in the case of high reliability organizations, entities that by their nature must avoid errors at all costs (Lekka Citation2011). Sanders takes the criteria of the HROs as her model to measure the trust that the British government has earned (or lost) with its public communication during the pandemic generated by the COVID-19, a situation that has tested the strength of social relations – especially trust toward public services – and that will merit another special issue of this journal." (Editorial: Contents of the special issue, pages 295-296) more

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Digital News Report 2020

Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Anne Schulz, Simge Andi, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2020), 111 pp.

"The bulk of this report is based on data collected by a survey of more than 80,000 people in 40 markets and reflects media usage in January/February just before the coronavirus hit many of these countries. But the key trends that we document here, including changes in how people access news, low tr ... more

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Countering Russian & Chinese Influence Activities: Examining Democratic Vulnerabilities & Building Resiliency

Cyrus Newlin, Heather A. Conley, Amy Searight, Tim Kostelancik, Rachel Ellehuus, Jeffrey Mankoff, Devin Stewart

Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) (2020), v, 31 pp.

"With their heavily censored and restricted civil societies at home, China and Russia exploit the asymmetry of democratic systems by targeting open information environments, freedom of expression, participatory civic discourse, and pluralistic and fluid politics. Democracies have unique vulnerabilit ... more

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Media Incubator for the Western Balkans Pilot Project: Evaluation Report

Ivana Kahrmann

Free Press Unlimited (2020), 67 pp.

"FPU’s implementation approach emphasizes the value of forming true partnerships with local implementers to co-develop project plans and build capacity. This approach led to FPU being perceived by its partners as a refreshingly different type of partner that takes a novel approach in its project i ... mplementation. By helping its partners to better understand their audiences and to identify common niches that outlets could fill, FPU motivated its local partners to embrace innovation and change even in such a short time frame. The Media Incubator’s focus on increasing media outlets interaction with their audiences and encouraging citizen engagement is unique and fills an important gap not addressed by the interventions of other donors and international and local NGOs in Serbia and Kosovo. As such, FPU should attempt to build on this pilot with a larger-scale project. The project was highly relevant from the needs’ perspective, even though each of the partners had different capacity levels, profiles and potential target audience sizes. Local partners also used a variety of platforms to communicate to their target groups, thus comprising a good testing sample for the MIWB pilot project through which a variety of lessons learned could be drawn. Once a framework was agreed and put into place with each partner, FPU encouraged partners to innovate and experiment as much as they deemed necessary throughout project implementation in order to best attain their intended project goals. However, there proved to be both strengths and weaknesses in employing this “flexible” project implementation approach, because not all partners perceived it in the same way. Some partners perceived this flexibility as freedom to significantly change project activities and target audiences which, ultimately, reduced the level of effectiveness and impact. There were clearly different levels of progress made by the different partners, with Local Press Association having made the most progress; Kosovo 2.0 having made more limited progress and Novi Sad School of Journalism making the least visible overall progress. There was also a significant difference in quality of performance and results delivered by partners which had external consultant throughout the project implementation process and the partners which did not. There were no negative project results registered, but some risks and unforeseen challenges (COVID-19 pandemic) negatively affected the overall anticipated achievements of MIWB project results. The partnerships formed with a media association and individual media outlets had larger target audiences and attained more visible and tangible results than the partnership that was made with an educational institution. The transformative impact on individual and organisational capacity became apparent through anecdotal evidence and information gathered through interviews for this evaluation." (Executive summary, pages 4-5) more

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Universalism in Public Service Media

Philip Savage, Mercedes Medina, Gregory Ferrell Lowe (eds.)

Nordicom (2020), 226 pp.