Tag Archives: Africa

Digital Media Mash Up Highlights

January 13, 2012   Cathie Glover   No comments

Weekly highlights from the world of digital media. Sign up here for the full version of CIMA’s weekly Digital Media Mash Up for a comprehensive list of resources on digital media.

IRAQ: A Strange Animal
Deadlines and death threats. The U.S. troops are leaving, but the journalists are staying. In a short doc special for the Daily Beast, filmmaker Richard Pendry reveals the new techniques — more John LeCarre than J-school — reporters have devised to get the story in Iraq.

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Google to Twitter: You Asked Us Not to Index Tweets
It wasn’t until late Tuesday night that Google responded to Twitter’s comments about the search engine’s announcement that it will start incorporating Google+ information into its search results. (Washington Post, 1/11)

Who Loses in the War between Google and Twitter? Users
In case you missed it, Google has been taking a beating in some quarters over the addition of Google+ content to search, something the search giant argues is beneficial for users, but critics say is an unfair use of the company’s market dominance. Twitter is one of those complaining that Google is promoting its own social network, but Google says it is just obeying Twitter’s request to not index its content, and that Twitter is the one who backed out of a deal between the two. The reality is that both sides are being disingenuous, and the real issue is about control over social content — and users of both services are the ones who wind up losing in the end. (GigaOM, 1/11)

Media Memo: Google Just Upped the Ante on Being Social
There are plenty of things to be concerned about when it comes to Google’s new “personalized search” features, including the risk that the search giant is waving a red flag in front of antitrust regulators by throwing its weight around. But for media companies, one of the key facts about this change is that it makes a social-media strategy even more imperative. In some ways, as Jeff Sonderman of the Poynter Institute points out in a blog post, Google has just made social connections and links the new search-engine optimization strategy, whether you like it or not. If you ignore that message, be prepared to see your content suffer. (GigaOM, 1/12)

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Wired for Repression
Bloomberg’s series “Wired for Repression” reveals how Western companies provide surveillance systems to authoritarian countries that claim some of the world’s worst human rights records including Iran, Syria, Bahrain and Tunisia. (Bloomberg)

Islamic Republic of Iran: Computer Crimes Law
The 2011 Computer Crimes Law of the Islamic Republic of Iran flagrantly violates international human rights law and is an affront to freedom of expression principles. Extensive legal reform, including the repeal of the Computer Crimes Law, is urgently required to protect the right to freedom of expression in Iran. (Article 19, December 2011)

Real Time Charitable Giving
Charitable donations from mobile phones have grown more common in recent years. Two thirds (64%) of American adults now use text messaging, and 9% have texted a charitable donation from their mobile phone. And these text donors are emerging as a new cohort of charitable givers. The first-ever, in-depth study on mobile donors—which analyzed the “Text to Haiti” campaign after the 2010 earthquake—finds that these contributions were often spur-of-the-moment decisions that spread virally through friend networks. (Pew Internet, January 2012)

GUINEA: Africa Media Barometer for Guinea
The first homegrown analysis of the media landscape in Africa series. (Fesmedia, December 2011)

———————————————————————————————————————————————Global Censorship Update – January 2012


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CIMA Weekly Digital Roundup

December 16, 2011   Cathie Glover   No comments

Highlights from the world of digital media. Sign up here for the full version of CIMA’s weekly Digital Media Mash Up.

China Cracks Down on Social Media Use

China has been in the news for its refocused efforts at censoring its citizens. Last week, Chinese authorities shut down 200 microblogs, claiming they contained porn or vulgar content. This week began with the arrest of a pair of citizens who were accused of spreading rumors online.  This came as a top Chinese government official urged authorities to be more forceful in the way they manage the Web and the city of Beijing government said that users have three months to register with their real names or face legal consequences.

It’s working. The Financial Times reported that heavy users of Sina Weibo felt that the microblogs had become less vibrant because of new controls over the site. Perhaps the state will pick up the slack, however.  Government-related microblogs increased threefold over 2011.

Other China-related digital news:

China Protest in Guangdong’s Wukan ‘Vanishes from Web’

China Needs Common Ground Online

Chinese Cyber-Attacks ‘Pinned to Users’

INFOGRAPHIC: How Big is China’s Social Media and Digital Market?

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Digital Media in the Middle East

The Role Of New Media And Communication Technologies In Arab Transitions – Analysis
The pace of events in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in early 2011 led analysts to identify Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as an important catalyst of the Arab spring. Looking at the role of these tools in processes of political change, we distinguish two phases: firstly, their role in bringing down old regimes, and secondly, their significance in consolidating transitions to democracy once the revolutionary dust has settled. Whilst it is clear that ICTs made an essential contribution to the overthrow of Mubarak and Ben Ali, experiences from other parts of the world show that their role in sustaining the democratic transition process in the longer run is less certain. (Eurasia Review, 12/10)

How the Arab Spring Moved Citizen Journalists to Use Maps, HTML5 Instead of Text
Covering countries in political turmoil has opened the door to innovation: activists and citizen journalists are using maps, HTML5 and video to report the events of the Arab Spring instead of relying only on text. (Mashable, 12/13)

SYRIA: Syria’s Information Revolution Brings News Out of the Dark
Fadi Aho describes his childhood in northeast Syria in the 1980s as “living in a fortress within a fortress.” In Qamishle, near the borders of Turkey and Iraq, he was separated not only by the 650 kilometers between him and the political and cultural capital Damascus, but also by the tightly controlled police state, which he said had prevented him from knowing much about either home or abroad. “There was no real source of news,” he recalls. “No one talked about anything or knew anything.” (The Daily Star, 12/15)

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Digital Africa

AFRICA: Mobile Technology in Africa: A Comparative View between Kenya and South Africa
A recent GSMA report stated that Africa is currently the second biggest market for mobile in the world. This means that there is huge innovation potential in terms of mobile technology application development, as well as creating solutions (think access to information, ability to transfer money, creating jobs) for the more than 649 million handset owners on the continent. (MIH Media Lab, 12/12)

LIBERIA: AFP Features Ushahidi Liberia
VIDEO: Agence France-Presse visited Ushahidi Liberia’s office during the recent presidential elections to learn how the electoral process, and conflict across the country, was being mapped by partner organizations on the ground. (Ushahidi, 12/12)

SOMALIA: Somalia’s Insurgents Embrace Twitter as a Weapon
Somalia’s powerful Islamist insurgents, the Shabab, best known for chopping off hands and starving their own people, just opened a Twitter account, and in the past week they have been writing up a storm, bragging about recent attacks and taunting their enemies. (New York Times, 12/14)

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Digital Eurasia

ARMENIA: More Online Diplomacy
Following the recent Question & Answer session on Twitter with the UK’s new Ambassador to Azerbaijan, his outgoing counterpart in neighboring Armenia, Charles Lonsdale, is due to answer questions on Facebook on Friday 16th December. (Global Voices, 12/14)

KYRGYZSTAN: Crowdsourcing Tapped in Initiative to Add Kyrgyz to Google Translate
Kyrgyz speakers recruited on Facebook and other social networking sites have submitted nearly 30,000 pairs of texts in Kyrgyz and English in an effort aimed at getting Google to add Kyrgyz to the list of languages available on its automatic translation site. (Net Prophet, 12/14)

RUSSIA: After Mass Protests In Russia, Is The Kremlin Using Facebook To Ease The Pressure?
After posting a message on Facebook ordering officials to look into reports of possible violations at polling stations during the December 4 vote, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s page has been overwhelmed by negative comments. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 12/12)

UZBEKISTAN: An Uzbek PM on Facebook; A Funny Fantasy or for Real?
Have you gotten a “Friend Request” from O’zbekiston Respublikasi Bosh vaziri, Prime Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev on Facebook yet? His personal page has 1,818 Friends, explains him to be a 100% Conservative believer in Islam, interested in Women and Married, inspired by various Westerners politicians and so on. There are even some professional photos, both uploaded and tagged, on his profile. But is this all real? (NewEurasia, 12/7)

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Research

SERBIA: Mapping Digital Media: Serbia
The Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs. (Open Society Foundations, December 2011)

Towards a Cyber Security Strategy for Global Civil Society?
Cyberspace is at a watershed moment. Technological transformations have brought about an architectonic change in the communications ecosystem. Cyber crime has exploded to the point of becoming more than a nuisance, but a national security concern. There is a seriously escalating arms race in cyberspace as governments scale up capabilities in their armed forces to fight and win wars in this domain. Telecommunication companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and other private sector actors now actively police the internet. Pressures to regulate the global network of information and communications have never been greater. (Global Information Society Watch, December 2011)

mHealth: New Horizons for Health through Mobile Technologies
Based on the findings of the second global survey on eHealth, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched this report on the state of mobile technology usage in the field of health. It was written with support from the mHealth Alliance, the United Nations Foundation, and the Vodafone Foundation. The survey enquired about national trends in the adoption of mHealth in 14 specific areas ranging from the use of mobile technologies for health call centres and treatment compliance to mobile telemedicine and community mobilisation for health promotion. Member States were also asked to assess the most significant barriers to mHealth adoption for their country situation, as well as the practice of evaluating existing programmes. (Communication Initiative Network, 12/15)

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Global Censorship Update

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