Uruguay’s Media Reform Success Story
On the eve of his appointment as the new Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Uruguayan lawyer, journalist and director of CAinfo, Edison Lanza, visited CIMA to discuss the success of Uruguay’s media reform efforts in a region plagued by li... |
Soft Power on the Air: The News with a Russian T...
When the Malaysia Airlines plane crashed in eastern Ukraine last week, the Russian state media began to spread obvious disinformation and anti-Ukraine propaganda. With fabricated witnesses and unlikely hypotheses, consumers of Russian media received a disturbingly false picture of this international... |
Myopia and Misallocation in Media Development
Guest post by Richard Winfield of the International Senior Lawyers Project Two years ago, my friends at CIMA revealed that of all federal foreign aid dollars, only 4/10s of one percent is aimed at assisting the development of free and independent media. The CIMA study reported that only $222 million... |
Event: Documenting Democracy and Extremism in Pa...
Political cartoons grace the pages of newspapers throughout the world often as fillers, deemed unimportant, when in reality, these images have the power to say more than any text based article. Political cartoonists play an essential role in conveying the true environment of what is happening in a c... |
Treading Softly: Soft Censorship in Russia
Only a few brave souls will continue to produce objective, high-quality news when they have many incentives not to do so. Independent news sources in Russia face increasingly higher risks of litigation, verbal attacks by government news sources, or shutdown. Journalists must practice self-censorship... |
Is the Private Sector the Key to Reversing Inter...
Guest post by John Sinden of American University SIS International Relations Online Turkey, heralded as a modern secular republic, has been increasingly plagued by political polarization, authoritarian policies, and massive protests. During times of protest, Turkish citizens are finding themselves ... |
Blogging for a Future Democracy: The Story of An...
Guest post by Pham Doan Trang On a late spring day in Hanoi, officers from the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security launched a sudden raid on the home and business of well-known blogger, Nguyen Huu Vinh, better known as Anh Ba Sam (Vietnamese for “Brother Gossiper”). Vinh and his assistant Ng... |
The Last Frontier: Regulating Independent Media ...
Russian dissidents have used the Internet to organize protests and to speak out against corrupt officials and unjust practices. Putin has termed the Internet a “CIA project” and recognizes the power it gives to his opponents. The Kremlin is taking calculated steps to decrease the reach of indepe... |
The Domestic Scene of Russian Media: TV is King
The Russian government has depended heavily on the state media to mobilize necessary domestic support in the wake of its seizure of the Crimean peninsula earlier this year. With the number of independent media sources in Russia shrinking and the state-owned broadcasting networks expanding their reac... |
Citizen Participation and Technology: An NDI Stu...
After the Arab Spring, technology became the panacea for democratic development issues. Many programs focus on using technology to engage citizens and to spread information, but how effective are these tools at promoting democracy? Representatives from the National Democratic Institute (NDI) visited... |