Indonesia Plays Host to World Press Freedom Day ...
In observation of World Press Freedom Day, CIMA and the International Forum for Democratic Studies will host a discussion with six journalists from around the world on Wednesday, May 3, at 4:00pm. Please find more details and RSVP for the event here.Last year, the official celebration of World Press... |
Cameroon’s Internet Shutdown Cannot Stifle Dis...
By Elie Smith The Internet has been turned off for more than 80 days in parts of the West African country of Cameroon. And while this has garnered international condemnation, what most onlookers have not yet fully grasped is how the shutdown is related to long-simmering regional tensions within the ... |
Tunisia’s Path Toward a More Diverse and T...
By Alex Norris In October 2016, the Tunisian High Authority of Audiovisual Communication (HAICA) made headlines when it suspended the popular television program Andi Mankolek (“I have something to tell you”) for three months. The suspension followed a controversial episode in which host Alaa Che... |
When Hate Goes Viral: The Danger of Social Media...
By Ashif Rabi Last November, a group of Bangladeshi Muslims attacked a Hindu neighborhood in the Eastern part of Bangladesh. Thousands of people ransacked the temples and homes of Hindu families. Attacks such as these on minorities are not a new thing in Bangladesh, but this particular incident ha... |
Lugar, Schiff remember Mark Helmke as CIMA annou...
On Thursday, December 1, Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies (SGIS) joined CIMA and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in announcing a new partnership, the Mark Helmke Postdoctoral Scholarship on Global Media, Development, and Democracy. The announcement coincid... |
3 Reasons Why Messaging Apps are Key to Media Fr...
Governments around the world are targeting encrypted messaging apps, like WhatsApp and Telegram, which can be used to spread news and information quickly and securely. This is one of the key findings from Freedom House’s 2016 Freedom on the Net report, which was released earlier this week. In fact... |
Media Freedom in the New Burma: Defamation, Self...
By David Angeles With last November’s landslide election victory of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, the outlook for a successful democratic transition in Burma, also known as Myanmar, seems more positive than ever. Arguably, it was the initial opening of the medi... |
State of Emergency in Ethiopia curtails Media Fr...
By Simegnish Yekoye A year after the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), together with its allies, claimed a 100 percent of the seats in the May 2015 parliamentary elections, the country declared a state of emergency for the first time in 25 years. The government that Presid... |
The International Community in Ethiopia is Wrong...
There is a common perception in the international diplomatic community in Addis Ababa that putting public pressure on the Ethiopian government to improve human rights and other basic democratic freedoms is likely to backfire. Ethiopia’s current government—which has been strongly influenced by Et... |
Distorting the News in Africa: How Dictators Hav...
By Elie Smith In response to the influence of Western media in their countries, African dictators have ramped up nationalistic and pan-African propaganda through government-sponsored media. These media outlets spend their time either painting an overly rosy picture of the situation in Africa, or att... |