This book compares media and political systems in East-Central as well as in Western Europe in order to identify the reasons possibly responsible for the extensive and intensive party control over ...the media. This phenomenon is widely experienced in many of the former communist countries since the political transformation. The author argues that differences in media freedom and in the politicization of the news media are rooted in differences in party structures between old and new democracies, and, notably, the fact that young parties in the new members of the European Union are short of resources, which makes them more likely to take control of and to exploit media resources.
In this study of the reciprocities binding religion, politics, law, and literature, Debora Shuger offers a profoundly new history of early modern English censorship, one that bears centrally on ...issues still current: the rhetoric of ideological extremism, the use of defamation to ruin political opponents, the grounding of law in theological ethics, and the terrible fragility of public spheres. Starting from the question of why no one prior to the mid-1640s argued for free speech or a free press per se,Censorship and Cultural Sensibilitysurveys the texts against which Tudor-Stuart censorship aimed its biggest guns, which turned out not to be principled dissent but libels, conspiracy fantasies, and hate speech. The book explores the laws that attempted to suppress such material, the cultural values that underwrote this regulation, and, finally, the very different framework of assumptions whose gradual adoption rendered censorship illegitimate. Virtually all substantive law on language concerned defamation, regulating what one could say about other people. Hence Tudor-Stuart laws extended protection only to the person hurt by another's words, never to their speaker. In treating transgressive language as akin to battery, English law differed fundamentally from papal censorship, which construed its target as heresy. There were thus two models of censorship operative in the early modern period, both premised on religious norms, but one concerned primarily with false accusation and libel, the other with false belief and immorality. Shuger investigates the first of these models-the dominant English one-tracing its complex origins in the Roman law ofiniuriathrough medieval theological ethics and Continental jurisprudence to its continuities and discontinuities with current U.S. law. In so doing, she enables her reader to grasp how in certain contexts censorship could be understood as safeguarding both charitable community and personal dignitary rights.
In most liberal democracies commercialized media is taken for granted, but in many authoritarian regimes the introduction of market forces in the media represents a radical break from the past with ...uncertain political and social implications. In Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China, Daniela Stockmann argues that the consequences of media marketization depend on the institutional design of the state. In one-party regimes such as China, market-based media promote regime stability rather than destabilizing authoritarianism or bringing about democracy. By analyzing the Chinese media, Stockmann ties trends of market liberalism in China to other authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the post-Soviet region. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Chinese journalists and propaganda officials as well as more than 2000 newspaper articles, experiments and public opinion data sets, this book links censorship among journalists with patterns of media consumption and the media's effects on public opinion.
The Muhammad cartoon crisis of 2005−2006 in Denmark caught the world by surprise as the growing hostilities toward Muslims had not been widely noticed. Through the methodologies of media ...anthropology, cultural studies, and communication studies, this book brings together more than thirteen years of research on three significant historical media events in order to show the drastic changes and emerging fissures in Danish society and to expose the politicization of Danish news journalism, which has consequences for the political representation and everyday lives of ethnic minorities in Denmark.
This investigation aimed to determine whether and how online harassment affects U.S. women journalists. Of particular interest was whether online harassment creates a chilling effect by limiting the ...types of stories and topics that are covered, which may influence press freedom. The survey (n=141) indicated that negative online interactions caused most participants to feel dissatisfied with their jobs. A chilling effect on coverage was also evident in responses from participants. Some respondents avoided certain stories for fear of online abuse they would receive. An overwhelming majority of U.S. women journalists (79 percent) agreed that online harassment affected press freedom. In the United States, a free and fair press is an essential component of our democracy. This study found that online harassment prevents women journalists from serving in their capacity as a watchdog on government and other institutions.
The Myth of Democratic Recession Levitsky, Steven; Way, Lucan
Journal of democracy,
2015, 2015-01-00, 20150101, Letnik:
26, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Even between 2005 and 2013, the number of significantly improved cases (10) exceeded the number of significant dec liners (8). ...most of the significant declines occurred not in democracies but in ...regimes that were already authoritarian, such as the Central African Republic, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Jordan. Yet with a few short-lived exceptions (e.g., Peru 1992-2000), the democracies that emerged in South America and Central Europe have now survived for a quarter-century or more. ...they survived despite severe economic crises and radical economic reforms that many scholars believed were incompatible with democracy.
We investigate homophily in the tie structure of the global Internet by estimating Exponential Random Graph (ERG) models. Specifically, we analyze the extent to which different variables including ...Gross National Income, geographic proximity, political regime type, and press freedom rating account for the pattern of direct country-to-country Internet connections. Results show that for 2011–2014, but not before, press freedom homophily is significantly predictive of the presence (or absence) of country-to-country Internet connections even when controlling for geographic proximity, bandwidth, and whether or not a country is democratic. The regime type variable was a significant predictor in 2002–2004 but not after. The findings provide insights into changes in press freedom around the world and the global Internet structure. The ERG approach used in this study should be useful for future research in related areas.
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