COMMENT BLOG
A remark, a critique, an opinion…
Democracy is freedom of the press
People the world over are willing – some are even praying for – a free and fair election in the USA on November 3. In ordinary times, for that to happen the media must also be free and fair. But these have not been ordinary times. Until very recently, the news media...
Our common digital future
In his 2011 book, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You, Eli Pariser wrote, “the rise of pervasive, embedded filtering is changing the way we experience the internet and ultimately the world.” Far ahead of current growing concerns about fake news,...
Investigative journalism is a form of activism
Covid-19, migrants, and the climate crisis apart, public interest media is today’s hot topic. In the USA, Hungary, and the Philippines – to cite just three countries – some politicians have labelled media outlets critical of their policies and actions “fake media” or...
In bringing about gender justice, men have a role to play
Women all over the world are celebrating the sixth instalment in 25 years of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP). What is it? A series of extensive gender and media monitoring studies conducted every five years since 1995 by WACC Global, an international NGO...
Communication as a building block of a post-pandemic world
Since the emergence of the communication rights movements in the 1980s, activists have advanced a vision of the right to communicate as a highly political enterprise. The main idea at the heart of the movement has always been that democratizing media and communication...
Investing in journalism that serves the public interest
Public interest journalism addresses the needs of citizens in a democratic community. Journalism that serves the public interest acknowledges that citizens are able to comprehend the policies and decisions that affect them. It assumes they are capable of applying...
Instagram – the opium of the people
Once used mainly by teens and young millennials, Instagram continues to grow as one of the most popular social media platforms. As of June 2018, Instagram had reached one billion monthly active users. More than 500 million use the platform daily. Two years previously,...
Challenging voter manipulation in the US elections
Free Press and four allies have filed a lawsuit (27 August 2020) challenging an order against social media companies. The US District Court, Northern District of California, will hear a complaint against President Trump’s “Executive Order on Preventing Online...
Democracy demands diversity in the news
How can news organizations practice diversity and how can newsmakers contribute to overcoming division and exclusion? A digital panel session discussed these questions as part of German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s Global Media Forum 2020. It focused on the...
Staying silent about Hong Kong is not an option
Media freedom is the freedom to protest. “Hong Kong has long been respected as a powerful global economic hub and lively political and democratic space, supported by a proud and strong independent media. Yet the imposition of the new national security law… has...
New media laws obstruct the right to communicate
A new law in Tanzania tightens controls on cooperation between local and international media outlets. Under new regulations announced by the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority, which came into force on 10 August 2020, local media must now seek government...
Time for Facebook to face the music
There are laws about what can be seen or said in public. So why don’t they apply to social media? In principle they do. The problem is enforcing them. In part it’s a problem of scale. 149 million people login to YouTube daily, to which some 300 hours of video are...
PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Jeffrey/ACT Alliance