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WHO HIDES BEHIND THE LIARS?
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PROFESSIONAL LIARS
The misinformation phenomenon hasn’t spared Central and Eastern Europe. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the rapid pace at which misinformation websites spread in the past decade was facilitated by the advance of new technologies, raising serious political problems. Highly concerning is the habit of established media outlets to increasingly engage in misinformation practices as a way to attract more readers or as they try to please the politicians who support them.
MISINFORMATION BARONS
The misinformation industry is growing fast also in Slovakia, buoyed by ads and e-commerce, but many people support them directly, through donations or tax designations. The misinformation scene appears to be run by multiple independent entities using various business models to sustain operation. It is health and lifestyle websites with an unclear or concealed background that are in the highest numbers
LYING FOR FUN, POLITICS AND MONEY
In Hungary, Facebook is the main source of traffic for misinformation websites, many of which are often abandoned and then brought back to life under a different domain name. The sites fall on the spectrum from purely ideological ones to simple money-making machines. Several of the websites appear to be controlled by the same persons or companies, one of which can be linked to a network of political organizations that have been accused of electoral fraud.
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WHAT DO HUNGARIAN STUDENTS THINK ABOUT MISINFORMATION?
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Misinformation is designed to get an emotional response and to spread quickly. Media literacy has to catch up, responsible institutions need to step up and teach young people how to recognize and fight misinformation. Contributing to these efforts was the aim of the project "Misinformation and Propaganda Through the Eyes of Hungarian Students", run by the Center for Media, Data and Society, funded by the Public Diplomacy Small Grants Program of the U.S. Embassy Budapest Public Affairs Section of the Department of State. The program had four components (learn more about them by clicking on the links):
- A workshop for Hungarian students with international experts;
- A public discussion with Hungarian and international experts;
- Projects related to misinformation prepared by participating students;
- A study tour to London to visit high-profile media outlets (BBC, The Guardian, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism).
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SPOOKS AND ROYALS
In Jordan, “key figures among the Council of Ministers (the prime minister’s cabinet), the Royal Court, and the intelligence services exert tremendous influence in determining the content of pieces of draft legislation related to media and information”, according to our report, which is the first attempt to map and profile the key influencers in Jordanian media regulation.
POLITICAL MERITS
In Romania, “there is a serious lack of expertise in the regulatory bodies and this results in a lack of strategy in managing the field.” According to our report, the newly created data regulator is also led by people selected on political merits rather than competence. Unsurprisingly, the data watchdog began to attack journalists instead of protecting people’s personal data.
ONE GOVERNMENT, TWO FAMILIES, TWO BROTHERS
In Georgia, independent journalism is struggling in a highly politicized media industry where the government and a few wealthy businesspeople control, own or fund most of the media. The irony is that although demand for news content is high and growing, and internet penetration is constantly rising, news producers are barely turning a profit.
ALL THE PRESIDENTS' MEN
In Kyrgyzstan, the environment in which journalists operate has improved significantly after a new president took the country’s helm in 2017. However, according to our report, which is the first attempt to map the key influencers in Kyrgyzstan’s media policy field, the country’s media remain tied to the government’s apron strings.
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WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PHILANTHROPY IN FUNDING JOURNALISM?
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Foundation support to media and journalism has seen a massive growth in recent years, more than doubling between 2009 and 2015 to US$ 1.9bn, according to Media Impact Funders. Media philanthropy is indeed a growing force globally, even if its overall share in total media funding is still low. Whether the influence of donors on journalism coverage is something to be worried about is a question worth asking. Foundations themselves are continuously concerned about how they affect their grantees.
SHAPING THE NARRATIVE
Lumina Foundation, for example, does not impose stringent restrictions on what its grantees can report, Kevin Corcoran, the foundation’s strategy director, told CMDS in an interview. The foundation’s goal is to strengthen the media organizations it works with and help them create a path that is sustainable in the precarious funding climate for journalism today.
GOING EAST
Although Die Zeit is a big name in journalism, not so many people know that the newspaper’s eponymous foundation also finances journalism. In another interview with CMDS, Jessica Staschen, the head of communications at the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius in Hamburg spoke about the foundation’s strategy on journalism, explaining what it takes to get a ZEIT grant.
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WHICH AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT METHODS WORK?
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Journalism is facing a deep crisis of public trust. Some say it is more serious than the financial crisis that has clobbered news media over the course of the past decade. But the two, in fact, are deeply connected: subscriptions or various forms of memberships seem to be the only business model that works in this new era of journalism, and there is a close link between people’s decision to pay for news and the level of trust they have in the news product they buy and the people who make it. Thus, effectively engaging with audiences is key in keeping news media and journalism initiatives afloat. Participants of the CMDS Summer School 2019, Measuring and Building Audience Trust learnt about why trust in media is in decline, which engagement methods proved to be successful, also about online fundraising models based on direct engagement.
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DRAGOMIR ON MEDIA CAPTURE IN EUROPE
The collusion between the political class and media owners has reached unprecedented levels in certain parts of Europe, leading to a phenomenon known as media capture, a situation where most or all of the news media institutions are operating as part of a government-business cartel that controls and manipulates the flow of information with the aim of protecting their unrestricted and exclusive access to public resources, CMDS Director Marius Dragomir argues in Media Capture in Europe, a major report published by Media Development Investment Fund.
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BOGNAR CONTRIBUTES TO DIGITAL NEWS REPORT 2019
While some consumers may be turning to more credible news sources, the Reuters Institute's DNR 2019 has mixed news for publishers looking for sustainable business models after decades of digital disruption. Paid online models are starting to work in some countries, but mainly for a few big publishers. This year's report, surveying 75,000 people in 38 countries, looks at trust, concern over misinformation, news avoidance, populism's impact, top brands, how people access news and much more. The Hungarian chapter was written by Eva Bognar, Senior Program Officer and Researcher at CMDS.
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SPP STUDENTS PRESENT AT BIGGEST MEDIA RESEARCH EVENT
Mackenzie Nelson and Ifra Asad presented in Madrid the findings of their research into the impact of technology journalism and media in Pakistan. The presentation took place at the International Association for Media & Communication Research (IAMCR) conference. Nelson and Asad carried out their work for their report, “Technology, Public Sphere and Journalism: Pakistan” as part of the CMDS Practicum class at SPP. In writing the report, they used the methodology from the Media Influence Matrix.
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BÁTORFY ON STATE ADVERTISING IN HUNGARY
In Hungary, “state advertising is a powerful tool of political favoritism as well as an instrument of market distortion, censorship and building an uncritical media empire aligned with the government. This practice can be viewed as part of a broader set of instruments deployed by illiberal states and hybrid political regimes to consolidate their hold on power”, Attila Bátorfy, Fellow at CMDS and Ágnes Urbán, CEO of Mérték Media Monitor wrote in their study “State advertising as an instrument of transformation of the media market in Hungary”, published in East European Politics.
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MASUKU ON COVERING ELECTIONS IN AFRICA
South Africa’s media have recently set an example of how to professionally cover an election. Other African nations should follow suit, CMDS Fellow John Masuku argues. The coverage of elections by South African media, many of whom are available globally via satellite and the internet, was open and transparent, in contrast to many other countries in Africa, where governments capture the taxpayer-funded public media, making it solely available to incumbents and their parties and using it to denigrate opposition challengers and civil society organizations.
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ATTILA MONG JOINS CMDS
Attila Mong is a Berlin-based Hungarian freelance journalist. He works as the Europe correspondent of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). He is also an innovation consultant for Germany`s leading media development organization, the DW Akademie and consults digital innovation project all around the world. He is a jury member of the European journalism grant program, Reporters in the Field. He authored several investigative books in Hungary and was awarded with the most prestigious journalism prizes in his country. He joins CMDS as Course Director of the Strengthening Quality News and Independent Journalism in the Western Balkans and Turkey project.
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JOURNALISM BREAKTHROUGHS
Through our work, we generate a wealth of data, observations, case studies and best practices related to innovation in journalism. However, we rarely had the opportunity to gather all this knowledge in one place and share it more widely than we have done it so far, through a variety of formats and channels. To respond to this problem, CMDS launches Journalism Breakthroughs, a project aimed at more methodically collecting data and information about innovation in journalism and improving the ways (formats, channels and frequency) in which it packages and disseminates this content for much broader consumption than we generate now. Stay tuned for the articles, videos, interviews and reports of our new project!
MEDIA INFLUENCE MATRIX
CMDS’ flagship project, Media Influence Matrix now covers more than 50 countries. The main goal of the project is to investigate the profound impact that rapid shifts in policy, funding and technology are having on journalism today. New reports on technology, public sphere and journalism in Romania and Indonesia, as well as on funding journalism in Kyrgyzstan will be published in the next weeks.
THE BUSINESS OF MISINFORMATION
While it is hard to remember a media studies topic that has ever attracted so much time and money, there is still little research on the business side of misinformation, on who hides behind the liars. Our The Business of Misinformation project keeps track of individuals and companies that own them and their links to institutions, political parties and other individuals. New country reports covering Serbia and the Czech Republic are expected soon.
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About the Center for Media, Data and Society
The Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) is a research center for the study of media, communication, and information policy and its impact on society and practice. Founded in 2004 as the Center for Media and Communication Studies, CMDS is part of Central European University’s School of Public Policy and serves as a focal point for an international network of acclaimed scholars, research institutions and activists. In support of promoting the values of an open society CMDS produces scholarly and practice-oriented research addressing academic, policy and civil society needs, coordinates course offerings at CEU, provides trainings and consulting services and organizes scholarly exchanges through workshops, lectures and conferences on current developments in the field.
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