Television has recently experienced unprecedented expansion in Bangladesh. Given its popularity and influence, and with more people using it for their information, research on the credibility of TV news is warranted. Perceived independence of TV channels, their social role, source expertise, objectivity, and audiovisual quality were hypothesized to influence credibility perceptions of TV news. Based on factor analysis and multiple regression analysis, four of these five factors had a significant effect. Implications of TV news credibility in Bangladesh’s development efforts are discussed.
As in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region, public service broadcasting (PSB) in Morocco suffers from the existence of authoritarian forms of governance that hinders PSB performance. Technology is also a factor. TV and radio stations still rely on analog terrestrial and digital satellite broadcasting and their online presence are extensions of their analog versions, rather than new digital multiplatform distribution systems. In Morocco, the wave of political liberalization and democratization that marked the second half of the 1990s resulted in major media reforms especially in the broadcasting sector. The High Authority for Audiovisual Communication was created in 2002 as an independent public institution to establish the legal framework for the liberalization of the audiovisual sector and to oversee the PSB sector in the country. The paper analyzes the legal environment to assess the extent to which PSB is safeguarded from political influence. The study found that the overall non-democratic cultures within Morocco and the countries of the MENA region are the main determinants of performance. In some MENA countries, the legal framework and the institutional structure were created to provide the conditions for public service to materialize. PSB performance in this region remains weak, however. The study argues that unless there is political will at the highest level, a public service system will be nothing more than a pseudo 'public' system bouncing back and forth between milder and stronger forms of authoritarianism.
This paper examines social media ads purchased by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA). Using a public dataset, we employ a mixed method to analyze the thematic and strategic patterns of these ads. Due to Facebook and Instagram’s promotional features, IRA managed to microtarget audiences mostly located in the United States fitting its messages to suit the audiences’ political, racial, gendered, and in some cases religious backgrounds. The findings reveal the divisive nature and topics that are dominant in the dataset including: race, immigration, and police brutality. By expanding on the theoretical conceptualization of astroturfing strategy that focuses on carefully concealing the identity and intention of actors behind social media activities, we argue that IRA has added political astroturfing as a powerful tool at a low cost contributing to the broader Russian geopolitical disinformation campaign strategies. The IRA made use of the business model of Facebook and Instagram in an attempt to further divide its targeted audiences and by highlighting mostly negative issues with a potential goal of fuelling political rage.
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