Center for Global Communication Studies
The Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania (CGCS) is a leader in international education, training, and research in the fields of media development, strategic communication, and comparative media law and policy. CGCS draws on various disciplines to explore public policy issues and the ways media and globalization intersect with the changing nature of states. The Center has experience both advising on and implementing innovative communication programs and research projects in restrictive, transitional, conflict and post-conflict environments, with particular expertise in the areas of media law and policy, media and democratization, monitoring and evaluation of media interventions, and the design and implementation of training and capacity-building programs.
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Publication Introduction to News Media Law and Policy in Jordan(2009-04-01) Griffin, Douglas; Morgan, LibbyThe goal of this volume is to examine and assess the legal environment-the institutions, laws, and practices in which news media operate in Jordan. It is designed for those in Jordan for whom information and communication is important: citizens, government officials, organizations or civil society, indeed, almost everyone. We seek to describe the system of laws and policies, including basic rights, that affect the way in which information and ideas about public affairs are selected, packaged, distributed, and received. We try to place rules and regulations in context, at least a public context. It is impossible, here, to describe the complex history, the religious institutions, the geopolitical events and other very considerable matters that affect how speech flows. We concentrate, therefore, on press and media laws and their implementation.Publication Introduction to News Media Law and Policy in Jordan, 2nd edition(2011-05-01) Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for CommunicationThe goal of this volume is to examine and assess the legal environment the institutions, laws, and practices in which news media operate in Jordan. It is designed for those in Jordan for whom information and communication is important: citizens, government officials, organizations of civil society, indeed, almost everyone. We seek to describe the system of laws and policies, including basic rights, that affect the way in which information and ideas about public affairs are selected, packaged, distributed, and received. We try to place rules and regulations in context, at least a public context. It is impossible, here, to describe the complex history, the religious institutions, the geopolitical events and other very considerable matters that affect how speech flows. We concentrate, therefore, on press and media laws and their implementation. By "news media law," we mean the set of institutions and rules that affect the activities resulting in the dissemination of information and ideas about public affairs to the general public. This includes not only those institutions and rules designed to advance the free exercise of such activity, but also those that are intended to protect other interests with which this exercise might conflict. Indeed, the essence of news media law lies in the inherent, continual need to strike the appropriate balance between press freedoms and competing public and private values and interests. At the same time, our scope is closely defined. We do not seek to make this presentation comprehensive: an encyclopedic survey of all legal provisions affecting news media activity would be beyond the scope and space limitations of this volume. Therefore, most issues regarding the structural aspects of Jordan's media regulation (for example, ownership of mass media) are not included here. Instead, we focus on the legal environment in which the news media operate, organizing our material according to a way of thinking about media in a society that is seeking to increase the participation of its citizens in the functioning of government. We emphasize the importance of the rule of law itself, and then the laws and policies governing journalists' access to information and content regulation, as well as content-neutral rules that affect how the media perform. Laws and policies are frequently looked at in isolation. Laws are also often analyzed and discussed with attention paid merely to their wording. However, each society has a cluster of activities, interactions of laws, and settings in which they exist that make those laws more or less effective. Different states, at different stages of development, require different strategies for thinking about the role of media and, as a result, for thinking about the design and structure of the environment in which they operate. We seek to explore the particular laws of Jordan, and the institutions which give them meaning.Publication Soft War: A New Episode in the Old Conflicts Between Iran and the United States(2013-11-01) Sabet, Farzan; Safshekan, RoozbehSoft war is ubiquitous today with the way the Islamic Republic of Iran characterizes its relationship with the West, and is a key concern of Iranian national security policy. Few, however, have seriously undertaken the task of defining what soft war is in concrete terms. This analysis proposes a definition of soft war grounded in Joseph Nye’s concept of ‘soft power’ and the history of Iran’s encounter with the West, particularly the United States. In this framework, soft war is the exercise of soft power by the United States on Iran, creating security challenges for the Islamic Republic and forcing the Republic to respond. This analysis not only explores the genealogy of this conflict and how it has unfolded under the Islamic Republic, but also attempts to assess the regime’s strategy in the soft war. This work can be an aid to policymakers, scholars, and others in better understanding soft war and its implications for Iran’s domestic politics and foreign affairs, in addition to U.S.-Iran relations.Publication Facing Boundaries, Finding Freedom: An In-Depth Report on Iranian Journalists Working in Iran(2013-06-01) Wojcieszak, Magdalena; Brouillette, Amy; Smith, BriarDespite extensive documentation of and attention to direct state pressure on journalists and the almost continual reissuing of “red lines” as a pretense for these media-repressive tactics, little systematic research has been done about the field of journalism in Iran. Beyond direct state repression—harassment, arrests, imprisonment—Iranian journalists face a myriad of regulatory and bureaucratic controls that restrict editorial freedom and the flow of information between journalists and citizens. Yet we know little about how reporters in Iran contend with these challenges on an everyday basis, and in particular outside the context of tightened state controls and crackdowns on journalists during political elections. Hence, there is a need to look “beyond the prison cell” and to examine more closely the everyday operating conditions in which Iranian journalists work, as well as their professional ethics and standards, in order to illustrate a fuller picture of the dynamics of Iran’s media culture. With this report, the Annenberg School for Communication’s Iran Media Program offers—to our knowledge—the first systematic evidence of the working environment of Iranian journalists. It addresses a critical information and research gap regarding the reporting practices of Iranian journalists, their perceptions of editorial freedoms, their ideas of what the media’s role is in society, and the ways in which reporters and editors contend with Internet filtering and censorship. The fundamental aim of this study is to generate a deeper understanding of how Iranian journalists operate both within and despite an environment of heavy state oversight and restrictions, as well as to broaden our perspective of the complexities of media censorship in Iran.Publication The Islamic Republic’s Political Elite & Syria: Understanding What They Think Through Iranian Media Narratives(2013-06-01) Sabet, FarzanThe Islamic Republic of Iran has been the central regional backer of the Bashar al-Assad regime since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in March 2011. Despite the importance of Iran in the drama unfolding in Syria, including any possible resolution to the conflict, the Iranian political elite’s perceptions of the Syrian civil war are arguably not well understood. This report attempts to uncover these perceptions by analyzing the Iranian print news media and highlighting the dominant narratives. As one of the first systematic studies of Iranian media narratives on the Syrian civil war, this report can be an aid to policymakers, academics, journalists and others in understanding the Iranian political elite’s thinking on this issue.Publication Presidential Candidates: A Look at ICT Policy Rhetoric(2013-06-01) Iran Media ProgramAll eight candidates participating in Iran's eleventh presidential elections commented on ICT issues and cyberspace, unsurprising since the period leading up to the elections saw some of the slowest Internet speeds, crackdowns on VPNs, and warnings from various security bodies about the Internet's ability to stir up seditious sentiment in advance of June 14th. This article takes a look at the candidates and their statements about ICT policy over the course of their campaigns.Publication Numbers Which Make the News: Online Seminar Series Final Report(2012-03-01) Abadpour, ArashThis document describes the online seminar series “Number which make the news”. These seminars were held by the Iran Media Program in October and November of 2011. The language of the seminars was Persian and the attendants were selected from bloggers, activists, and journalists who work on Iran issues. This document is organized as follows. First, Section 1 describes the purpose of these seminars. Then, in Sections 2 and 3, the audience of the seminars and the presentation format are outlined. The document continues with Section 4 which contains description of the contents of the seminars and Section 5 which covers the feedback received from the audience. Finally, Section 6 provides the concluding remarks and a list of suggestions for future work. At the end of this document there is an appendix. This section contains the outlines of the individual seminars. Additionally, this section also contains the list of the pieces authored and published by members of the audience of these seminars, as the members were required to participate in the program. The majority of web addresses provided in the footnotes of this document are in Persian. These addresses point to reference material used throughout the presentations or content produced by audience members. In many cases an English excerpt is provided where the reference is made.Publication The Political Affiliations of Iranian Newspapers(2013-05-01) Rafizadeh, Shahram; Alimardani, MahsaThe complexities of the Iranian media ecosystem become most apparent during the election season when the heightened political climate leads to intensified scrutiny to and reliance on print media. In the absence of political parties, the press serves as a valuable tool during election campaigns, and this report highlights the shifting allegiances in national publications with a focus on politics, economics, and society. Newspapers are divided by faction (Pro-government Conservative, Traditional Conservative, Critical-of-the-Government Conservative, Affiliated with Reformists, and Reformist), and labeled with their 2009 political affiliations, their expected affiliations for 2013, and their stance on reformists. Once the Guardian Council releases the final vetted candidates on May 24th, these newspapers will become active in supporting their preferred factions or candidates.Publication National Web Studies: Mapping Iran Online(2012-02-01) Rogers, Richard; Weltevrede, Esther; Niederer, Sabine; Borra, ErikThis work offers an approach to conceptualizing, demarcating and analyzing a national web. Instead of defining a priori the types of websites to be included in a national web, the approach put forward here makes use of web devices (platforms and engines) that purport to provide (ranked) lists of URLs relevant to a particular country. Once gathered in such a manner, the websites are studied for their properties, following certain of the common measures (such as responsiveness and page age), and repurposing them to speak in terms of the health of a national web: Are sites lively, or neglected? The case study in question is Iran, which is special for the degree of Internet censorship undertaken by the state. Despite the widespread censorship, we have found a highly responsive Iranian web. We also report on the relationship between blockage, responsiveness and freshness, i.e., whether blocked sites are still up, and also whether they have been recently updated. Blocked yet blogging portions of the Iranian web show strong indications of an active Internet censorship circumvention culture. In seeking to answer, additionally, whether censorship has killed content, a textual analysis shows continued use of language considered critical by the regime, thereby indicating a dearth of self-censorship, at least for websites that are recommended by the leading Iranian platform, Balatarin. The study concludes with the implications of the approach put forward for national web studies, including a description of the benefits of a national web health index.Publication Finding a Way - How Iranian Reach for News and Information(2013-02-01) Wojcieszak, Magdalena; Smith, Briar; Enayat, MahmoodThe Iran Media Program publishes its groundbreaking 2011-2012 report on media consumption in Iran: Finding a Way – How Iranians reach for news and information. The report was authored by Magdalena Wojcieszak, Briar Smith and Mahmood Enayat and encompasses the results of two surveys conducted over the past year: the first is a field-based, systematically recruited sample of Iranians in several major metropolitan areas which mirrored the demographics of the country. The second study is an online questionnaire among young, metropolitan, educated and technologically savvy Iranians, and was aimed at illustrating the extent to which these youth employ new media for political purposes over a year after the contested Iranian elections and during the Tunisia, Egypt and Libya uprisings. The report combines the two studies for a comprehensive look at media consumption in Iran. Both studies obtained information on what sources Iranians consider most important for news and information, what kinds of new and traditional media are used and for what purposes, and which new media are used to discuss various issues. The prevalence of Internet use, online activities, and speed of access was assessed, as was the use of and engagement with certain platforms such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter. The surveys also examined the use of circumvention tools as well as the extent to which Iranians think citizens can be empowered through the use of new media.