Congressional Concerns Over Partisanship and a Lack of Professional Independence: Critical Junctures and the Evolution of U.S. Government Information Agencies

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 164-233
Author(s):  
Murendehle Mulheva Juwayeyi
Keyword(s):  
Public Information ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Government Information ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Voice Of America ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
The Government ◽  
Professional Independence ◽  
The Voice

The nomination by Pres. Donald J. Trump of Michael Pack as the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the agency that oversees the Voice of America (VOA) and other civilian international broadcasters, was politically controversial. Democratic senators feared that if confirmed, Pack would pursue a partisan political agenda through the broadcasters because he was a known associate of President Trump’s former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon. This study shows that fears that a president could use government agencies to advance a partisan political agenda emerged long ago when the government first started establishing information agencies, such as the Committee on Public Information (CPI) and the Office of War Information (OWI). Such fears are likely to continue.

Suburb, Network, Homeland: National Space and the Rhetoric of Broadcasting

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Giles
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Don Delillo ◽  
Spatial Dynamics ◽  
Philip Roth ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Voice Of America ◽  
National Space ◽  
Television Service ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines how the landscape of American broadcasting in the second half of the twentieth century evolved from a situation in which values of liberal independence acted as a front for the sway of network corporations to one in which the incremental fragmentation of the increasingly global media market posed a challenge to the rhetoric of national space. It considers how the spatial dynamics inherent within American culture have been represented in American writers such as Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, and Don DeLillo, and contrasts this with the perspectives of a younger generation, in particular those of David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers. It explains how the “Voice of America” (VOA), the official radio and television service of the U.S. federal government, became “the nation's ideological arm of anti-communism,” while the minds of supposedly free-thinking citizens at home were also shaped surreptitiously by the new power of electronic media.

scholarly journals The Relationship between Government Information Supply and Public Information Demand in the Early Stage of COVID-19 in China—An Empirical Analysis

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Tong Zhang ◽  
Li Yu
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Medical Team ◽  
Government Information ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
The Public ◽  
Government Communication ◽  
Information Demand ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government

Accurate and effective government communication is essential for public health emergencies. To optimize the effectiveness of government crisis communication, this paper puts forward an analytical perspective of supply–demand matching based on the interaction between the government and the public. We investigate the stage characteristics and the topic evolutions of both government information supply and public information demand through combined statistical analysis, text mining, text coding and cluster analysis, using empirical data from the National Health Commission’s WeChat in China. A quantitative measure reflecting the public demand for government information supply is proposed. Result indicates that the government has provided a large amount of high-intensity epidemic-related information, with six major topics being the medical team, government actions, scientific protection knowledge, epidemic situation, high-level deployment and global cooperation. The public’s greatest information needs present different characteristics at different stages, with “scientific protection knowledge”, “government actions” and “medical teams” being the most needed in the outbreak stage, the control stage and the stable stage, respectively. The subject of oversupply is “medical team”, and the subject of short supply is “epidemic dynamics” and “science knowledge”. This paper provides important theoretical and practical value for improving the effectiveness of government communication in public health crises.

Ökonomische Bedeutung und rechtlicher Rahmen der staatlichen Werbung in der ungarischen Medienpolitik

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66
Author(s):  
Gábor Polyák
Keyword(s):  
Public Information ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Media Policy ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Media Regulation ◽  
Public Media ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

The situation of media freedom, the current problems of media regulation in Hungary has been a constant issue of the European agenda since 2010. Despite the fierce criticism of domestic, European and international organizations, neither the legal framework nor the direction of media policy steps changed. The media policy measures of recent years gradually led to an extensive transformation of the media system. The process is based on three contiguous pillars. These are undermining the independence of the supervisory bodies of private and public media, manipulating access to the resources necessary for their activity in the media market, and manipulating the information environment by controlling the access to public information and the political agenda. This paper highlights the communication and funding roles of state advertising and campaigning and the legal issues they raise. State advertising should by no means favour certain market players unfoundedly, because in such cases they can be considered as prohibited state aid in the terms of the European law. The practice of placing state advertisements in Hungary does not meet the normal market conditions. These advertisements are also problematic from the point of view of media law classification, however the Hungarian media authority always applies the law in favour of the government. This behaviour can also be found in the practice of assessing media concentrations. The misuse of public finance and the authorities’ biased decisions together resulted in the largest media concentration in Europe at the end of 2018.

Freedom of information laws and information access

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Proscovia Svärd
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Information Access ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Government Information ◽  
Information Culture ◽  
The Government

Sierra Leone was engulfed in a destructive civil war between 1991 and 2002. The civil war was partly caused by the non-accountability of the government, endemic corruption, misrule and the mismanagement of the country’s resources. Efforts have been made by the country, with the help of the international community, to embrace a democratic dispensation. To demonstrate its commitment to the democratization agenda, Sierra Leone passed the Right to Access Information (RAI) Act in 2013. The Act guarantees access to government information and also imposes a penalty on failure to make information available. However, Sierra Leone’s state institutions are still weak due to mismanagement and lack of transparency and accountability. Freedom of expression and access to information are cornerstones of modern democracies. Public information/records are a means of power that governments and other political institutions use to exercise control over citizens, but are also a means of citizens’ empowerment. Through access to government information/records, media can play their watchdog role and people can assess the performance of governments and hold them accountable. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the fact that it is not enough to enact freedom of information laws (FOIs) if there is no political will to make government information accessible, an information management infrastructure to facilitate the creation, capture, management, dissemination, preservation and re-use of government information and investments in civil education to promote an information culture that appreciates information as a resource that underpins accountability and transparency.

The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Laurence
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Muslim Immigrants ◽  
European Democracy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
Integration Problems ◽  
Muslim Minorities

This book traces how governments across Western Europe have responded to the growing presence of Muslim immigrants in their countries over the past fifty years. Drawing on hundreds of in-depth interviews with government officials and religious leaders in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Morocco, and Turkey, the book challenges the widespread notion that Europe's Muslim minorities represent a threat to liberal democracy. The book documents how European governments in the 1970s and 1980s excluded Islam from domestic institutions, instead inviting foreign powers like Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Turkey to oversee the practice of Islam among immigrants in European host societies. But since the 1990s, amid rising integration problems and fears about terrorism, governments have aggressively stepped up efforts to reach out to their Muslim communities and incorporate them into the institutional, political, and cultural fabrics of European democracy. The book places these efforts—particularly the government-led creation of Islamic councils—within a broader theoretical context and gleans insights from government interactions with groups such as trade unions and Jewish communities at previous critical junctures in European state-building. By examining how state–mosque relations in Europe are linked to the ongoing struggle for religious and political authority in the Muslim-majority world, the book sheds light on the geopolitical implications of a religious minority's transition from outsiders to citizens. This book offers a much-needed reassessment that foresees the continuing integration of Muslims into European civil society and politics in the coming decades.

KUALITAS LAYANAN KETERBUKAAN INFORMASI PUBLIK BERBASIS WEBPORTAL PADA PEJABAT PENGELOLA INFORMASI DAN DOKUMENTASI (PPID) KABUPATEN SLEMAN TAHUN 2019

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-66
Author(s):  
Coni Wanprala ◽  
Isnaini Muallidin ◽  
Dewi Sekar Kencono
Keyword(s):  
Information Disclosure ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Descriptive Study ◽  
Field Observations ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
The Government ◽  
Data Collection Technique

At present the development of technology and information has reached a very rapid level. Technology and information are used as a service media in the government environment which is also known as e-Government, one of which is the service of public information disclosure. The central government through Law No. 14 of 2008 concerning Openness of Public Information, encourages all Public Agencies including the Sleman Regency Government to make transparency in the administration of the state by utilizing information technology. This research is a qualitative descriptive study which aims to describe the reality that occurs. The object of research in this study is the official website of the Information and Documentation Management Officer (PPID) of Sleman Regency with the domain https://ppid.slemankab.go.id then the Sleman Regency Communication and Informatics Office as the organizer of the public information disclosure program. The data collection technique itself is carried out by means of interviews, documentation studies, and field observations (observations). After collecting and presenting data, then the data will be reduced first then analyzed and concluded. From the results of the study, in general the researchers concluded that the Sleman Regency PPID website had reached the level of qualification to become a quality website, however there were still some improvements and evaluations that had to be done by the relevant agencies in order to be better, namely (i) the website was still being assessed as a one-way service (ii) There are still many OPDs that are not ready to implement PPID (iii) data and information are still not updated (iv) lack of responsiveness of services in requests for information.

YOUTH POLICY IN MODERN RUSSIA. ABSENTEEISM AND POLITICAL PROTEST

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.I. AVTSINOVA ◽  
М.А. BURDA
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Youth Organizations ◽  
Youth Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Russian Politics ◽  
High Level

The article analyzes the features of the current youth policy of the Russian Federation aimed at raising the political culture. Despite the current activities of the government institutions in the field under study, absenteeism, as well as the protest potential of the young people, remains at a fairly high level. In this regard, the government acknowledged the importance of forming a positive image of the state power in the eyes of young people and strengthen its influence in the sphere of forming loyal associations, which is not always positively perceived among the youth. The work focuses on the fact that raising the loyalty of youth organizations is one of the factors of political stability, both in case of internal turbulence and external influence. The authors also focus on the beneficiaries of youth protests. The authors paid special attention to the issue of forming political leadership among the youth and the absence of leaders expressing the opinions of young people in modern Russian politics. At the same time, youth protest as a social phenomenon lack class and in some cases ideological differences. The authors come to the conclusion that despite the steps taken by the government and political parties to involve Russian youth in the political agenda, the young people reject leaders of youth opinion imposed by the authorities, either cultivating nonparticipation in the electoral campagines or demonstrating latent protest voting.

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