Academic literature on the topic 'Arts-media censorship'

Abstract: Mechanisms, strategies and taboo topics of Soviet censorship in Estonian theatre Since theatre in the Soviet Union had to be first of all a propaganda and educational institution, the activity, repertoire and every single production of the theatre was subject to certain ideological and artistic prescriptions. Theatre artists were not subject to any official regulations regarding forbidden topics or ways of representation, thus the nature of censorship manifested itself to them in practice. Lists of forbidden authors and works greatly affected politics related to repertoire until the mid-1950s but much less afterwards. Research on censorship is hampered by the fact that it was predominately oral, based on phone or face-to-face conversations, and corresponding documentation has been systematically destroyed. This article is primarily based on memoirs and research conducted by people who were active in the Soviet theatre system. It systematises the empirical material into four parts: 1) mechanisms of censorship, 2) forms and strategies, 3) counter-strategies against censorship and 4) taboo topics. Despite the attempt to map theatre censorship in Estonia after the Second World War (1945–1990), most of the material concerns the period from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. This can be explained by the age of the respondents, but it can also be related to the fact that the Soviet control system became more liberal or ambiguous after the Khrushchev thaw encouraged theatre artists and officials to test the limits of freedom. The mechanisms of theatre censorship were multifaceted. Ideological correctness and the artistic maturity of repertoire and single productions were officially controlled by the Arts Administration (1940–1975) and afterwards by the Theatre Administration (1975–1990) under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. Performing rights for new texts were allocated by the Main Administration for Literary and Publishing Affairs (Glavlit): texts by foreign authors were approved by the central office in Moscow, and texts by local authors were approved by local offices. The third censorship agency was the artistic committee that operated in every single theatre. Nevertheless, the most powerful institution was the Department of Culture of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia, whose influence on artistic issues had to be kept confidential by the parties involved. On top of all this, there was the hidden power and omnipresent network of agents of the Committee for State Security (KGB). Some audience members also acted as self-appointed censors. The network and system of censorship made the control system almost total and permanent, also enforcing self-censorship. Forms of censorship can be divided into preventive and punitive censorship, and strategies into direct and indirect censorship. Soviet censorship institutions mostly applied preventive censorship to plays or parts of productions, but hardly any production was cancelled before its premiere because that would have had undesirable financial consequences. Punitive censorship after the premiere was meant for correcting mistakes when the political climate changed or if a censor had been too reckless/lenient/clever, or if actors/audiences had started emphasising implicit meanings. Preventive censorship was predominantly direct and punitive censorship indirect (compelling directors to change mise en scènes or prescribing the number of performances). Indirect censorship can be characterised by ambiguity and allusions. A distinction can be made between preventive and punitive censorship in the context of single productions, but when forbidden authors, works or topics were involved, these two forms often merged. The plurality of censorship institutions or mechanisms, and shared responsibility led to a playful situation where parties on both sides of the front line were constantly changing, enabling theatre artists to use different counter-strategies against censorship. Two main battlefields were the mass media and meetings of the artistic committees, where new productions were introduced. The most common counter-strategies were the empowerment of productions and directors with opinions from experts and public figures (used also as a tool of censorship), providing ideologically correct interpretations of productions, overstated/insincere self-criticism on the part of theatre artists, concealing dangerous information (names of authors, original titles of texts, etc.), establishing relationships based on mutual trust with representatives of censorship institutions for greater artistic freedom, applying for help from central institutions of the Soviet Union against local authorities, and delating on censors. At the same time, a censor could fight for freedom of expression or a critic could work ambivalently as support or protection. In addition to forbidden authors whose biography, world view or works were unacceptable to Soviet authorities, there was an implicit list of dangerous topics: criticism of the Soviet Union as a state and a representative of the socialist way of life, positive representations of capitalist countries and their lifestyles, national independence and symbols of the independent Republic of Estonia (incl. blue-black-white colour combinations), idealisation of the past and the bourgeoisie, derogation of the Russian language and nation, violence and harassment by Soviet authorities, pessimism and lack of positive character, religious propaganda, sexuality and intimacy. When comparing the list of forbidden topics with analogous ones in other countries, for example in the United Kingdom where censorship was abolished in 1968, it appears that at a general level the topics are quite similar, but priorities are reversed: Western censorship was dealing with moral issues while its Eastern counterpart was engaged with political issues. It can be concluded that all censorship systems are somehow similar, embracing both the areas of restrictions and the areas of freedom and role play, providing individuals on both sides of the front line with opportunities to interpret and embody their roles according their world view and ethics. Censorship of arts is still an issue nowadays, even when it is hidden or neglected.

In our post-truth era, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to deal with fake news, artificial intelligence, increasing algorithms, Internet censorship, and resulting manipulation of digital users. Social media usage and digital technologies are utilized not only in people’s daily lives, but also in educational contexts. In this perplexing political and corporate landscape, a university Education Librarian and Education Professor working in a Faculty of Education have teamed together to examine ways to address this minefield in their case study research involving ninety-one students. Outlined is a collaborative, responsive, pedagogical approach in which critical research skills and educational curricula are delineated and related to creative and participatory educational practices. An emphasis is placed on arts-based inquiry and student imaginative collaboration. This pedagogy enables students to become more critical consumers and skilled producers of knowledge, facilitating student research and communication of well-developed ideas within their own digital and teaching lives.

This article explores the relationship between spy films, political censorship and Norwegian foreign policy during the period from 1914 to 1940. Espionage was a popular topic in Norway during this era, both in the news media and as a theme in fictional dramas. Based on a survey of the vetting of 57 spy films, both silent and sound, by the state censorship board, the article focuses on the Norwegian government’s hidden role in political film censorship throughout the period. While Norway’s Constitution and film censorship statutes provided no legal foundation for political censorship, there is nonetheless ample evidence that it took place. The article concludes with an in-depth analysis of the process of banning the US film Confessions of a Nazi Spy in July 1939, the German involvement in that process, and the subsequent effort to change the censorship law to reflect what was happening in practice.

The essay describes how and why various parts of the state in Pakistan, especially its security and intelligence agencies, have embarked on a campaign to censor and silence news media through mostly quasi-legal and extra-legal measures. It does so by offering a personal account as well as narrating many other impersonal examples collected from across the Pakistani news media. It also provides a historical and commercial context to the ongoing censorship and self-censorship in the country’s newsrooms to show how the present is both similar to and different from the past.

In March 2015, five young feminists were detained and accused of “disturbing public order” through their plan to circulate messages against sexual harassment in public transportation. This article focuses on the feminist media practices before and after the detention of the Feminist Five to shed light on the dynamics between state surveillance and incrimination, media activism, and feminist politics in China. Exploring the practices of the Youth Feminist Action School, it argues that the role of media in this new wave of feminist activism can be better understood as a form of “digital masquerading” in three ways. First, this captures the self-awareness and agency of feminists in their tactical use of media to circumvent censorship. Masquerading in the digital era is an active and self-conscious act leveraging the specificity of media practice to set the media agenda, increase public influence, and avoid censorship. Second, masquerading refers to the digital alteration of images in order to tactically represent women’s bodies in public spaces while circumventing censorship and possible criminalization. It highlights the figurative and the corporeal in online digital activist culture, which are oftentimes overlooked in existing literature. Third, while the masquerade in psychoanalytic theory emphasizes individualized gendered identity, the notion of digital masquerade points to the interface between the medium and the subjects, which involves collective efforts in assembling activist activities and remaking publicness.

This article aims to analyse some of the popular activist posters and images related to the Gezi Park resistance that took place in Turkey in 2013. The author argues that the theoretical approach of détournement is the driving force in the formation of the activist ‘identity’ and ‘imagery’ related to Gezi protests. Further, through detourning the attacks of the government, the article examines how the activist posters and images caused shifts in meaning and generated the negation and recreation of signs and significations. In this way, it can be seen that détournement as a subversive theoretical approach can be reconstructive while deconstructing verbal and censorship attacks from the government. The article engages with the word Çapulcu (looters) in an address by the former Prime Minister against the Gezi protesters and the penguin documentary used as a censorship element during the protests. It analyses how détournement applied by the protesters to these attacks led to the creation of a shared Gezi identity and image.

Social media is widely seen as playing a crucial role in the Arab Uprisings. This study compares news coverage in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan regarding social media in the Arab Uprisings. Content analysis of 162 news stories revealed that media in the three regions constructed their coverage within different frames, despite the events being geographically remote to the three Greater China regions and occurring in countries with which Greater China has little cultural, religious, ethnical, or economic connections. Overall, a clear pro-social-media pattern was found in Hong Kong and Taiwan media coverage, whereas in mainland China social media and the users involved in the Arab Uprisings were treated in the news in an obscured or unfavorable manner. Mainland China’s coverage was less likely to mention censorship of social media in the revolutions, whereas Hong Kong and Taiwan media frequently reported censorship and took a stance against it. Hong Kong and Taiwan media were also inclined to relate situations in the Arab Uprisings to mainland China. Such variations in the media coverage arguably are mainly due to ideological differences.

How do curatorial initiatives in public spaces balance the critical pursuit of art and the professional ethics of the exhibition context? What are the pros and cons of conducting attention-grabbing guerrilla campaigns versus infiltrating politically sensitive public arenas with long-term initiatives? What happens when corporate sponsors of art become trapped in the battlefield of art-fueled media controversy? This article expands on such inquiries by analyzing the collision of two artistic urban interventions, Open Sky Project and the Countdown Machine campaign—a collision that took place within the delicate political context of Hong Kong in 2016.

While the internet has been examined as a utilitarian space for social movements, it also acts as a cultural space for personal and community expression about important social issues. While examining the particularities of the memetic form – often catchy humor, simple imagery, and remixing – the author examines meme culture as a vehicle for political and social critique in the context of China’s stringent web censorship and propaganda. She looks at social change memes that have arisen around internet censorship and in support of the blind lawyer activist Chen Guangcheng. First, she considers these memes as visual and creative practices that sidestep the mechanics of internet censorship in China. She then argues for the role of internet memes in challenging hegemonic media environments, and maintains that these actions should be considered important political acts in and of themselves.

O objetivo geral da pesquisa é estudar os critérios utilizados pelas empresas para a escolha dos projetos de artes cênicas patrocinados via isenção fiscal da Lei Rouanet. O objetivo específico é mostrar como os parâmetros de visibilidade midiática, relação custo-benefício, endomarketing, marketing de relacionamento e de negócios e oportunidades de comunicação com públicos de interesse (funcionários, clientes, consumidores, comunidade de entorno) valorizam atores e diretores consagrados pela mídia em detrimento de autores e diretores e atores desconhecidos da mídia, o que dificulta o acesso das produções teatrais experimentais e de pesquisa aos recursos de renúncia fiscal da Lei Rouanet. A Lei Rouanet foi instituída em um contexto neoliberal do Brasil no qual o Estado transferiu à iniciativa privada a viabilização da produção artística que passa a ser avaliada segundo sua potencialidade de se transformar em mercadoria e conquistar novos consumidores com o objetivo de gerar lucro para as empresas. Entrevistamos representantes de empresas privadas e públicas, diretores de projetos patrocinados e inviabilizados por meio da Lei Rouanet e fizemos um levantamento das peças de teatro patrocinadas no ano de 2011 por meio da renúncia fiscal e concluímos que existe uma concentração de recursos de isenção fiscal em produções da Broadway e em atores e diretores consagrados pela mídia em detrimento de autores e diretores e atores desconhecidos da imprensa. Dessa forma, as grandes empresas beneficiam espetáculos que dão retorno financeiro e de marketing institucional, a cultura do entretenimento que busca divertir e agradar ao \"grande público\". Pesquisa do Ministério da Cultura afirmou que existe uma concentração de 50% dos recursos em apenas 3% dos proponentes. Dessa forma, identificamos o conceito de censura de mercado que age em duas vertentes processuais de censura: na primeira, a restrição à produção artística com assuntos polêmicos impede que significados, valores e sentimentos divergentes da convenção social sejam levados ao público, na segunda, exclui as produções teatrais experimentais e de pesquisa do acesso aos recursos públicos da Lei Rouanet, pois essas expressões artísticas possuem imprevisibilidade de bilheteria, de crítica, público e rendimento.
The overall objective of the research is to study the criteria used by companies to the choice of performing arts projects sponsored via tax exemption of Rouanet Law. The specific objective is to show how the media visibility of parameters, cost-effective, internal marketing, relationship marketing and business opportunities and communication with stakeholders (employees, customers, consumers, surrounding community) value embodied by actors and directors media at the expense of authors and directors and media unknowns, which hinders the access of experimental theater productions and research to fiscal waiver resources Rouanet Law. The Rouanet Law was instituted in a neoliberal context of Brazil in which the State transferred to the private sector the viability of artistic production which happens to be evaluated according to their potential to transform into merchandise and win new customers in order to generate profit for companies. We interviewed representatives of private and public companies, sponsored project managers and made impossible through the Rouanet Law and made a survey of theater plays sponsored in 2011 through tax breaks and concluded that there is a concentration of tax exemption resources in production Broadway actors and directors and consecrated by the media to the detriment of authors and directors and unknown actors of the press. Thus, large companies benefit performances that give financial and institutional marketing return, the entertainment culture that seeks to entertain and please the \"general public\". Research the Ministry of Culture affirmed that there is a concentration of 50% of the resources in only 3% of the proposers. Thus, we identified the concept of market censorship acting on two procedural aspects of censorship: first, the restriction of artistic production with controversial issues prevents meanings, values and divergent feelings of social convention are brought to the public. In the second excludes experimental theater productions and research theater access to public resources of the Rouanet Law, for these artistic expressions have unpredictable box office, critical, audience and revenue.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this study I analyse the first year of publication of Loslyf, the first and, at the time of its launch in June 1995, only Afrikaans pornographic magazine. The analysis comprises a historical account of its inception as relayed mainly by Ryk Hattingh, the first editor of Loslyf and primary creative force behind the publication. Such an investigation offers valuable insights into an aspect of South African media history as yet undocumented. As a powerful contributor to an Afrikaans imaginary, emerging at a time of political renewal, Loslyf provides a glimpse into the desires, tensions and tastes of and for an imagined community potentially still shaped by a censorial past. The magazine is worth studying, in part, as an example of an attempt at reinvesting the prescriptive and seemingly generic genre of pornography with cultural specificity and political content, with a view to making it more interesting and relevant. The study argues that whilst Loslyf succeeded in fracturing the “simulacrum” (Baudrillard 1990: 35) of pornographic representation, it also demonstrated that this kind of „alternativity‟ is difficult to sustain. An analysis of the written and visual content of the first 12 issues of the magazine, under Hattingh‟s editorship, investigates the basis of Loslyf‟s status as „alternative‟ publication. I conclude that the first year of Loslyf contributed towards the broader project of democratic expression in an expanding South African visual economy, as a simultaneously well considered and underrated (at the time of its publication at least) cultural product.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie studie analiseer ek die eerste jaar van publikasie van Loslyf as 'n baanbrekende en, in die tyd van sy ontstaan in Junie 1995, die enigste Afrikaanse pornografiese tydskrif. Hierdie analise behels ʼn historiese oorsig van die ontstaan van Loslyf soos hoofsaaklik verhaal deur Ryk Hattingh, die eerste redakteur van Loslyf en primêre kreatiewe mag agter die publikasie. So ʼn ondersoek bied waardevolle insig tot ʼn ongedokumenteerde aspek van Suid-Afrikaanse mediageskiedenis. As ʼn kultuurproduk wat ʼn kragtige bydrae gelewer het tot die Afrikaanse samelewing in ʼn tyd van politieke hernuwing, bied Loslyf ʼn weerkaatsing van die begeertes, spanninge en smake vir en van hierdie gemeenskap – begeertes en smake wat grootendeels gevorm is deur ʼn geskiedenis van sensuur. Dit is waardevol om die tydskrif te bestudeer as voorbeeld van 'n poging om die voorskriftelike en skynbaar generiese pornografiese genre met kulturele bepaaldheid en politiese inhoud te herbelê, ten einde hierdie genre meer interessant en relevant te maak. Hierdie studie beweer dat, terwyl Loslyf daarin slaag om die “simulakrum” (Baudrillard 1990: 35) van pornografiese voorstelling te breek, die publikasie ook demonstreer dat hierdie tipe „alternatiwiteit‟ moeilik volhoubaar is. ʼn Analise van die geskrewe en visuele inhoud van die eerste 12 uitgawes van die tydskrif, onder redakteurskap van Hattingh, ondersoek die basis van Loslyf se status as „alternatiewe‟ publikasie. Ek beslis dat Loslyf se eerste jaar bygedra het tot die breër inisiatief van demokratiese uitdrukking in ʼn ontwikkelende Suid- Afrikaanse visuele ekonomie, as gelyktydig goed deurdagte én ondergeskatte (veral ten tyde van sy ontstaan) publikasie.

During the beginning of the cinema media era around the turn of 20th century, a debate prevailed in Sweden about the film’s harmful and negative moral impact on children and young people. This study aims to investigate the debaters’ knowledge claims regarding a preview of a publicly shown film and if it is related to their morality. The following questions were asked: 1. What knowledge claims are made in connection with the need for prior control over the film that is shown in public? 2. What is presented as the basis for the legitimacy of these knowledge claims? 3. How do these knowledge claims change during its path to legal text? 4. What was the relationship between the presented knowledge claims and a moral perception prevailing among the debaters? A debate paper, a parliamentary motion from 1909 and the public inquiry before the decision to create the Swedish Agency of Movie Censors were analysed with argumentation analysis and thematic analysis with a perspective of history of knowledge. This study points at various aspects such as medical, psychological, social structure and moral arguments, which were put forward as arguments for a regulation of the new film medium. The knowledge claims were justified by professional expertise, general knowledge, experiences from other countries and the debaters’ prior knowledge of the subject. A strong fear of ruining a good existing moral conception that exists in the growing generation emerges. The analysis describes a change in knowledge claims: the moral arguments diminish along the way towards the legal text. Furthermore, the study points at the necessity for continued research to increase the understanding of how legitimacy of knowledge is created by an influential group and then passed on.

This thesis revisits the effects of moving image regulation, exploring its histories in Canada with an interest in the intersections between arts practitioners and legal processes in the administration of culture. During the 1980s and 1990s, intensified film and video regulatory activities necessitated a coalition space for cultural activism populated by media artists and exhibitors, legal and academic scholars, and public intellectuals engaged with representational and identity politics, producing discourses about sexuality, pornography, race, AIDS, censorship, fundamental freedoms, and art. Considering the current state of the law, largely ignored by arts exhibitors in between moments of crisis, I ask how is the reception of this history reflected in practice with regard to regulation and self-regulation? Drawing on work that develops out of Michel Foucault’s theories of governmentality, I argue that actors across Canada were confronted with the task of negotiating not just how contemporary art survives regulatory scrutiny in public policy arenas and the courts, but also the acceptable boundaries of sexual identities and citizenship. This approach prompts a rethinking of contradictory liberal and libertarian notions of censorship to foreground the way ideas are constrained in all aspects of policy, and the way protocols of dissuasion often fail. As such, censoring acts reveal themselves to be less about restricting access than they are about the administration or legitimation of particular cultural values. This thesis historicizes the mandate of the Ontario Film Review Board, explores aspects of movement strategies as they work to crystallize identities, documents specific speech constraints and their justifications in the law, and suggests functions of counter-speech in video productions of the period. This thesis is guided by a concern with the relationship between cultural citizens and the state and asks what role does the state imagine itself playing in regulating the circulation of images? What are the (mis)understandings of censorship within more recent anti-censorship movement efforts, and what are the opportunities for cultural citizens to negotiate change, both in public policy and in popular consciousness?
Thesis (Ph.D, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-23 11:09:40.235

In the twenty-first century, access to a fragmented global culture through online portals has created what Bauman (2011) calls a ‘liquid culture’. As screen-mediated ways of being grow and propagate through our art galleries, museums and online social media feeds, how are we to read this emergent visual grammar so that we can motivate, move or elevate our ways of knowing? This thesis explores the symbolism created in mainland China in 2009 through an emergent and retained set of subversive symbols: the Grass Mud Horse lexicon in Chinese visual culture and beyond. To date, theorists have focused predominantly on internet memes, independent of other multimodal forms generated and transitioned from symbolic online internet memes to offline symbolic use in art and design. I investigate ways of deciphering and articulating these visual gestures through accessing cultural keys. I claim that the new symbolism generated as a result of internet censorship in mainland China demonstrates a generational and ideological shift; it does so through the creation and propagation of new visual grammar in twenty-first century China. To scaffold my claims, I explore an overview of historical changes in the visual articulation of Chinese culture. The use of Mao Zedong as a symbol in art and design clearly illustrates a shift from veneration to subversion. By exploring the symbolism in visual culture dating from 1912 to China’s digital age, this study reveals a transition that proposes a new heroic icon, the Grass Mud Horse. The creation of this new symbolism has political relevance; it deploys practices and art forms to signal, dissolve and raise awareness of social and ideological change. This study maps the new symbolism to test the claim that over time, some symbols may lose potency, while others remain and reflect ideological shifts. The findings will be demonstrated through a synthesis of online digital ethnography, including semiotic and compositional interpretation, and incorporating multimodal discourse analysis. This study will challenge the Western perspective of Chinese stereotypes in visual culture by working with and interpreting visual cultural flows in the digital age.

This research paper examines the role of the Internet as it relates to the development of social movements and political protest in the ‘physical’ world. It also analyses the role of independent media and reporting methodologies used by activists and net-artists. The emergence of online activism and an emphasis on collaboration, information sharing and open source tools also had a significant impact on new media arts discussions and aesthetics. The refugee activist movement in Australia is a key case study in this thesis, as it is an excellent example of how activists have used the Internet and WWW to garner support within the community and to engage people to come to protests. In addition, activists at the protests have reported these events on the WWW and this subject has also had a resounding impact within the context of contemporary and media arts. The implications of identity online is a major factor in constructing the arguments in this thesis, as the relationship between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ space is explored in detail as it relates to personal identity and online community.

Although Nepal has entered a new era of democracy and press freedom since 2006, self-censorship still exists in the reporting/editing of many Nepali journalists. Nepal has more than 100 years of press history, most of it has faced pressure from the government if not censorship. Drawing upon interviews with journalists, the chapter demonstrates how self-censorship is being practised in Nepali media houses as a result of state power, the culture of impunity, commercial interests, and political inclination of journalists. While highlighting these agents, the chapter also aims to explain the difference in practices of self-censorship by gender and type of news media.

Safety of journalists has been studied as part of freedom of expression. This chapter seeks to address issues surrounding journalists' safety and censorship in Colombia by shedding light on a triple menace: the decrease in journalistic quality, citizens' right to information, and the influence on journalists' professional behavior by analysing the multifaceted press censorship from 2008 to 2012, which occurred before the Peace Accord between FARC guerrilla and former president Juan Manuel Santos. Media ethnography and in-depth interviews were used. Employing the Bourdieu's theory of professional field, the praxis, rationale, and censorship of journalists during the conflict were mapped. The findings shed light on how the censorship went on during a more stable period in the conflict and how journalists were silenced and threatened.

The post-independence mantra of most African states signaled a continent with varied ability to advance her developmental frontiers. However, this has remained elusive owing to many factors among which is the disillusionment with the ‘public sphere' by the ruling class because the public sphere presupposes and guarantees the consent of the governed in policy formulation, better governmental process, and the possibility of sustainable and true development. This makes the idea of public sphere very important and a normative concept, as it is an ideal for good/accountable governance. On the contrary, the absence of the public sphere, à la media censorship, has resulted in a leadership failure in its entirety, which in turn has truncated and subverted development. Through critical textual and qualitative analysis, the authors advance the argument that there exists a nexus between public sphere, good governance, and development. And the connection has almost been rendered a nullity through the actions/inactions of the political class whose hatred for the public sphere necessitates its negation.

The purpose of the study, was to contribute to a further understanding of the shifting dynamics in youth political communication enabled by advancements in ICTs and explore the extent to which social media use has impacted on both institutional and extra-institutional political participation. The study sought to critically analyse the relationship between social media use and urban youth political participation by integrating both probability and non-probability sampling techniques to generate data using web based questionnaires and Focus Group Discussions among undergraduate students aged 18-24 years. From the findings it emerged that a majority of educated urban youth prefer to use Facebook to access political information. In addition, the users viewed social media as a free space where they could express their political views without censorship or regulation. As a result, it was established that as the use of social media increases, so does participation in politics, indicating a positive relationship between how youth use social media and their participation in politics.

In the Philippines, the assault on the press has gone digital. While Filipino journalists continue to face physical, verbal, and legal threats and attacks, cyber-attacks and online harassment/trolling were identified in 2018 as the second worst threat against them, after low wages and poor working conditions, according to the International Federation of Journalists and the Southeast Asia Journalist Unions. Websites of news outlets have also been hacked and taken down. These challenges make the press vulnerable to self-censorship and may even lead to fatal outcomes. This chapter seeks to fill the gap in the literature on the digital types of assault on the Philippine alternative press, focusing on the experience of alternative news media outlets—independent media particularly critical of the government. It explores the range of such threats and attacks and the responses, legal frameworks, and remedies in place that are used to combat dangers of this nature.

The aim of this chapter is to describe Mexican journalists' responses to constant threats and aggressions. In doing so, it draws on 93 semi-structured interviews conducted in 23 of the most violent states of the country. The results indicate that violence against news workers has a twofold set of implications for the practice of professional journalism: On the one hand, constant attacks on media staff have promoted the development of a more elaborated journalistic performance, based upon factual reporting, diversification of sources, collaborative coverage, and the creation of journalists' associations. On the other hand, however, in many cases the same situation has also inhibited reporters' and newsrooms' jobs by forcing them to self-censorship and the dependence on government official versions of sensitive issues such as crime news or corruption, amongst other passive routines. The simultaneous coexistence of both outcomes provides evidence of the operation of multiple journalisms within the Mexican media system.

Chapter 5 traces how art deemed outside of the state’s civilizing discourse is met with censorship. It expands the definition of censorship beyond explicit bans and suppressions of artworks by the state, as such bans have become technically speaking difficult to enforce and somewhat unnecessary. Instead, it highlights processes of (partial) silencing, including incentives for self-censorship and delegitimization as well as modes of foreclosure that authoritatively frame the production and reception of art. At the center of the chapter are the attempts to censor the exhibitions Regarding Terror, thematizing media perceptions of the Red Army Faction (Berlin, 2005), and Freekick (Istanbul, 2005), mainly featuring works on the “Kurdish question” and other instances of state violence. Under the shadow of the “global war on terror” and each country’s historical challenges with “security politics,” critics of both exhibitions construed arts and politics as incommensurable. Outlining how freedom of expression is circumscribed by official memory regimes in Turkey and Germany, the chapter analyzes different modes of censorship and the variety of actors engaged in it. It highlights that silencing efforts use the argument of the autonomy of art not to shield art from political intervention but to suppress political expression through the arts.

In 1980, notwithstanding the defeat of the Labour government the year before, the political left in its various forms remained a major presence in British life. Local government, the media, trade unions, pressure groups, the arts and academia: all were often dominated by left-of-centre voices that created networks of opposition to the recently elected Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. Since the reforming Labour government of 1945, the liberal left had some reason to believe that it had shaped the orthodoxies of modern Britain with the welfare state, Keynesian economic policy and the liberal reforms that abolished censorship and challenged gender and racial discrimination. It was still possible, in 1980, for some to believe that a socialist future beckoned....