Academic literature on the topic 'Internet – Political aspects – Tunisia'

The outbreak of the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa reignited the debate over the possibilities of democratization, with much attention paid to the roles of the internet. This paper attempts to answer the questions of whether the expansion of the internet leads to democratization and how calls for democratization during the Arab Spring produced contrasting results in Tunisia and China. The time-series cross-sectional analysis based on data of 166 countries suggests that the annual change of internet penetration is positively associated with a country’s Polity score and that the existing level of the penetration has a slightly negative effect on democratization, though the inclusion of the internet does not visibly improve the explanatory power of the models. The case study comparing Tunisia and China closely examines the multifaceted relationship between the internet and democratization and shows that the internet alone cannot determine the direction of political change. Rather, it is spatially and temporally situated state and societal actors who collectively determine the process and outcome of politics.

Philip Howard's important book offers a timely and thorough treatment of a subject that has been catapulted into the global limelight thanks to recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt: the impact of the Internet on the political cultures in the Middle East.

Social networking websites are: face book, twitter, beebo, orkut etc. The fact is that this technological advancement is changing the urban sociology drastically. Its effects range from personal friendships to political movements. The demonstrations in Iran were mainly organised through face book and twitter. They had a major role in the overthrow of Tunisian president. There are wide spread protests in Egypt also. People of Egypt were demanding the end of Hosni Mubarak's regime and Egyptian government has banned both face book and twitter because people were demanding that president Hosni Mubarak should resign. These websites don't start any movement but people who start movements use them to contact public. Previously it was difficult to arrange demonstrations and political parties had to announce in advance, which gave the government the chance to put a ban or just block the area where demonstration was to be held but now what they do is they just announce it one hour before the actual time and the government has no time to control it, that is why these websites have made political demonstrations more effective. On the personal level they have made it easier to maintain contact with your friends but the level of close friendships is reduced. Previously we used to have few friends and one or two were very close friends but now we have hundreds of friends but no one is close. Besides dedicating more time to online activities means we have less time to actually go out and meet friends. This phenomenon is very common in the developed world. It is a major change and we still don't know where this change is leading. The other aspect of technological advancement is that now knowledge is not restricted. Everybody and anybody can learn whatever they want all they need is an internet connection. The fact is nobody can close the internet. So internet in effect is the new super power in the world. America is not the super power internet is because America cannot close the internet but internet can close America.

Abstract Will the revolutionary changes of the “Arab Spring” result in more open and democratic media in the affected countries in the Middle East and North Africa? Using developments in Tunisia as a case study, the authors argue that democratically reformed media, Internet, and spectrum policies can lead to a more enabling and pluralistic environment that encourages new market entrants. Progress has been made, but ongoing challenges in structural and institutional reforms remain. The authors make a series of policy recommendations in the hope that Tunisia can be a model for its regional and global peers.

Political changes in Northern Africa, known as the Arab Spring, allowed reli‑ gious parties to take over the power. In the paper I analyzed political developments in Tunisia and Morocco in the past two years. Both countries have accepted reform agendas though their implementation brought about different results. In Tunisia the changes were very volatile, deeply interfering with all aspects of public and private spheres. In Morocco, on the opposite, the process was much more gentle, overseen in all aspects by king Mohamed VI. The fact that ruling political par‑ ties have religious roots has influenced the process of reforms and caused serious anxiety. The complexity of the economic, social, and political challenges in both countries hinders the reform process. The tensions between two ways of devel‑ opment (religious and secular) cause controversy and uncertainty which are the subject of this paper.

This study examined concerns about Internet surveillance among Internet users in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Lebanon, Qatar, and the UAE ( N = 4160). Despite common stereotypes about how variables like gender, youth, income, nationality, and liberal or conservative ideology affect political and cultural attitudes in Arab countries, these indicators were not significant predictors of concerns about online surveillance by governments and companies. Arab nationals reported greater concern about companies monitoring their online activity, while expatriates were more worried about government surveillance. The study uses literature on the attribute substitution heuristic to discuss how people might form stereotypes about large groups.

Development of computer networks, informational and communication technologies have had an undeniable impact on the linguistic or rather speech sphere of human life and contributed to the texts emergence of different genres. The proposed work is devoted to the study of Kazakhstani political Internet commentaries in derivational and linguo-personalological aspects. The text of a political article has a potential of derivational functioning, which is realized in the text of an online commentaryinfluenced by variable strategies and tactics. The aim of the study is to determine parameters of personal and textual generation of Kazakhstani political Internet comments. Taking as a basis for classification the parameters of the content, form and function of the secondary text, we identified the tactics of text generation within the subjective (personal) and objective (textual) strategies of textual activity. The result of text-derivatological and llinguo-personalological research showed that Kazakhstani Internet comments are dominated by a text strategy, where the most used tactics are keyword tactics and copial contenttactics.

This thesis setss out to re-evaluate and re-think theories of communications media and theories of democracy formation under translocal, global and networked conditions. In order to do this, the thesis brings a combination of social and communications theory, political philosophy and "radical empiricism" to the study of the socio-technical dimensions of Net cultures. It examines the ways in which emergent networks of creativity, labour, organisation and intervention challenge the sovereignty of the state-corporation nexus, which functions tu restrict access and control information flows in the interests of security and profit. The thesis investigates the relationship between emergent forms of organisation and the seemingly de-nationalised realm of networks. It considers how democratic polities might be constituted in terms of material interventions within the network. The challenge of theorising and inventing new idioms of democracy within an informational paradigm underpins much of the inquiry within this thesis.

With the development of the information network technologies and the popularisation of the Internet, Chinese society is experiencing a Triple Revolution. Regulating the Internet has become a priority in China. In this context, this study seeks a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of China's Internet regulatory mechanism. Through the systematical analysis on Internet law in China, supplemented by the case study on how the issue of the Occupy Movement in Hong Kong was regulated, this study argues that China has developed a hybrid Internet regulatory model, which values both external defense and internal control in pursuit of the goal of cybersecurity, and which combines hierarchical regulation with horizontal monitoring to address challenges brought by contemporary network society. The Internet panoptic-fortification model is developed to illuminate China's Internet regulatory mechanism. The Internet panoptic-fortification model is featured by the centralised control from the authorities and ISPs, the establishment of Chinese sovereign cyberspace with jurisdictional and technical supports, the implementation of the network real-name system and the Internet-surfing record backup system to regulate individual Internet users, and the tight ideological control. This conceptual model reflects important aspects of Michel Foucault's account of governmentality, incorporating both centralised power and diffuse micro-power. This study suggests that China's Internet law to some extent has become an instrument for the state to promote the social discipline in the sovereign cyberspace, and the Internet regulatory mechanism serves for the national security and social stability in a broader context.

The study adopts Uses and Gratifications (U&G) theory as the framework to test antecedents and consequences in using fanqiang (bypassing Internet censorship) as an alternative medium along with accessible Internet, TV, newspaper and radio as mainstream media in a Chinese context. By online between-group experimentation (N = 132 in the experimental group, N = 127 in the control group), the study shows that curiosity about forbidden political content and political apathy predict fanqiang and most accessible media use tendencies. Moderation effects exist between curiosity and self-efficacy in predicting fanqiang tendencies. Disappointment as an emotional effect is directly related to curiosity and political apathy, where the mediation effects of media use tendencies are not salient. Explicit Internet censorship increases curiosity about forbidden political content and decreases the dimension of lack of interest in political apathy. However, it does not change accessible media use tendencies and disappointment levels. Still, participants show fewer of fanqiang tendencies than with accessible media, except radio. The results highlight the cognitive roots of motivations and emotional constructs as a part of gratification in U&G research, that self-efficacy as a necessary requirement for curiosity to drive media use, and that information attributes can change motivations. We urge future scholars to build broader explications of political apathy when applied to different societies, to try diverse methods like experimentation in U&G research, and to adopt a sociopsychological approach when studying the influences and effectiveness of Internet censorship.

Opinion leaders are important political players who bridge the gap between the political elite and the general public. Traditionally opinion leaders use social pressure and social support via interpersonal communication to personally influence the opinions, attitudes and behaviours of their everyday associates (who make up the general public). However, in a hybrid media system opinion leaders have access to added channels which mean they can communicate with audiences beyond their everyday associates and/or engage in non-interpersonal interactions, potentially setting the stage for opinion leaders to become more influential since they can access more members of the general public. Conversely, since the ability of opinion leaders to influence others traditionally relies on strong social bonds, even if audiences are accessible for information transfer, the lack of social connection could mean influence does not flow. As such, opinion leaders' channel choice in a hybrid media system is potentially very important. To investigate the patterns of channel use as well as motivations for, and impacts of, channel choices by opinion leaders, a two phase mixed-methods study is employed. Phase one includes online social network analysis of the #CDNpoli (Canadian politics) hashtag on Twitter and an online survey. Phase two investigates the communication practices of 21 specific digitally enabled opinion leaders drawn from the #CDNpoli network. Two hour in-depth interviews are paired with visualizations of the participants trace data. Telephone interviews with associates (alters) of the primary interviewee were conducted (N=27). This design is therefore responsive to the multi-channel reality of a hybrid media system and improves upon large scale and single channel studies which are most common in this line of research. Now strategic and, at times, impersonal, a fundamental shift in how influence is derived challenges theories of social influence and information dissemination. Two types of strategic opinion leaders emerge: enthusiasts and champions. Their strategies contribute to a wider trend - a "just-in-time" informed citizenry - where those who do not opt in to receiving messages from the political elite only get information at the last possible minute, such as during a scandal or an election. Future research and communication strategy must be sensitive to the varied aims and tactics of digitally enabled opinion leaders as well as the subsequent inconsistent relationship between the uninformed and their political system.

Social Networking Sites (SNS) have extremely high rates of young adult users. Facebook.com report.s that more than half of its users are of college age. Due to the increasing number of political figures and political information on SNS, this study analyzes the relationship between SNS and political engagement. Specifically, this study seeks to determine if adults' consumption of political information on SNS leads to higher levels of political engagement. Political engagement is broken down into three different variables: political knowledge, political interest, and political participation. This study draws its data from a sample of 355 undergraduate college students. Data was collected through a volunteer self-administered survey questionnaire. Three sections respectively measured political engagement, social networking site dependency for political information, and demographic information. Data were collected from a junior college and a private university in Northern California. This study found a positive relationship between SNS dependency for political information and political interest and participation. In other words, individuals who depend on SNS for political information have higher levels of political interest and participation. There was no significant relationship found between political knowledge and SNS dependency. These results suggest that SNS may help foster political engagement in young adults.

This study attempts to analyse the way foreign media organisations have used the Internet to inform, educate and mobilise citizens for participation in their national election. These foreign experiences provide a framework with which to analyse the implications for the SABC as a public broadcaster of the next elections in South Africa. The research was informed by theories of media and democracy. One of the most powerful features of the new technology is its technical ability to facilitate an interactive flow of information. This research examines the concept of cyberdemocracy and the implications for the SABC, especially as it is planning on launching an online election strategy. The democratic roles of journalism and the implications for the SABC are also discussed. As a public service broadcaster, the SABC is bound to educate, inform, and mobilise voters for participation, build community and national identity and scrutinise the poll in the interests of transparency, accountability and fair play. International journalists are advocating a new type of journalism, called public or civic journalism, which combines these roles. This research draws primarily on qualitative research methods, using a case study methodology. It draws upon direct observation and interview methodology in the fieldwork. However, it also uses some quantitative methods in the analysis of the websites and the SABC research.Finally, the research analyses the situation at the SABC and provides recommendations for the election website within this context

This chapter highlights the importance of information visualization using web mapping to shed light on the correlation between social actors. It shows how this method helps to understand if Berber identity beyond frontiers is a reality or just a motto in support of “cultural activism.” The suggested web mapping presents the hyperlinks weaved between websites whose focus is Berber cultural identity. Berbers are the indigenous people of North Africa. They are scattered in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya; they have built a “resistance identity,” including both cultural and political claims, long before the digital age. Since the 1960s they have been struggling for recognition against the state's cultural and political domination in which they live. The analysis of Berbers' relationships amongst each other on the internet is valuable for understanding the main features and issues of this digital connection, its shape, its contents, and actor typology.

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was organized by the United Nations (UN) and the International Telecommunications Union to address the need for international policy and agreement on ICT governance, rights, and responsibilities. It convened in two phases: Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005. International representatives of governments, businesses, and civil society raised issues, and debated and formed policy recommendations. The WSIS Gender Caucus (2003) and other civil-society participants advocated for gender equality to be included as a fundamental principle for action and decision making. The voting plenary session of delegates produced the WSIS Declaration of Principles (UN, 2003a) and WSIS Plan of Action (UN, 2003b) in Geneva, with gender included in many of the articles. Two major issues WSIS addressed in Geneva and Tunis were Internet governance and the Digital Solidarity Fund. UN secretary general Kofi Annan established the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) to define Internet and Internet governance to “navigate the complex terrain” (GKP, 2002, p. 6) and to make recommendations for WSIS in Tunis in 2005. WGIG addressed three Internet-governance functions: technical standardization; resources allocation and assignment, such as domain names; and policy formation and enforcement, and dispute resolution. Relevant issues not initially addressed by WGIG included gender, voice, inclusiveness, and other issues rooted in unequal access to ICT and to the decision-making process including governance, now shaping the information society. On February 23, a joint statement on Internet governance was presented in Geneva at the Tunis Prepcom by the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus, the Gender Caucus, Human Rights Caucus, Privacy Caucus, and Media Caucus on behalf of the Civil Society Content and Themes Group. The statement asserts, “gender balanced representation in all aspects of Internet Governance is vital for the process and for its outcomes to have legitimacy” (WSIS Gender Caucus, 2005a). The Digital Solidarity Fund was proposed at WSIS, and the UN Task Force on Financial Mechanisms for ICT for Development was formed. In the 1990s, official development-assistance (ODA) support declined for ICT infrastructure development. In the new millennium, this decline has been offset by funds to integrate ICT programs into development (Hesselbarth & Tambo, 2005). The WSIS Gender Caucus (2003) statement on financing mechanisms affirmed that ICT for development must be framed as a development issue, “encompassing market-led growth but fundamentally a public policy issue.” Public finance is central to achieving “equitable and gender just outcomes in ICT for development.” This article examines the WSIS political dynamics over the issue of gender equality as a fundamental principle for action in ICT policy. The WSIS civil-society participants, particularly the Gender Caucus, continued to advocate for gender equality as a fundamental principle for action and decision making within the multiple-stakeholder WSIS process of government delegates and private-sector representatives.

This chapter explores the potential of the Internet for asylum seekers'/refugees' political agency and for challenging the boundaries of national citizenship and state sovereignty. It considers that Western governments' formulation of “restrictionist” and “assimilationist” citizenship policies and the conjoining “managerialist” approach to asylum are aimed at asserting state sovereignty and national citizenship. However, it is argued that attempts at the territorial construction of membership amounts to a “sovereignty paradox”: policies promote an international humanitarian norm of citizenship, which depends on state sovereignty for its realisation. Asylum-seeking migrants' views and practices are therefore deployed to explore the counterproductivity of the UK government's attempt to coerce would-be British citizens to have loyalty and allegiance to the nation-state. This UK case study provides empirical substantiation of asylum-seeking migrants' political agency in the West, and the resilience of state sovereignty in affirming an international humanitarian norm of citizenship. It also contributes to an understanding of asylum-seeking migrants' political agency through the Internet in holding political elites in the West accountable for their migration-citizenship policies. This perspective has been strikingly missing in the citizenship and international relations theories, particularly given the context that non-citizen asylum-seeking migrants residing in liberal democracies are a major trigger for these policies. The chapter also attempts to deconstruct the relationship between transnationalism and globalisation: a project that continues to be problematic in the academy.

The attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona on January 8, 2011 spurred a surge of media reflection and criticism of the Tea Party Patriots and their violent rhetoric. The Coffee Party, created in 2010 as an oppositional force to the Tea Party, spent the days following the shooting discussing the various social, political, and moral aspects of the violence on their Facebook page. This chapter is part of an ongoing investigation of language in politically oriented online forums. Here, the 24 parent posts and following Facebook conversations are studied to investigate a connection between post sentiment and network structure. Using communication accommodation theory, Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC), and network analysis, a relationship is located between social, affective, cognitive, perceptual, and biological constructs and network measures of betweeness and core/periphery size. This chapter has implications regarding online network structures, new methods in Internet research, and online political activity research.

The purpose of this chapter is to show that the Cold War is behind the invention of the Internet. This is one of a very few positive results of this war, which had tremendous influence on the further development of civilization. The research on the universality of info-communication processes was conducted on both sides of the Iron Curtain, which indicates the similarities in engineering thinking, regardless of the geographic locations. The political meaning of the Internet does not only result from its history but also stands for the support of democratic development and the obstruction of dictatorships. The history of the Internet is also an example of the development of great engineering talents and research and development centers, which rise to the occasion on such ambitious projects. All of these aspects of the Internet will be investigated in this paper, as well as its impact upon the emergence of the Global Civilization.

In non-democratic societies new media social networks have played a significant role in changing political and social positions, not necessarily through real life but, instead, through cyber life. This chapter examines how Saudi activists challenge the political authority and how Saudi citizens took advantage of publicity by demanding political change. All of this happened due to social networks and new media, which allowed citizens to mobilize information for the sake of transparency. This was a new phenomenon in Saudi Arabia. The current young generation of Saudis, who use the Internet and social networking sites, played a significant role in the public sphere by making use of the space available to them within cyberspace. This chapter discusses the potential of political information to flourish in Saudi Arabia. It examines how and why citizen activism in Saudi Arabia can be effective. The chapter also shows that social networking activities have the power to change political decisions and society.

This chapter surveys the most important debates generated by these research agendas, and argues that, despite some impressive contributions, their focus remains generally limited to certain aspects of Islamist politics. Specifically, post-2011 research agendas continue to dismiss the relevance of party politics due to the longstanding belief—quite justified in most cases—that parties in the Middle East and particularly in North Africa are insignificant political actors. In light of the events of 2011, however, it is necessary to examine party politics more closely, especially the ideologically driven Islamist parties that often hold the key to the success or failure of regime change in the region. Scrutinizing Islamist parties can reveal critical social, political, generational, and ideological factors affecting Islamism as a whole, including the Salafi trend. More specifically, scholars must overcome their tendency to overlook the profound diversity, fragmentation, and tensions that exist within Islamism proper. Such diversity plays a role not only in the political institutional arena (i.e., electoral competition between different Islamist parties), but also in social domains, where there are heated ideological debates and diverse instances and forms of activism within the Islamist sphere that many observers have yet to fully grasp and analyze. Finally, the chapter points to the seeming paradox of the thesis of post-Islamism, which in some ways has been confirmed rather than challenged by the arrival of the Moroccan Party for Justice and Development (PJD) and the Tunisian Ennahda to power.

The objective of this chapter is to explore the Arab region’s media systems in order to assess the sources of information available to civil society. The chapter is divided into four parts, which provide: first, an account of the political and regulatory environment in which the media have to operate; second, a description of traditional media; third, an overview of satellite television, which is paramount in the region; and fourth, an analysis of internet access in the region. The data analysed in this chapter clearly illustrates that one of the results of the Arab Spring has been the attempt to further control information flows. With the exception of a few countries, especially Tunisia and Algeria, almost all the governments in the region have adopted rules in the hope of controlling information in a more effective way. Of course, this does not mean that citizens are unable to obtain political information through other channels than those accepted by governments. Satellite TV is a first fracture in the closed ecosystem, but events in recent years suggest that it is not entirely free from attempts at regularisation and control. Nonetheless, there are other tools to serve the public that can be treated as sources of information and, therefore, as media: namely the Internet and all its facets.

In the past decade, the Internet has extensively penetrated the political landscape in Israel. A variety of actors, including parties, Knesset members, NGOs, and more, have realized the significance of using the Internet to promote their goals and have established an online presence via a variety of platforms. Consequently, the Internet is becoming a fertile ground to study Israeli society with its multiple cleavages. This chapter analyses how the ideological cleavage in the Israeli society is manifest online, through the linking patterns between political Websites. Link analysis is used to study political visibility and centrality online, to map the channels of information flow between the various political actors, and to identify recognition and discourse networks between the various political actors. From the link analysis of the sites of some 200 political parties, MPs, and NGOs, we found no links between right-wing and left-wing political sites; each side in the political spectrum conducts a different linking strategy. Most of the sites of political parties and MPs received no in-bound links from the other political sites. On the other hand, NGOs have a central role in the online political networks in Israel and maintain a relatively dense linking network.

The article hypothesises that the opposition of ‘publicity/privacy’ concepts (alongside with other fundamental dichotomies, e.g. spiritual/material, social/individual, political/personal) in the media era, and first of all in the era of the Internet together with related communicative resources, is no longer productive. The study was performed via discursive analysis since it concerns methods of making use of the original concepts of ‘publicity’ and ‘privacy’. The author also addresses media survey methods since it is a contemporary media context that guides changes in the balance between the concerned phenomena. The deconstruction method is also important since the theatre institution itself, on the example of which the phenomenon of the interpenetration of the public and the private is examined, is deconstructed and shadowed by absolutely new theatrical practices. The culturological approach is the paradigmal prism through which the declared topic is researched, since the study goal is to demonstrate how ‘current’ (Z. Bauman) changes of the modern cultural landscape change habitual ideas on some or other dichotomies, particularly the dichotomy of ‘publicity/private’. The aforementioned research tools were used in the study to address theatrical practices explicitly demonstrating the removal of the dichotomy of public and private. A closer look was taken at the play ‘Questioning’ staged by the contemporary Petersburg theatre Pop-up, and where invasion of publicity into the area of privacy and intimity, and exposition of aspects taken out from ultimate existential depths constitutes the very essence of the play. The article concludes that such theatrical practices can take place when the cultural horizon is extended to enable the attribution of a new semantic scope, in particular ‘forced publicness’ (E. Shulman).

This paper describes results obtained by experiments on using Moodle for teaching Science and Information Technology. Modern graphical and dedicated languages are used to create content and embed the artifacts in four Moodle courses: Programming Paradigms (PP), Internet Programming Techniques (IPT), Graphical User Interface Design (GuiD), and Multimedia Techniques (MT). The following aspects are detailed and discussed: course format, HTML5 playing, SVG, CSS3, and JavaScript coding. The GuiD & MT courses, in old versions, will be reengineered to meet the new requirements imposed by web 2.0 e-learning technologies. The following challenging topics highgliht the efficiency of Moodle: PP(Programming in Python, Programming in Common Lisp, Programming in Prolog), IPT (Client-Server applications, Developing HTML5 complient content, Quality improvement by CCS3, Dynamic behaviour improvement by JavaScript and PHP, Server side applications, distributed data base connections), Guid (Graphical Interfaces in C# and Java, Android applications), and MT (Image standards, Audio-Video standards, Multimedia databases, Multimedia Security). Due to such a large plethora of objects, the Moodle platform is full investigated related on the support offered to build high quality e-Learning content. Interoperability assurance techniques are considered to import/export content. Not only standards on Multimedia artifacts, but the conformity with e-Learning standards are considered. Many types of resources are used to illustrate both the content of course's units, and the Moodle support. Statistical results on usage Moodle for Teaching (blended learning classes) two courses (PP & ITP) are presented in order to compare different type of content used for the same class. Preliminary references: 1. Ursache L., Vaju G., Donici G., and Herman C., Moodle: Administrare, Utilizare, Evaluare. Arad, 2011. 2. Retalis S., Dougiamas M. (eds), 1st Moodle Research Conference, Heraklion, Crete-Greece, September, 14-15, 2012. 3. de Raadt M., Ratalis S., 2nd Moodle Research Conference, Sousse, Tunisia, October, 4-6, 2013. 4. ***. Teaching with Moodle, https://moodle.org/ 5. Syllabus: ITP, PP, GuiD, MT (Departement of Information Technology)

In this article, I explore connections between internet use, a huge development in human civilization and its role in educating citizens. Internet is literally considered as a practical key or essential to human development and social advancement causing massive innovation in the world. Over the years, the advent of new media has permeated most aspects of our lives, especially that of the young generation. It is against this background that this paper aims to analyses the present use of the new media by youth to gauge their usage in relation to political participation. This study is a country wide survey covering resources posted on Facebook related Romanian military sites. Practically users are split into groups that accept more or less the politically correct ideas and sometimes accept or fierce reject some kinds of historiography. Besides a survey research using questionnaire as instrument was used to obtain data paper take its data from of samples of content and information's publicly posted on this social engine. The data was analyzed descriptively and inferentially using SPSS 20.0 From the results, majority of the respondents, 89% are social media users having a social media account. A discouraging trend with regard to participation is the very low level of giving comments on general societal issues ranging from social issues, the environment to politics. The youth are more inclined to using the new media for entertainment and finding resources for surface education on hot topics. It is time to use the new media to engage with community leaders and trained historians to comment on issues related to study research data.

The article deals with the ways in which social networks and the blogosphere influence the formation and implementation of a PR campaign. Examples from the political sphere (election campaigns, initiatives), business (TV brands, traditional and online media) have revealed the opportunities that Facebook, Telegram, Twitter, YouTube and blogs promote in promoting advertising, ideas, campaigns, thoughts, or products. Author blogs created on special websites or online media may not be as much of a tool in PR as an additional tool on social media. It is noted that choosing a blog as the main tool of PR campaign has both positive and negative points. Social networks intervene in the sphere of human life, become a means of communication, promotion, branding. The effectiveness of social networks has been evidenced by such historically significant events as Brexit, the Arab Spring, and the Revolution of Dignity. Special attention was paid to the 2019 presidential election. Based on the analysis of individual PR campaigns, the reasons for successful and unsuccessful campaigns from the point of view of network communication, which provide unlimited multimedia and interactive tools for PR, are highlighted. In fact, these concepts significantly affect the effectiveness of the implementation of PR-campaign, its final effectiveness, which is determined by the achievement of goals. Attention is drawn to the culture of communication during the PR campaign, as well as the concepts of “trolls”, “trolling”, “bots”, “botoin industry”. The social communication component of these concepts is unconditional. Choosing a blog as the main tool of a marketing campaign has both positive and negative aspects. Only a person with great creative potential can run and create a blog. In addition, it takes a long time. In fact, these two points are losing compared to other internet marketing tools. Further research is interesting in two respects. First, a comparison of the dynamics of the effectiveness of PR-campaign tools in Ukraine in 2020 and in the past, in particular, at the dawn of state independence. Secondly, to investigate how/or the concept of PR-campaigns in social networks and blogs is constantly changing.

This report maps the African landscape of Open Science – with a focus on Open Data as a sub-set of Open Science. Data to inform the landscape study were collected through a variety of methods, including surveys, desk research, engagement with a community of practice, networking with stakeholders, participation in conferences, case study presentations, and workshops hosted. Although the majority of African countries (35 of 54) demonstrates commitment to science through its investment in research and development (R&D), academies of science, ministries of science and technology, policies, recognition of research, and participation in the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI), the following countries demonstrate the highest commitment and political willingness to invest in science: Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. In addition to existing policies in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), the following countries have made progress towards Open Data policies: Botswana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, South Africa and Uganda. Only two African countries (Kenya and South Africa) at this stage contribute 0.8% of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to R&D (Research and Development), which is the closest to the AU’s (African Union’s) suggested 1%. Countries such as Lesotho and Madagascar ranked as 0%, while the R&D expenditure for 24 African countries is unknown. In addition to this, science globally has become fully dependent on stable ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) infrastructure, which includes connectivity/bandwidth, high performance computing facilities and data services. This is especially applicable since countries globally are finding themselves in the midst of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), which is not only “about” data, but which “is” data. According to an article1 by Alan Marcus (2015) (Senior Director, Head of Information Technology and Telecommunications Industries, World Economic Forum), “At its core, data represents a post-industrial opportunity. Its uses have unprecedented complexity, velocity and global reach. As digital communications become ubiquitous, data will rule in a world where nearly everyone and everything is connected in real time. That will require a highly reliable, secure and available infrastructure at its core, and innovation at the edge.” Every industry is affected as part of this revolution – also science. An important component of the digital transformation is “trust” – people must be able to trust that governments and all other industries (including the science sector), adequately handle and protect their data. This requires accountability on a global level, and digital industries must embrace the change and go for a higher standard of protection. “This will reassure consumers and citizens, benefitting the whole digital economy”, says Marcus. A stable and secure information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure – currently provided by the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) – is key to advance collaboration in science. The AfricaConnect2 project (AfricaConnect (2012–2014) and AfricaConnect2 (2016–2018)) through establishing connectivity between National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), is planning to roll out AfricaConnect3 by the end of 2019. The concern however is that selected African governments (with the exception of a few countries such as South Africa, Mozambique, Ethiopia and others) have low awareness of the impact the Internet has today on all societal levels, how much ICT (and the 4th Industrial Revolution) have affected research, and the added value an NREN can bring to higher education and research in addressing the respective needs, which is far more complex than simply providing connectivity. Apart from more commitment and investment in R&D, African governments – to become and remain part of the 4th Industrial Revolution – have no option other than to acknowledge and commit to the role NRENs play in advancing science towards addressing the SDG (Sustainable Development Goals). For successful collaboration and direction, it is fundamental that policies within one country are aligned with one another. Alignment on continental level is crucial for the future Pan-African African Open Science Platform to be successful. Both the HIPSSA ((Harmonization of ICT Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa)3 project and WATRA (the West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly)4, have made progress towards the regulation of the telecom sector, and in particular of bottlenecks which curb the development of competition among ISPs. A study under HIPSSA identified potential bottlenecks in access at an affordable price to the international capacity of submarine cables and suggested means and tools used by regulators to remedy them. Work on the recommended measures and making them operational continues in collaboration with WATRA. In addition to sufficient bandwidth and connectivity, high-performance computing facilities and services in support of data sharing are also required. The South African National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System5 (NICIS) has made great progress in planning and setting up a cyberinfrastructure ecosystem in support of collaborative science and data sharing. The regional Southern African Development Community6 (SADC) Cyber-infrastructure Framework provides a valuable roadmap towards high-speed Internet, developing human capacity and skills in ICT technologies, high- performance computing and more. The following countries have been identified as having high-performance computing facilities, some as a result of the Square Kilometre Array7 (SKA) partnership: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Tunisia, and Zambia. More and more NRENs – especially the Level 6 NRENs 8 (Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, and recently Zambia) – are exploring offering additional services; also in support of data sharing and transfer. The following NRENs already allow for running data-intensive applications and sharing of high-end computing assets, bio-modelling and computation on high-performance/ supercomputers: KENET (Kenya), TENET (South Africa), RENU (Uganda), ZAMREN (Zambia), EUN (Egypt) and ARN (Algeria). Fifteen higher education training institutions from eight African countries (Botswana, Benin, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, and Tanzania) have been identified as offering formal courses on data science. In addition to formal degrees, a number of international short courses have been developed and free international online courses are also available as an option to build capacity and integrate as part of curricula. The small number of higher education or research intensive institutions offering data science is however insufficient, and there is a desperate need for more training in data science. The CODATA-RDA Schools of Research Data Science aim at addressing the continental need for foundational data skills across all disciplines, along with training conducted by The Carpentries 9 programme (specifically Data Carpentry 10 ). Thus far, CODATA-RDA schools in collaboration with AOSP, integrating content from Data Carpentry, were presented in Rwanda (in 2018), and during17-29 June 2019, in Ethiopia. Awareness regarding Open Science (including Open Data) is evident through the 12 Open Science-related Open Access/Open Data/Open Science declarations and agreements endorsed or signed by African governments; 200 Open Access journals from Africa registered on the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ); 174 Open Access institutional research repositories registered on openDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories); 33 Open Access/Open Science policies registered on ROARMAP (Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies); 24 data repositories registered with the Registry of Data Repositories (re3data.org) (although the pilot project identified 66 research data repositories); and one data repository assigned the CoreTrustSeal. Although this is a start, far more needs to be done to align African data curation and research practices with global standards. Funding to conduct research remains a challenge. African researchers mostly fund their own research, and there are little incentives for them to make their research and accompanying data sets openly accessible. Funding and peer recognition, along with an enabling research environment conducive for research, are regarded as major incentives. The landscape report concludes with a number of concerns towards sharing research data openly, as well as challenges in terms of Open Data policy, ICT infrastructure supportive of data sharing, capacity building, lack of skills, and the need for incentives. Although great progress has been made in terms of Open Science and Open Data practices, more awareness needs to be created and further advocacy efforts are required for buy-in from African governments. A federated African Open Science Platform (AOSP) will not only encourage more collaboration among researchers in addressing the SDGs, but it will also benefit the many stakeholders identified as part of the pilot phase. The time is now, for governments in Africa, to acknowledge the important role of science in general, but specifically Open Science and Open Data, through developing and aligning the relevant policies, investing in an ICT infrastructure conducive for data sharing through committing funding to making NRENs financially sustainable, incentivising open research practices by scientists, and creating opportunities for more scientists and stakeholders across all disciplines to be trained in data management.