In 2021-2022, as part of our Civic Media Observatory research, Global Voices is running country-level Observatories focused on India, Turkey, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nicaragua, and Mali, with a major focus on elections, violent conflict, nationalism, human rights and women’s rights, and shifts in the post-Cold War international order. We assemble teams of local researchers with diverse language and analytics skills to identify and analyze emerging issues, narratives and trends in each country’s information ecosystem.
In each country, we focus on significant events in public life, and provided contextual and subtextual analysis to complex issues, to help partners, Global Voices contributors and readers understand the nuance and motivations for the narratives that frame public conversations.
Each week, we publish Undertones, a newsletter featuring insights from the Observatories. In each edition we analyze an event, emerging trend, or a complex story, identifying key narratives of urgent public interest, delving deep into the context and subtext of local, vernacular and multilingual media. Undertones also offers an entry point into the public datasets that underpin our Observatory work.
The 2021-2022 datasets are regularly synchronized and updated throughout our active research period.
Visit the Civic Media Observatory main page.
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Stories about Country monitor observatories 2021-2022
Undertones: What’s behind Bangladesh’s neutrality about Russia’s invasion?
Through deep observation, explore how there's more to neutrality in Bangladesh's relationship with Russia.
Pride or shame? Russian influencers on the war in Ukraine
Explore the narratives of Russian celebrities and thinkers on the war in Ukraine.
How Myanmar's military supporters are using Facebook to justify violence
Mainstream media outside Myanmar have failed to report on pro-Junta narratives.
Decoding the role of mainstream and social media in the recent anti-Muslim violence in India
“Hindus are under threat,” “Muslims should be treated as second class citizens,” and “Secularism marginalizes India's Hindus” were the top narrative frames present in media items in the CMO research.
Ukrainians use VKontakte marketplaces to inform Russians about the war
“Do you have a receipt for this jacket, Anya?” Ukrainian VK users are searching for items stolen from Bucha in Rubtsovsk online groups.
Undertones: How Russian media lies to Russians about Ukraine
"It is sanitized military propaganda intended for domestic consumption.”
WAR IS WAR: Vkontakte users discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Given the likelihood that Russian social media API will be closed for further research, Global Voices investigated the opinions of VKontakte users on the Russian war with Ukraine.
Undertones: Populist discourses against the ‘elite’ and the ‘poor’ in Turkey
Turkey’s doctors and refugees have an unlikely commonality -- they are the target of far-right and populist narratives.
Undertones: Putin’s war emboldens promoters of a ‘United India’
Hindu nationalists are drawing parallels between the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the division of India after colonial rule.
Undertones: Russia's feminists rise up
Today, feminists in Russia and abroad are joining forces to protest Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine by mounting a “Feminist Anti-War Resistance” movement.
Undertones: Taliban narratives about Afghan women
Dozens of Afghan women have publicly protested the Taliban’s gradual and systematic erasure of women from the public sphere since their return to power in August 2021.
Undertones: How extremist Hindu nationalists use Instagram
See these examples of memes, photos, and videos on Instagram promoting electoral propaganda and violence as a means to create a Hindu state.
Undertones: What Russian media says about the Russia-Ukraine crisis
Inside Russia, mainstream media have treated the crisis as a joke, reminded their audience of Russia’s position as a nuclear superpower, or stated that Putin does not know how to retreat from the situation.
Hijab ban stirs protests in the Indian state of Karnataka
Protests have broken out in the southern state of Karnataka in India over the past months, after colleges in the state banned women students wearing hijabs from attending classes.
‘Rebel’ candidates risk it all: Elections in Bangladesh
Electoral violence in fact has flared up within the ranks of the Awami League itself, as prospective candidates compete to be nominated by the party.
Bulli Bai, Sulli Deals cases highlight rising communal misogyny in India
More than a hundred Muslim women in India woke up to find themselves up for auction on an app on the morning of January 1, 2022. It has since been taken down.
Undertones: From ‘Satanic’ QR codes and ‘public enemies’, navigating the pandemic in Russia
Protests erupted throughout the country in late 2021 and polarization is deepening, as government members and state media label anti-vaxxers “enemies of the people,” a term loaded with negative historical connotations.
The Civic Media Observatory in 2021
2021 was a big year for the Civic Media Observatory. Here’s a recap of our work.
Undertones: Online violence in Myanmar, Pakistan’s smog cover-up
Myanmar’s pro-military factions express themselves openly on social media, targeting pro-democracy supporters. And the government of Pakistan’s Punjab region clamps don on posts about poor air quality in the region.
Undertones: A deep-dive into Indian hyper-nationalism
Any critique of the government, the armed forces, or the Hindu religion and its socio-political project, known as Hindutva, is labeled “sedition,” and is treated as treason for attacking the sovereignty of India.
Undertones: Nicaragua's “sham” elections have cold shower effect on media
Journalists practice self-censorship, with propaganda channels dominating attention.
