Media Assistance & Foreign Influences

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USAID's Assistance to the Media Sector in Afghanistan

Colin Soloway, Abubaker Saddigue

Washington, DC: USAID (2005), xii, 31 pp.

"[...] It is too early to assess the full impact of media development efforts undertaken since February 2002, given the short timeframe and the absence of reliable audience surveys. Nevertheless, OTI and Internews deserve credit for adopting an innovative, cost-effective approach to media assistance ... more

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USAID/OTI Afghanistan Program: Final Evaluation

Social Impact Inc.

Washington, DC: USAID (2005), 91 pp.

"The purpose of the final evaluation was to provide the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) and the U.S. Agency for International Development with an assessment of the relevance, effectiveness, and lessons learned from OTI’s mega-program in Afghanistan. Since evaluations of the media program ha ... more

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"All Successful Democracies Need Freedom of Speech": American Efforts to Create a Vibrant Free Press in Iraq and Afghanistan

David Rohde

[Cambridge, Mass.]: Joan Shorenstein Center, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2005), 35 pp.

"This paper will examine American efforts to create a vibrant free press in Iraq and Afghanistan. A $200 million project in Iraq was the largest attempt ever by the United States, or any country, to help create independent media in another nation. Run by the Pentagon, it was a near total failure in ... more

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Media Assistance Post the Taliban Regime and the Implications for Transforming the Afghan Social System

Noah W. Miller

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Master Thesis (2003), iii, 45 pp.

"In the case of media assistance in Afghanistan, financial and organizational resources originate almost exclusively from Western donors and INGOs, which largely bypass the Afghan Government. Organizations within the funding chain thus hold a functional form of power arising from the deployment of a ... llocative resources and it enables them to attempt an instigation of social change in Afghanistan. According to the notion of power associated with Talcott Parson, a functional form of power requires coordination and collaboration in order to achieve collective goals within a political process. However, conflicts may arise in Afghanistan if collective goals diverge among the various foreign and domestic participants involved in altering the media space. This could occur if the various participants do not envision the outcome of media assistance objectives as a zero-sum game. Additionally, Giddens asserts that Parson underestimates the contestation of the norms necessary to pursue collective goals in the first place. Even though the Afghan Government and international donors purportedly agree on the installation of a democracy with a free and independent media, they still need to overcome resistance from existing power holders or entrenched structural properties impeding such a development. In the context of Afghanistan, it is very conceivable that media assistance could prompt intentional or even unintentional consequences caused by social actors discontent with the normative values and goals promulgated by media assistance. Such unintentional conditions may render the desired outcomes of media assistance providers impossible and undermine the desired social transformation. It is erroneous, though, to apply a positivist view that judges the success or failure of media assistance according to the outcome of the flux between structure and interaction alluded to in chapter four. In fact, such a view would be contrary to the propositions of structuration theory that imply a lack of definable boundaries in which structure and interaction intermingles. Equally wrong is to evaluate the media assistance effort by funding amounts contributed by donors, even though financial resources are a pre-requisite for rebuilding the media infrastructure. Instead, media assistance can be conceived as a form of empowerment that imbues a target society with a collective consciousness concerning its ability to alter structural properties, which represent forms of power and domination according to Giddens. The success of media assistance therefore is to produce a collective awareness that individuals can influence the structural properties of a social system, regardless of the direction of change emanating from the mediation of structure and action. The process of change requires not only the acquisition of functional power through allocative resources, but also the acquisition of transformative power by means of controlling authoritative resources, which are involved in the coordination of a social system. Afghans need to control the actors or institutions that selectively filter information in order to reflexively “regulate the overall conditions of system reproduction either to keep things as they are or to change them” (Giddens, 1984, page 27). Yet, it remains unresolved to what extent media assistance has provided Afghans with transformative power and whether or not it allows them to influence the underlying forces that mediate the structural properties in society." (Conclusions, page 39-40) more

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The Potential for Community Radio in Afghanistan: Report of a Fact-Finding Mission to Afghanistan

Bruce Girard, Jo van der Spek

Comunica;Radio Reed Flute (2002), iii, 35 pp.

"This study, sponsored by the Communication Assistance Foundation, examines the potential for community-based radio in Afghanistan and identifies examples of how community radio can support initiatives for community development. The report and its recommendations are primarily intended as a resource ... more

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BayGen Radios in Afghanistan: An Evaluation Report

Shirazuddin Siddiqi, Shireen Sultan

Peshawar: BBC Afghan Education Drama/War Child (1997), ?? pp.

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Experience of a Journalism Teacher in Afghanistan

Paul B. Snider

Journalism Quarterly, volume 45, issue 3 (1968), pp. 316-318

"Journalism education in Afghanistan — State of the question — Professional training and the country's requirements." (Jean-Marie Van Bol, Abdelfattah Fakhfakh: The use of mass media in the developing countries. Brussels: CIDESA, 1971 Nr. 2168, topic code 163.1)

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Kommunikation im Dienste der Verbreitung neuer Ideen und Praktiken untersucht am Beispiel Afghanistan: Bericht über einen Arbeitsaufenthalt in Afghanistan

Gerhard Maletzke (coord.)

Burghard Claus; Karl Kirchhoff; Gerhard Lindauer; Walter Mohr; Wolfgang Tradetzki (Mitarbeit)

Berlin: Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (1966), 77 pp.

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Developing Journalism in an Emergent Nation: Afghanistan

H. R. Jolliffe

Journalism Quarterly, volume 39, issue 3 (1962), pp. 355-364

"The author, a journalism professor at Michigan State University, recounts some of his successes and frustrations in establishing a program of journalism education in Afghanistan's capital city. He points out the importance of journalism and education to all the emergent nations, and urges AEJ to ta ... more