"In democracies with adjectives, the freedom of press also comes with adjectives." If the political regime is situated between a pure democracy and despotism, the freedom of press is also stuck in an in-between-situation. This statement sums up the results of Marie Soleil Frères empirical analysis
...
of the role of media in reporting the election processes in six central African countries (Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo, DRC, Rwanda and Chad) with a long history of violent conflict. By carving out nine major obstacles of the role of media in these elections from the role of the parties' campaign strategies to the dangerous liaison between media and politics, the book describes how and why their role became problematic, and different from the democracy tool kit of international donors. This may not be a new subject, and most of the findings are familiar to readers with an interest in African media. But the empirical rigor and the in-depth analysis of the cases makes the book a good read and a starting point for a new debate on media support in African election processes." (commbox)
more
"Over the past twenty years, media interventions have become an accepted tool for conflict management. Interventions have often proven ineffective, however, because they lacked clear definition of their intended outcomes. This volume presents an Intended-Outcomes Needs Assessment methodology (IONA)
...
to help address this by: Integrating conflict analysis and media assessments to sharpen the focus on peacebuilding objectives; and improving the quality and precision of project plans to enable better comparison of the results achieved. This manual describes IONA, a three-stage process to help an assessment team understand the causes of conflict in a society, identify changes that could reduce that conflict, and create media interventions that help realize those changes." (Back cover)
more
"This publication is an important contribution to literature on disaster and humanitarian crisis communication. It analyses in detail the response to two major but very different emergencies in Haiti: the 2010 earthquake and, later that year, the outbreak of cholera. While humanitarian agencies stil
...
l see 'communication' as primarily the process of delivering or extracting information, for the affected population, the process of communication seems to matter as much as the information itself. The best communication strategies, whether highly localised or nationwide, were those that meshed a number of different communication channels, says this report. However, more coordination is needed, and monitoring and evaluation practice in communication projects was quite weak." (CAMECO Update 1-2012)
more
"The media intervention programs and training initiatives for Arabs reflect hegemonies and dependencies. Taking into consideration the absence of a public cinema infrastructure in the Arab World and thus the lack of institutional representation or backing for film-makers leads one to question to wha
...
t degree the director can control her/his story. Or in other words, to what extent the films, which are read as national works, can reflect debates or atmospheres in their country of origin at all? The decoding of films, not only from the Middle East, is in many cases national, as the case of Paradise Now showed. Critics’ reactions to Waltz with Bashir suggest that the reading of the film is connected to the actual political experience within the region versus political assumptions about it, a rather regional reading. An aspect entirely missing in the Western decoding process of films from the Middle East is the question who was involved in the encoding. The critics, who translate the film to the wider audience, focus on the films’ subjects or manipulations, rather than on the economic and institutional backing of the creation and thus interests behind it. After completing the film it is solely the director who has to defend the work as a statement from and about her/his country. Regardless of formal ownership and the involvement of co-producing states these films are marketed as documents from and about the country in which the story takes place. The majority of co-productions by directors from the Middle East, like the majority of films produced at all, get little attention. It is the films with international recognition, be it by box office numbers or debates that are remembered. One could easily assume that Paradise Now will become part of a Palestinian collective memory. Yet, without physical archives in the Arab countries, and Palestine not even being a state, how long will the co-produced movies be accessible as part of cultural heritage? In French and German archives the film rolls will be stored and made accessible, it is in Europe where Arabs will still have to look for their cultural memory in the distant future." (Conclusion, page 11-12)
more
"Serious communication gaps between the humanitarian sector and refugees in Dadaab, Kenya, are increasing refugee suffering and putting lives at risk. There are clear indications that these information gaps are hampering the aid response and that despite important efforts from individual agencies, c
...
urrent communication strategies for affected communities are not working as effectively as they could, and critical coordination needs to be improved. These are the clear indications from the joint Communications Needs Assessment led by Internews in collaboration with Star FM and Radio Ergo/IMS and with support from NRC. The assessment included an extensive survey of more than 600 refugees in all three of Dadaab’s camps. Overall results from the survey show that large numbers of refugees don’t have the information they need to access basic aid: More than 70% of newly-arrived refugees say they lack information on how to register for aid and similar numbers say they need information on how to locate missing family members. High figures are also recorded for lack of information on how to access health, shelter, how to communicate with family outside the camps and more." (Executive summary, page 4)
more
"Overall, the findings indicate that IREX is indeed performing as their work plans project and is moving partners to increasing their ability to provide more quality information in a range of media accessible not only in local communities but also in the global marketplace. Partner MSOs and media ou
...
tlets have participated in many different types of workshops, have benefited from consultants working with them on the development of strategic and business plans, and have been awarded a number of grants to expand their products. That several organizations will not be sustainable given the current economic and political environment (in the absence of a media strategy to guide the 2012 digitization) means that a careful assessment of current and future viability must be undertaken by IREX to determine whether MSOs and media outlets should be primary partners, and whether certain organizations should be dropped. Strict criteria should be applied to this analysis to project the type of assistance that each partner would need to enhance viability over the next two years." (Abstract)
more
"Large parts of media development work have focused on providing support to create privately owned, independent media in transition and developing countries. The accepted logic of many donor organisations has been that creating external pluralism, i.e. having many different private media companies o
...
perating in one country, is the best way to build democracy and to provide access and voice to citizens. Often the model of choice was the one that has dominated the media landscapes of the United States and Europe since the Second World War: privately owned media funded through advertising and sales revenues. But as advertising income dwindles for traditional media and as newspapers close at alarming rates, the question arises whether promoting this business model in the developing world is the right way forward. In developing a response to this question, this article explains how media assistance has developed, identifies the main characteristics of the current crisis in journalism in the developed world and indicates how some of the experience gained in media development can help to provide answers to the current crisis. Media development itself has come a long way in recent years and today adopts a more holistic approach that focuses not only on building private media but recognises the need for legal reform, civil society involvement, enhanced professional capacity, strengthened institutions that support media freedom and development of technical media infrastructure." (Abstract)
more
"This report presents the author's experiences regarding the relation of international interventions and local institutions in the (post-)conflict countries of Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan. Haselock states that media reforms are most successful where they are the result of partnership
...
s with local stakeholders, or where local professionals and the civil society have taken ownership of the peacebuilding process. This approach involves international planners having a high understanding of the social and cultural situation and the conditions of the conflict. Therefore, they need to be part of two-way communication, where they are regarded as learners, following a "you know best", instead of a "we know best" approach. However, Haselock shows that foreign implementers often do not include local stakeholders enough, evoking refusal of international peacebuilding interventions." (commbox)
more
"This report discusses the state of media development indicators in relation to a new Results Framework (RF) drafted by USAID in 2009. There were three aims for the report: To collect and screen the strongest indicators developed by different organizations or individuals for measuring meso-level obj
...
ectives or results related to media development; Compile an annotated list of indicator sources reviewed; Determine the extent to which the indicators available for the given results met set criteria; Provide recommendations for USAID investment in improving indicators for media development." (Introduction, page 1)
more
"This report provides an overview of the discussions and conclusions from the International Partnership Meeting in New York on 26 January 2010 organised by the Open Society Institute and International Media Support. At the meeting, 30 media support and press freedom organisations from across the wor
...
ld met to discuss partnerships and countries in which the partnership process might be pursued in 2010. Nine target countries in 2010 were selected for partnership action in 2010." (IMS website)
more
"International media development and media support is often structured and planned without taking into account the current and future position of media as economic subjects and their long term sustainability and development opportunities. Sida’s policy to engage and involve private sector actors i
...
n international development efforts and WAN-IFRA’s unique position as a media trade organisation with a human rights mandate, has resulted in a partnership between Sida and WAN-IFRA to work together in advancing media development and press freedom worldwide [...] This event is the beginning of an initiative to establish a systematic and holistic approach to assistance to financially viable independent media in developing markets." (Foreword)
more
"This position paper distinguishes three 'corner sections' which can be considered of fundamental importance for the development of a sustainable media sector: the legal and regulatory environment, professional capacity (both managerial, technical and journalistic), and a sound and sustainable econo
...
mic base. In addition, it differentiates between five contextual frames: authoritarian states, conflict and post-conflict countries, fragile democracies in the early stages of democratisation, stagnating democratisation processes and new democracies in the process of consolidation. Depending on this context, the paper provides recommendations for media support. According to the general conclusions (page 28) "there is a strong preference to develop a programme of projects that support all three corner sections as it is the combination of all three that best supports a media environment capable of promoting democracy, human rights and development." (commbox)
more
"This publication includes profiles of 21 German organisations active in media development cooperation. An introductory article offers an overview of current German media assistance trends. According to the preface (page 3) "new specialised actors have emerged; new concepts in strengthening the prof
...
essional capacity of media have been introduced; tailor made instruments for monitoring and evaluation are being developed; the investments in media development cooperation seem to be expanding. However, German media development cooperation continues to be inadequate at strengthening a supportive legal and regulatory environment and economic sustainability of media in developing and transitional countries." (commbox)
more
"Recent elections show that despite the apparent diversity of newspapers and broadcasters, political and economic constraints, as well as restricted access to information prevent the development of independent media in Sub-Saharan Africa that can play a part in enlightening citizens", says the autho
...
r of this policy brief, and concludes: "Donors must pay more attention to local needs and search for ways to strengthen a pluralist media landscape independent of political parties, governments and the international community. Only such a pluralist landscape will enable the media to contribute to realistic opportunities for democratic power alternations rather than allowing an unbalanced electoral game devoted to maintaining the tenure of the same dominant party." (Page 4)
more
This study is based on the experience of the public-private development partnership for independent media, a joint initiative between the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Media Development Loan Fund, responsAbility Social Investments AG and Bank Vontobel.
"The 52-page report summarised here is the result of the three-year partnership between UNDP Oslo Governance Centre and the Communication for Social Change Consortium in piloting the C4E approach in five least-developed countries: Mozambique, Madagascar, Ghana, Lao PDR, and Nepal. The report present
...
s key learning from the information and communication needs assessments conducted in these five countries, funded by a grant from the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF). The implementation of the C4E approach consisted of: (i) information and communication assessments to identify the information and communication needs and identify gaps in meeting those needs; (ii) review of the media context based on the existing research at the national level; (iii) programme interventions informed by the findings of the assessment to ensure economically poor and marginalised groups' participation in decision-making processes. Experiences and lessons from testing the C4E approach in Madagascar and Mozambique in 2007-2008 enabled further refining of the C4E approach and informed the information and communication assessments carried out in Ghana, Lao PDR, and Nepal. As a result, the concept of C4E also widened: from an initial conception as part of UNDP's Access to Information work primarily geared to meeting the information and communication needs of the people through specific media strategies - to an approach that promotes inclusive participation, empowerment of economically poor and marginalised people, and accountability of the state to its citizens. These aspects of C4E, thus, make it an integral part of broader democratic governance and development work." (Summary at the "Communication Initiative" website)
more