"This book critically examines how the media assistance and broader "development" sectors have appropriated the catch-all concept of sustainability, originally rooted in economic and environmental fields, to suit their agendas. Analysing 289 project evaluations conducted globally between 1999 and 20
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19, it scrutinizes the tacit discourses underpinning what Pierre Bourdieu termed "the imperialism of the universal" in fostering media systems in the Global South. The book reveals how processes of self-legitimation operate within an increasingly competitive aid market, highlighting a shift from "post-missionary" approaches to business-driven models. Focusing on the often-overlooked African context, it explores nuanced coping capacity in Uganda and the Eastern DRC. Amid questioning of the populist wave as well as power-motivated new entrants, it challenges the recurring aid pattern, emphasizing the urgency of centering social impact and values in media assistance. It offers essential insights for scholars and practitioners navigating the evolving geopolitics of development and public diplomacy. Michel Leroy has been active in media action for over 25 years, both as an implementer and as a consultant. A member of an international research programme on media action, he holds a doctorate from the University of Dortmund. He is now a researcher focusing on the social impact." (Publisher description)
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"The impact framework is a set of tools and guidelines that helps to define targets for, track, and assess the impact of activities under the supported media projects in a clear and organised way; it can also be used for other media projects. Its methodology embraces a user-centric approach, links p
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roject activities to key performance indicators (KPIs) and outcomes, and helps to identify and collect data from the beginning to the end of the projects. The impact framework also allows the programme’s media outlet teams to assess risks, track projects’ progress towards established targets and, if necessary, correct their course in a timely fashion." (Page 3)
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"This report presents the protocol for a systematic search to identify and map the evidence base of impact evaluations and systematic reviews of interventions that aim to promote an independent media as a democratic institution in low- and middle-income countries. The EGM was developed by 3ie, made
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possible with generous support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG Center), via a partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago." (About 3ie)
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"The purpose of the Media for Democracy Assessment Tool (MAT) is to assist United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in producing media assessments to inform strategy on media and democracy programming, help inform potential media development programming goals, and help provide an i
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nformed understanding of where USAID investment is most feasible and needed and will have the best chances for impact. The MAT provides a standardized methodology to answer the key question: How do media connect to democracy and how can media support democracy promotion and civic space?" (Introduction, page 6)
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"This guide is meant to serve as a practical resource for funders who want to understand where to start. Informed by feedback from our network, it represents a synthesis of the past seven years of work we’ve done in the impact space, and includes examples of successful media impact evaluation, too
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ls and frameworks for assessment, and the challenges of defining and measuring impact in a rapidly-shifting media landscape. Our years of research have led us to four key insights: 1. There are many different frameworks for measuring media impact for different areas of practice. 2. Funders should be mindful of power dynamics, and thoughtful in determining appropriate impact strategies with their grantees. 3. Digital analytics tools provide a wealth of useful data, but grantees require financial and logistical support in implementing them. 4. There are opportunities for funders to collaborate with each other to share best practices and increase collective impact." (Executive summary)
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"This report puts forth a Walton Family Foundation (WFF) Media Impact Framework and identifies key indicators and research methods that can be used to assess journalism investments across program areas, based on best practices in the field of media strategy and research. The companion WFF Media Impa
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ct Toolkit provides a set of steps for grantmakers to take to get from the decision to invest in media all the way to identifying the appropriate indicators, targets and baselines. The information that follows is customized to reflect WFF goals, priorities and processes, but it is our hope that other partners can utilize the materials to become more effective communicators and grantmakers. This report also provides background information about the journalistic profession, noting in particular its differences from social change and advocacy organizations. This context is especially important for framing what can be difficult conversations with journalism organizations, given their commitment to neutrality and the recent— and ongoing — upheaval in the industry." (Summary, page 3)
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"La comunicación para la transformación de conflictos es un área relativamente nueva dentro del vasto campo de prevención de conflictos y construcción de paz y por tanto ha sido sometida a escasos procesos evaluativos. Con el fin de comenzar a crear un modelo evaluativo que posibilite un análi
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sis de las acciones emprendidas en el marco de la comunicación para la transformación de conflictos y una aproximación holística que permita que la evaluación se convierta en una verdadera herramienta de aprendizaje, este trabajo repasa las propuestas evaluativas que han surgido desde las áreas de prevención de conflictos y construcción de paz así como las reflexiones generadas en la línea de medios de comunicación y conflictos. Desde el análisis de un proyecto llevado a cabo en Colombia, propone nuevas aproximaciones a la evaluación que reincorporen los procesos presentes en la transformación de conflictos." (Resumen)
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"This book argues for an overhaul of the way media assistance is evaluated, and explores how new thinking about evaluation can reinforce the shifts towards better media development. The pursuit of media freedom has been the bedrock of media development since its height in the 1990s. Today, citizen v
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oice, participation, social change, government responsiveness and accountability, and other ‘demand-side’ aspects of governance, are increasingly the rubric within with assistance to media development operates." (Publisher description)
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"The IDEAS Guide is for organisations and people who are doing small media and communication projects. It is designed to cater for a range of different skill levels in evaluation. It is ideal for project managers and team members responsible for reporting and evaluation, as well as any other partici
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pants who are interested in evaluation. The IDEAS Guide leads you through the process of designing a project, and thinking about the project’s evaluation. The guide is focused on how to do useful evaluation for learning and continual project improvement. To achieve this, it is important to think about the evaluation of the project as you design it, and to learn from evaluation during the implementation of the project. Focusing on what you can learn by carrying out a project is especially important when the project idea is new and innovative." (Introduction, page 5)
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"The IDEAS Facilitators’ Guide provides briefing notes on how you, as a facilitator, can support small-grant recipients to use the IDEAS Guide to clarify their project design, and to plan and manage their evaluation. The Facilitators’ Guide is best used in conjunction with the IDEAS Guide. These
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guides are designed to be used together in the planning and implementation of a workshop. Facilitators can also adapt the steps to suit the mode and length of delivery. The Facilitators’ Guide was developed to accompany the IDEAS Guide to help facilitators to effectively support capacity development for individuals working in grassroots and community organisations who might have little or no experience of evaluation. It may also be helpful for more experienced practitioners. The approach integrates evaluation into the design of projects." (Page 4)
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"Evaluating the impact of media assistance is challenging for several reasons. Primary among them is that these kinds of initiatives operate in a complex political, social, and cultural environment. Although there has been increased attention to evaluation of media assistance, with a series of inter
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national conferences, funded research projects, and publications addressing this topic, it remains a problematic area of practice. This paper provides a survey of recent media assistance evaluation practices through an analysis of 47 evaluation documents of programs and projects from 2002-2012, identifying trends in methodology choices, and critiquing the quality of the evidence enabled through different evaluation approaches. It finds clear patterns in how, when and by whom evaluations are undertaken, but finds that these practices rarely generate useful, insightful evaluations." (Abstract)
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"BBC Media Action has been involved in media development since it was founded in 1999. Over the years, we have designed and deployed a broad range of evaluation approaches and methodologies to assess the impact of and learn from our work. This has generated much internal discussion: Are we measuring
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the right things? Where can we realistically expect to see change? How much should we spend on evaluation? How can we tell whether that change is sustainable? This paper is our attempt to bring that discussion to the wider media development community. In it, we set out our working evaluation framework and methodology alongside the findings generated by applying this framework to five different capacity-strengthening interventions." (Executive summary)
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"In the end, impact assessment comes down to a dialogue—about goals; how news informs, connects and engages communities; and how best to maintain journalistic integrity in the process. That’s why we’ve created this guide, which features both conceptual perspectives for foundations and nuts-and
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-bolts advice for nonprofit news organizations. We hope you’ll begin by reading the side that’s most relevant to you, and then be drawn into the conversation by reading the other side. We also hope it sparks dialogue about your own projects—among staff, and between foundations and newsrooms." (Introduction)
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"This book analyses the use of communication in resolving conflicts, with a focus on de-escalation and processes of peacebuilding and peace formation. From the employment of hate radio in the Rwanda genocide, to the current conflict between Russia and the Ukraine following events in the Crimea, comm
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unication and the media are widely recognized as powerful tools in conflicts and war. Although there has been significant academic attention on the relationship between the media, conflict and war, academic efforts to understand this relationship have tended to focus primarily on the links between communication and conflict, rather than on communication and peace. In order to make sense of peace it is essential to look at communication in its many facets, mediated or not. This is true within many of the diverse strands that make up the field of communication and peace, but it is also true in the sense that a holistic and interdisciplinary approach is missing from the literature. This book addresses this widely acknowledged lacuna by providing an interdisciplinary perspective on the field, bringing together relevant, but so far largely isolated, streams of research. In doing so, it aims to provide a platform for further reflection of the meaning of, and requirements for, peace in our contemporary world with a focus on de-escalation, conflict transformation, reconciliation and processes of peacebuilding - as opposed to conflict escalation or crisis intervention." (Publisher description)
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"This thesis explores how the impacts of Australian media assistance on social change and governance can be most effectively evaluated and understood. It is based on a three-stage research design, using predominantly qualitative research methods. In doing so it contributes in-depth insights into the
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politics, theories, and practices of media assistance evaluation, with illustrations of how this knowledge can be directly applied to improve practice in this area. The findings of this research suggest the importance of early investment in participatory planning of evaluation designs, which are then periodically revisited. These evaluation designs should be based on a theoretically sound link between models of change, evaluative questions and methods." (Abstract)
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"This paper suggests that the problem of impact evaluation of media assistance is understood to be more than a simple issue of methods, and outlines three underlying tensions and challenges that stifle implementation of effective practices in media assistance evaluation. First, there are serious con
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ceptual ambiguities that affect evaluation design. Second, bureaucratic systems and imperatives often drive evaluation practices, which reduces their utility and richness. Third, the search for the ultimate method or toolkit of methods for media assistance evaluation tends to overlook the complex epistemological and political undercurrents in the evaluation discipline, which can lead to methods being used without consideration of the ontological implications. Only if these contextual factors are known and understood can effective evaluations be designed that meets all stakeholders’ needs." (Abstract)
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"The Tanzania Media Fund (TMF) supports individual journalists and media institutions to produce quality public interest and investigative journalism content that better informs the public, contributes to debate and thereby increases public demand for greater accountability in Tanzania. TMF has used
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lessons learned from its first phase (2008- 2012) to develop a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework that captures TMF’s achievements in phase 2 (2012-2015) and beyond. This article provides an overview of the practical implementation of the M&E framework, and challenges encountered during implementation." (Abstract)
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"A results-oriented culture of performance and service has been enforced since the 1990s in the EU. Evaluation systems have been a powerful catalyst in driving the transition from media support to media development and in making the latter more independent from broadcasters and donors. In recent yea
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rs, changes in media assistance procedures and aims have profoundly modified the traditional landscape. This article will not question these changes, their origin and motivations. It will focus on implementers’ coping strategies to adapt (or not) to these new procedures and aims and how results-oriented evaluations can drive the shift from outputs to outcomes in a changing media development sector." (Abstract)
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"This paper draws on some preliminary findings from a comparative thematic analysis of 47 evaluation documents of media assistance programs. The aim of this analysis is to identify trends in impact evaluation practice in the media assistance field, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of differen
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t evaluation approaches. This paper presents four types of social change claims commonly presented in reports; hypothetical changes, introduction of new opportunities, concrete examples of immediate impacts, and analysis of ongoing social and political changes. Although these types may appear as a spectrum from weak to strong, the interactions are perhaps more accurately understood using metaphors such as building blocks. This paper explores these types in more detail and suggests that a robust set of impacts-types could be useful in developing more grounded theories of change and indicators." (Abstract)
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"This report examines seven central areas of media development—funding, digital media, sustainability, media law, journalists' safety, journalism education, and monitoring and evaluation. It also delves in-depth into four areas deserving of greater attention: citizen journalism, investigative jour
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nalism, community radio, and media literacy. The report recommends to expand funding, to prioritise long-term commitment, to better coordinate and cooperate, to integrate digital media into all aspects of media development, to strengthen citizen journalists' capacities, to teach media business skills, to emphasize legal issues, to support investigative journalism, to address impunity for journalist attacks, to modernize journalism education, to invest in community radio and to embed evaluation into all projects." (commbox)
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