"Although it is a community broadcasting station with a small radius, Koch FM conceptualises itself as part of a national and global civil society network and acts as such. Specifcally, it sees its role as promoting democracy and Good Governance. The station has consequently decided to stay away fro
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m government funding. However, despite an assumed freedom from government and commercial infuence, the station is subject to implicit infuence by its donor(s) as far as setting the agenda is concerned. In the case of Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), while climate change issues are not negative, this relationship of “gentle pressure” to move in one direction and not the other illustrates the infuence that comes with financing from sources outside the community, even when legally speaking, community representatives own the station. For a community station, reliance on a single donor comes with the challenge of dependence on them. This dependence could be reduced if stations explored more diverse funding models including community contributions or subscriptions, and through capping the percentage of total funding that a single external donor can provide. Although Kenyan legislation does not address the issue of ownership of community broadcasters, station ownership and control by communities may be gauged by their formal and informal participation in the life of the station. Much as a grassroots community like that around Koch FM does not contribute substantial fnances to the station, it expresses a sense of ownership and control through informal interactions with the station. It wields infuence through contributing to the station’s content and content management agenda and sometimes, resisting pressure from the station staf to participate in particular ways and not others. Thus, ownership and control are not dependent solely on who has the fnancial clout. Rather, they are the subject of constant negotiation, both formally and informally." (Conclusion)
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"Many journalism stakeholders have begun looking to philanthropic foundations to help newsrooms find economic sustainability. The rapidly expanding role of foundations as a revenue source for news publishers raises an important question: How do foundations exercise their influence over the newsrooms
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they fund? Using the hierarchy of influence model, this study utilizes more than 40 interviews with journalists at digitally native nonprofit news organizations and employees from foundations that fund nonprofit journalism to better understand the impact of foundation funding on journalistic practice. Drawing on previous scholarship exploring extra-media influence on the news industry, we argue that the impact of foundations on journalism parallels that of advertisers throughout the 20th century—with one important distinction: Journalism practitioners and researchers have long forbidden the influence from advertisers on editorial decisions, seeing the blurring of the two as inherently unethical. Outside funding from foundations, on the other hand, is often premised on editorial influence, complicating efforts by journalists to maintain the firewall between news revenue and production." (Abstract)
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"How does donor funding affect the independence, role perceptions, and ideology of the journalism it supports? We begin to answer this increasingly important but underresearched question with a year-long case study of the humanitarian news organisation IRIN as it transitioned from being funded by th
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e United Nations to a private foundation, run by a Malaysian billionaire. Using content analysis, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic research, we document the changes that occurred in IRIN’s outputs, target audience, and public service values, and the complex interplay of influences that produced these changes. We find that, in this case, donor power operated entirely indirectly and always in concert with the dominant professional values within IRIN. In doing so, this case study highlights the importance of journalistic agency and contextual variables in the journalist–donor relationship, as well as the potential significance of contradictory dynamics. We also use this case to test whether Benson, Hessérus and Sedel’s model of media owner power can help to explain the workings of donor power." (Abstract)
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"Community radio is often theorized as being (1) independent from political and economic influence and (2) a platform for the meaningful engagement of marginalized populations traditionally excluded by its private and commercial cousins. Contrasting this theoretical model against the reality of prac
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tice, this study argues that the theorized benefits of community radio are unlikely to be realized given the reality of donor, rather than community, funding structures. Voices from 64 in-depth interviews reveal a community radio environment in East Africa that is significantly influenced by the interests – both political and economic – of external donors. Rather than engendering meaningful participation in media-making, this study also demonstrates that donor funding has caused some communities to assume recipient roles in the communication process." (Journalism)
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