"The global effort to promote open and transparent government creates new opportunities to put media development on the political agenda of countries around the world. This report looks in particular at the structures of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), which in its 2016 Paris Declaration char ... acterized the media as a “crucial force for transparency and accountability.” In an era of democratic backsliding and declining public trust in institutions of all kinds, the need for pluralistic, independent, and high-quality news media has never been more important. Yet even the most democratically minded countries in the world are having trouble creating the laws, policies, and practices to ensure a healthy media system. Can the Open Government Partnership’s multi-stakeholder forums be used to stimulate solutions to some of the most intractable challenges facing independent media? This report maps the entry points for media reformers in the OGP process, and highlights a series of recommendations for how take advantage of these entry points, including by: Building country-level coalitions that can put media reform on the open government agenda; Investing in global agenda-building and peer-to-peer learning on the intersections between open government and media development; Aiming for long-term and strategic goals related to the OGP’s National Action Plans." (Key findings) more

"This collection is the first of its kind on the topic of media development. It brings together luminary thinkers in the field—both researchers and practitioners—to reflect on how advocacy groups, researchers, the international community and others can work to ensure that media can continue to s ... erve as a force of democracy and development. But that mission faces considerable challenges. Media development paradigms are still too frequently associated with Western prejudices, or out of touch with the digital age. As we move past Western blueprints and into an uncertain digital future, what does media development mean? If we are to act meaningfully to shape the future of our increasingly mediated societies, we must answer this question." (Publisher description) more

"Media development specialists and activists need a concept of media development that understands and addresses the deeply political nature of the media as an institution. We also need a way to cope with rapidly changing technology and the media's increasingly global nature. Media development is as ... much about building strong political foundations for independent media as it is about high-quality journalism. It also requires integration and scaling up within broader democratic governance reforms. This type of media development depends on engaging with a wider group of actors at the count ry level, not just journalists, editors and other media agents, but also civil society, private sector, and government representatives. It requires activists to develop more sophisticated analysis and policy positions that consider the broader institutional and governance framework for the media. For the purposes of this essay, I will refer to this effort to engage with a wider group of change agents in society on media reforms as a demand-driven approach. Media reform efforts that fail to engage with local actors and build consensus and sustainable structures within their societies can actually impede media development and the critical freedoms and responsibilities on which it rests. While journalistic skills and business models for the news media are critically important, sustainable reforms in media systems require an environment that produces two outcomes: (1) political acceptance of open debate, vigorous fact-finding, and open dissent; and (2) quality journalism based on fairness, high ethical standards, and accuracy." (Page 31) more

"My goal in this chapter is to place media development efforts within a specific frame: namely the actions of great strategic communicators (states, religions, transnational corporations, for example) as they seek to increase support for their general positions in the world. Development efforts can ... be, and often are pursued for altruistic purposes, and they are often couched within an altruistic frame. The altruistic impulse and justification is significant and praiseworthy; but enduring development efforts in the long run are perceived to se rve national economic and political interests as well. Happily, values and interests are often in sync, but not always. No government, even that of the United States or Great Britain, can sustain investment efforts over decades without convincing arguments (and maybe proof) that the expenditures benefit the investor society as well as that of the target recipient. How does one parse this all out? If it is the case that societies act out of values and interests, can one describe a scaffolding of decision-making? Over the years, I have tried to build a frame for thinking about these ques tions through the concept of a market for loyalties, a process of analysis aimed at rendering competing interests more transparent as media systems are contemplated and funded, both within states and transnationally. In general, according to this framing, regardless of the rhetoric in which they are embedded, development efforts have preferred outcomes in terms of the structure of the target society in terms of how inclusive or democratic the society should be, and which entities gain and which lose or have the potential to gain or lose influence." (Pages 20-21) more

"In the field of media development, the public sector is often viewed as a monolithic barrier to the development of independent and sustainable media. Although governments do frequently pervert and capture media sectors in countries around the globe, the enabling conditions under which media can ach ... ieve and maintain independence are nevertheless reliant on institutions of government. Therefore the media development community must rethink its approaches to public sector engagement in more holistic efforts to improve the environment for media systems in emerging and fragile democracies." (Introduction) more