"Overall, this evaluation has shown that over the last biennia UNESCO has made significant achievements through its work in MIL and is holding the lead in this constantly evolving field that has gained increasing importance at the forefront of global and national agendas. It also revealed that MIL o
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ffers increasingly interdisciplinary opportunities for the Organization and strategic decisions are needed as to the level of priority and adequacy of resources required for optimally positioning this strand of work to contribute to the achievement of Agenda 2030 through a wide range of topics. Among other, work on data privacy and big data, media and freedom of expression areas, a focus on PVE and a boost towards the disinformation, life-long learning and artificial intelligence approaches, as well as an enhanced focus on disadvantaged groups and a more consistent approach to advancing gender equality will allow UNESCO to remain at the forefront and to keep and expand its intellectual and foresight role in the area of MIL." (Abstract)
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"2019 has seen major achievements resulting from needs-based, and specifically-tailored support through the Multi-Donor Programme on Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists (MDP). Actions building on ongoing work and others opening new avenues, have initiated substantial changes in favour of
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freedom of expression and media development. The stories presented here are some examples of how the MDP works to provide countries and their populations with the necessary tools to nurture a free and independent media. This includes promoting the adoption of policies and standards on freedom of expression and safety of journalists, and fostering diversity, gender equality and media and information literacy through and with the media. Hence the name given to this series of articles: Let Free Media Thrive." (Editorial, page 2)
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"Using a randomized encouragement design, we assigned 2,064 people to listen to either 'Ina Mafita' or to a control program (professional soccer matches) each week over the course of two months. Recruitment and engagement were conducted remotely via short message service (short message system [SMS]
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or text message). The results indicate that the radio show 'Ina Mafita' had a positive effect on listeners’ beliefs about the importance of being a role model and a positive but not significant effect on the belief in local committees’ value in reintegrating at-risk youth. Results were more pronounced for high complier subsample and for those who reported liking the show’s story line. The authors found no effect on listeners’ views of kidnap victims. The researchers found no or possibly negative effects on listeners’ value of diversity, however, it must be noted that the show did not explicitly address this theme. Listeners also enjoyed the show and many continued to listen to the show after the incentivized exposure had concluded." (Key findings)
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"This book demonstrates how the authors used radio and mobile technologies to improve educational outcomes for over 20,000 displaced and out-of-school children in northeast Nigeria at the height of the Boko Haram insurgency. Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) programs typically interact with a func
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tional classroom teacher. However, the transactional radio the instruction strategy presented provides high-quality, safe, and sensitive education in war-torn societies, where there are no schools or teachers. Summarizing the research and lessons learned from a USAID-funded Technology Enhanced Learning for All (TELA) project in Boko Haram-ravaged northeast Nigeria, the book describes in detail an education-in-emergency strategy based on a "whole of community" approach, with radio and mobile tablets at its core." (Publisher description)
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"An increasing number of media platforms - from newspapers and television to Internet social media networks - are the major providers of indispensable information about the natural world and environmental risk. Despite the dramatic changes in the news industry that have tended to reduce the number o
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f full-time newspaper reporters, environmental journalists remain key to bringing stories to light across the globe. With contributions from across the world broken down into five key regions - the United States of America, Europe and Russia, Asia and Australia, Africa and the Middle East, and South America - this book provides support for today's environment reporters, the providers of essential news in the 21st century." (Publisher description)
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"This chapter interrogates long-established and wide-sprung threats to media freedom and journalists' safety in Nigeria. The study used semi-structured interviews to explore field and newsroom experiences. The findings revealed the types of threats to media freedom and journalists' safety, non-exist
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ing safety frameworks, mitigation and protection measures, and recommendations on how to protect media organisations and journalists from threats. Consequently, the participants clamoured for constitutional provisions to protect journalists from threats; enforcement of existing and additional constitutional provisions and laws to deter violations against media freedom; establishing and empowering institutions to certify journalists; instituting policies for routine editorial staff training on conflict, safety, and sensitive reporting; and reviewing the NUJ Constitution to address contemporary media and journalism practices and issues, among others." (Abstract)
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"The 10 countries included in this paper all show specific characteristics and contexts but also show similar barriers. Identifying shared characteristics will facilitate the development of shared approaches to deal with shrinking space. Don’t work in silos!
It’s (also) about upholding the law:
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Lobbying parliament and the government to adopt pro-civic space laws can only be part of a solution. Actions to defend civic space must also target the political will and means to uphold the law.
Target state and non-state actors: Campaigns to promote and protect civic space should target both state and non-state actors.
Analyze the international level: The analysis of civic space infringements should go beyond the national level. Changes to civic space are also the result of international developments, like the war on terror following 9/11, the international war on drugs, the globalization of (the fight against) crime and money laundering, the growth of foreign direct investment (e.g. in land). That international level can be operationalized.
Use innovative strategies: Some organizations mention new, innovative ways of reconquering civic space, involving new target groups. There are inspiring examples of CSOs engaging the creative sector and the arts as a way to achieve societal change. Involve art and pop culture. Seek cross-fertilization between CSOs and (new) media.
Collect best practices: To facilitate shared learning an inventory of strategies and practical methods (best practices) used by civic actors to deal with shrinking civic space would be useful. New approaches, tips and strategies should be shared within a global network of likeminded organizations." (Conclusions and observations, page 11)
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"Viele Filme aus Ländern in Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika befassen sich phantasievoll mit gesellschaftlichen Fragen. Unter welchen Bedingungen arbeiten Regisseurinnen in Algerien, Marokko und Tunesien? Warum sind afrikanische Religionen und Riten ein Thema im jungen nigerianischen Kino? Und wie g
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eht ein indonesischer Regisseur mit Drohungen religiöser Fanatiker um?" (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Media Audience Mapping & Targeting Techniques in West Africa: 1. Audience measurement and ratings culture: The culture of audience measurement and ratings is still very rudimentary in much of West Africa. Within the current media milieu, where new technologies are yielding new forms of content and
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channels, and given the trends towards multi-media, cross-media and trans-media models, audience insights need to be mainstreamed into the routines of media work by removing the skills deficits and logistics barriers to such effort [...] Media Capacity Building & Institutional Sustainability in West Africa: 1. Journalism professional training: Current journalism training activities have often not been informed by prior diagnosis of particular need, and are not designed to respond to the peculiar realities of the media in West Africa. Training models need to be more customised, coherent and comprehensive by ensuring that beneficiaries go beyond field reporters to include all actors along the value chain; combining a mix of models that are bespoke to particular circumstances; by training and renewing the skills and competences of media practitioners to respond to the digital media ecology [...] Media Ownership Patterns & Implications for Democratic Plurality in West Africa: 1. Regulation of ownership: There are growing concerns about a gradual and insidious hijacking of the media sphere by few dominant private owners and political patrons. Such an outcome raises the spectre of substituting state monopolies with private monopolies. There is a need for regulatory reforms to ensure that pluralism of ownership and diversity of interests are protected and promoted. This could include regulatory restrictions on multiple ownerships, mergers and network affiliations. There must also be transparency and equity in (especially broadcast) licensing processes, and in access to ownership and stakeholder information [...]" (Findings and recommendations, page 2-4)
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"This study analysed the media-literacy content in curricula of nine select universities in Africa’s most populous nation: Nigeria. Some key findings revealed that: (a) media-literacy courses proper were not on the curricula; (b) media-literacy-related courses, which stood as proxies, accounted fo
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r about two per cent of the curricula; and (c) media-literacy-related courses were available to students only as electives. The present research indicates that media-literate students tend to be skilled in accessing information about their health, environment, education and work. They would also be able to evaluate media content critically and to make informed decisions as users of digital technology sources, as well as to becoming producers of media contents in their own right. Based on the accumulated skills of media literacy for contemporary young people, it was recommended that communications programmes redesign their curricula to include media literacy and related courses. Also, communication educators should be more receptive to the importance of media literacy skills in the education of their students." (Abstract)
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"This chapter presents the findings from three radio dramas in Africa (Nigeria, Burundi, and Burkina Faso) developed using Population Media Center’s unique entertainment-education methodology. Each case study is presented in detail, including background on the country or region where the program w
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as implemented, a description of the program design, and highlights of the results obtained by the program in question." (Abstract)
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"Entertainment education (“edutainment”) is a communication strategy that works through mass entertainment media with the aim of promoting a better context for behavior change than the delivery of information alone. We experimentally evaluate season 3 of the edutainment TV series MTV Shuga, prod
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uced by MTV Staying Alive Foundation and filmed in Nigeria. Shuga 3 consists of eight episodes of 22 minutes each. While the main focus of the series is HIV, a subplot involves a married couple with a violent husband. In this paper we focus on this theme and assess the impact of Shuga on attitudes toward domestic violence. We find broadly positive effects. Moreover, the effect seems to be concentrated among people who recall the show and the narrative around the characters well, consistent with the idea of edutainment. We contribute to the nonexperimental literature on the impact of commercial TV on gender outcomes (e.g., Chong and La Ferrara 2009; Jensen and Oster 2009; La Ferrara, Chong, and Duryea 2012; Kearney and Levine 2015) and to recent experimental work that uses edutainment for public policy (e.g., Banerjee, Barnhardt, and Duflo 2015; Ravallion et al. 2015; Berg and Zia 2017). We differ from the latter in focusing on changing norms toward gender based violence."
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"Through the qualitative method of study, it was discovered that despite the rich extant documents of the Church on effective use of the means of communication, there is a wrong understanding of communication, lack of will-power to incarnate media use into the Nigerian pastoral context and suspicion
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concerning the use of virtual reality. Engaging the media of communication, supporting the Directorate of Social Communications and establishing a National Pastoral Plan were recommended for efficient use of social communication in the mission of the Church in Nigeria. It concluded that shying away from engaging the media for the purposes of evangelisation amounts to playing the ostrich which has dire consequences." (Abstract)
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"Africa Check, the continent’s first independent fact-Checking organisation of which I was chief editor until July 2019, has itself expanded exponentially. The organisation –a non-profit mainly funded by large foundations– launched in 2012 in South Africa with a junior researcher and part-time
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editor. Africa Check then opened a second office on the continent in Dakar, Senegal, in October 2015. Here the team runs a French-language version of the website to serve West African audiences. The English-language team branched out to Lagos, Nigeria, in November 2016 with Nairobi in Kenya following in January 2017 [...] Here’s what I learned about the contribution of social media to Africa Check’s website traffic: The data shows that in each year there were a few “blockbuster” articles after which engagement tailed off. Engagement on social media site Facebook comprised the overwhelming majority of likes and shares of Africa Check content with Twitter trailing far behind; Facebook has become less and less important in driving traffic to Africa Check’s website, as has been the case for major brands and publishers all over the world. For all but one article in the top ten lists of 2015 and 2016, most views came from Facebook; it dropped to two in 2017 and three in 2018; In most cases where Twitter was the biggest source of traffic, the average time users spent on the page was higher than the time it should theoretically take to read the piece; Content engagement showed a major jump from 2015 to 2016, reflecting the rapid growth of Africa Check in that year. However, it has since decreased year on year, likely on the back of Facebook’s decline in importance as a traffic driver ..." (Publisher description)
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"Of all 10 African countries surveyed, only in South Africa is more than half the population online. The Internet penetration rate in Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria and Senegal is above the 20% threshold – but even this requires further investigation in a developing country context, where the unaf
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fordability of data means that usage is generally very low and most people are using services passively, not in the high-speed, always-on environment where studies of causality in relation to penetration and economic growth have been done. In some countries, the low Internet uptake is a result of no coverage – there is insufficient broadband extension beyond the major urban centres in the case of Mozambique, Nigeria and Uganda. Yet even in countries where there is extensive coverage, such as in Lesotho, Rwanda and South Africa, the cost of devices is a major barrier to uptake. Such demand-side constraints relate not only to affordability of devices and services, but also to classical issues of human development. In several countries, including Nigeria and Tanzania, the lack of awareness or skills on how to use the Internet accounts for the large numbers of people who remain offline." (Executive summary)
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