Media Development

Effective campaigns require careful planning and execution. And drawing on the experiences and knowledge of others can help overcome some common stumbling blocks and improve the chances of success. To this end, this booklet profiles eight public awareness campaigns conducted in African countries. It gives an overview of how the campaigns were designed and implemented, and outlines the lessons learned. The idea for the publication came from DW Akademie’s ongoing cooperation with national chapters of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), which advocates for freedom of expression and access to information in the SADC region. To strengthen its support of MISA’s advocacy work, DW Akademie turned to others campaigning on similar topics in Africa to learn from their experiences. DWA looked for campaigns with strong links to Africa – that is, either run by organizations or individuals in Africa, or targeting African countries. They also specifically sought insight from people working on campaigns that were diverse in the way they were created, organized and funded – from large organizations with considerable resources and formal structures to volunteer-led coalitions with limited funding. Click here for full publication ...
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With attacks on the media growing this report this report considers: How much money do the world’s official aid donors—the bilateral and multilateral funders like USAID and the World Bank—give to help independent and public-service-oriented media build free and open societies globally? Is financial support to media development increasing, falling, or holding steady? What kinds of approaches and issues are being favored by the governments, multilateral agencies, and private donors that provide assistance to media development? Which countries and regions receive the most support? The analysis presented in the report is meant to inform current debates on how international assistance can support an effective response to the new and evolving threats to freedom of the press. Click here for full report ...
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This event is about the journalists who report on humanitarian crises today. It launches a major new report from Martin Scott, Kate Wright and Mel Bunce, The State of Humanitarian Journalism, based on four years of research. This report shows which news outlets report on humanitarian issues, how they frame their stories, and what audiences think about this news. A panel of leading journalists and media commentators will discuss the findings and their own experiences reporting on humanitarian crises, including: Josephine Schmidt, Executive Editor at IRIN, the world’s oldest humanitarian newswire James Copnall, Newsday presenter, BBC World Service Tom Law, Director of Campaigns and Communications, The Ethical Journalism Network Stefanie Glinski, Freelance journalist and photographer, currently based in Afghanistan. This is followed by a screening of the celebrated documentary, ‘Another News Story’ about the journalists who reported on the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe. Sign up for this event: https://www.city.ac.uk/events/2018/october/humanitarian-journalism-today ...
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Rashawn Thompson, broadcaster and journalist, discusses the lessons learnt by Jamaican broadcasters through recent Chikungunya virus outbreaks, and how this prepared them for Zika, as part of a wider discussion around media development. This event was held in July 2016 as part of C4D Network's 'Focus Sessions' series. Click here for full video (via YouTube) ...
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The yearly Global Media and Information Literarcy (MIL) Week, initiated in 2012, is led by UNESCO in cooperation with GAPMIL, UNAOC and the MUIL and Intercultural Dialogue (MILID) University Network. It unites diverse actors committed to promoting MIL as a way to foster social inclusion and intercultural dialogue. The seventh annual global celebration of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Week is being prepared. The Week will be celebrated from 24 to 31 October 2018, under the theme "Media and Information Literate Cities: Voices, Powers, and Change Makers". Global MIL Week 2018 highlights will include the Eighth MILID Conference and the Youth Agenda Forum, planned to be held in Lithuania and Latvia, from 24 to 25 October 2018 and on 26 October 2018, respectively. Official website: https://en.unesco.org/globalmilweek2018 ...
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This article outlines the findings from the first stage of a grassroots action research project conducted with a support group for women of lived prison experience, based in Adelaide, South Australia, to investigate radio production as a means for supporting women in their transition to life outside of prison. The research found that empowerment manifested itself in a number of distinct ways, through both processes and the products of the project. Through the production of radio, women of prison experience recognised their own expertise and took ownership of their stories, while the radio products educated the wider public and validated the participants’ experiences. Click here for full article ...
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Following decades of civil war, South Sudan still lacks a functioning healthcare system and has some of the worst maternal and child health indicators in the world. To help address this, between 2012 and 2017 BBC Media Action produced and broadcast a range of national radio programmes seeking to influence knowledge, attitudes, discussion and the social norms most likely to drive improvements in the RMNCH-related behaviours of women and their families. It also worked to strengthen the capacity of local radio stations to produce similar high-quality, audience-driven health programming. This report presents a synthesis of all research and analysis completed under this project. In brief, it finds that the challenging country context (e.g. the limited availability of quality healthcare nationally and the ongoing humanitarian crisis) limited the extent to which the project was able to contribute to improved health outcomes. Despite this, audiences were generally optimistic about the shows’ influence and value, and reported gaining knowledge and making some behavioural changes as a result of tuning in. Click here for full evaluation ...
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This workshop briefing, the second in a series of three, is part of a project focused on the representation of refugee and migrant children in European screen content for children. Hosted by the Danish Film Institute (DFI) on 19 and 20 March 2018 as part of the annual Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, CPH:DOX, two half-day workshops offered an opportunity to explore how the topic is handled in children’s content made in Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK and Germany. In all these countries, screen content that focuses on children newly arrived in Europe is rare. The few examples to touch upon these issues are commissioned and broadcast predominantly by public service broadcasters (PSBs), including Danmarks Radio (DR, Denmark), Nederlands Publieke Omroep (NPO, Netherlands), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC, UK) and Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF, Germany). The Copenhagen workshops discussed formats that inform children through factual representations rather than fiction. Click here for full briefing ...
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As farmers, foresters and providers, women have a unique understanding of the ecosystems they live alongside. A radio programme in Malawi is tapping into this immense body of knowledge by creating a platform for women to engage in landscape restoration. This brief illustrates the work carried out by Farm Radio Trust on gender-sensitive radio programming on forest landscape restoration in Malawi, using the Her Voice on Air approach to engage women in crucial discussions both on-air and off air. Click here for full brief ...
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The three case studies presented in the publication "Audience Research in Media Development" are directly related to ongoing DW Akademie media development projects. The first case study addresses the measurement of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) of young media users aged 12 to 16 years in the Palestinian Territories (West Bank). The second focuses on the impact of radio broadcasts on women and land rights (station: Nam Lolwe) in Kenya. It was designed as a quasi-experiment, comparing listeners of the radio stations to potential listeners and non-listeners. The third study examines the social media strategies of two community radio stations (Granada Stereo and Contacto 10) in Colombia. It uses focus groups, a survey, and digital analytics methods. Results and lessons learned of all three case studies are presented in the publication. Click here for full report and case studies ...
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For some years now, media professionals and news industry insiders in Pakistan have spoken of a growing trend of self-censorship among local journalists. The self-censorship is argued to be a defense mechanism against threats, harassment, and acts of physical violence. However, a lack of tangible data about this phenomenon has often led to the issue being ignored in media policy discourse and efforts to ensure the safety of journalists. This study sets out to test the claims of self-censorship in the Pakistani news media through a survey of journalists working in the country. The study provides a rare glimpse at the extent and contours of contemporary self-censorship among Pakistani journalists. The results are frightening. Almost 88% of the journalist respondents claimed they had committed self-censorship in their professional news reporting. Around 79% said they had also self-censored their personal expression online. Through these and many related findings, the study tries to over insight about the factors influencing self-censorship in local journalism. The research also provides recommendations to tackle the issues that curb free expression in the Pakistani news media. In order to get local journalists to feel safe about their professional and personal expression, the study suggests actionable measures for news  media organizations, journalist unions, civil society organizations, political parties, ...
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Mainstream media coverage of humanitarian crises is “selective, sporadic, simplistic and partial", according to this new UEA survey. Respondents indicated widespread dissatisfaction with the quantity and quality of mainstream news coverage and highlighted a desire for more investigative reporting and scrutiny of the aid sector itself. The in-depth survey was conducted before the widely reported Oxfam UK sexual misconduct scandal by Dr Martin Scott, a senior lecturer in media and international development at the University of East Anglia (UEA), and humanitarian news agency IRIN News. It investigated how people working or interested in the humanitarian aid sector view global media coverage of humanitarian issues. Does the coverage do justice to critical issues? Does it include sufficient field reporting and reflect subject expertise? What are the main news sources? What impact, if any, does news coverage have on the respondents’ professional work? Many of the 1,626* respondents, who included aid workers, researchers and government officials, said mainstream news coverage concentrates on a small number of crises, thus relegating most crises as ‘neglected’ or ‘forgotten’. More than 70 per cent of respondents said the mainstream news media does not offer enough coverage of humanitarian issues. A common complaint was that mainstream news coverage ...
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