Media Development

Offering an in-depth look at globalization processes, histories, texts, and state policies as they relate to the global media, this book maps out the increasing role of digital platforms as they have shifted the contours of globalization. Case studies and examples focus on ubiquitous digital platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, and Netflix, in tandem with globalization so that the readers are able to apply diverse theoretical frameworks of globalization in different media milieu. Readers are taught core theoretical concepts which they should apply critically to a broad range of contemporary media policies, practices, movements, and technologies in different geographic regions of the world – North America, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia – with a view to determining how they shape and are shaped by globalization. Click here to read more! ...

The article by Emily Comfort Maractho looks at how women’s visibility and voice remain limited in public affairs programming in Uganda. The article examines how mass media reproduce cultural narratives that affect women in Uganda. It is part of a larger study on representation, interaction and engagement of women and broadcast media in Uganda. Ugandan women have made tremendous strides in public life, and hold strategic positions in politics and policy-making. This increased participation in public life is attributed to Uganda’s focused pro-women constitution and affirmative action policy. In spite of this progress, women’s visibility and voice remain limited in public affairs programming in Uganda. The findings suggest that the media reproduce cultural narratives through programming that mirror traditional society view of women and exclude women’s political and public narratives. The interactive and participatory public affairs programming is increasingly important for democratic participation. While men actively engage with such programming, women have failed to utilize it for the mobilization of women, reconstruction of gender stereotypes and producing new argumentation that challenges problematic cultural narratives that dominate media and society. Click here to read more ...

This handbook seeks to serve as an internationally-relevant model curriculum, open to adoption or adaptation, which responds to the emerging global problem of disinformation that confronts societies in general, and journalism in particular It is part of the “Global Initiative for Excellence in Journalism Education”, which is a focus of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC). Click here to read more ...

After Cyclone Gaja wreaked havoc in Tamil Nadu, a community radio station in Nagapattinam district started an initiative called “Voice of the Vulnerable”. The initiative aims to engage and empower coastal communities with stories of environment and climate change affecting their everyday lives. The radio station also conducts community journalism workshops to train the youth about the various issues in the regions and also ways to report them. Click here to read the article written by Kartik Chandramouli as part of the Mongabay Series: Environment and Her ...

BBC Media Action has been supporting 15 local radio stations across Zambia to cover local governance issues and improve accountability in the delivery of critical services including education, sanitation and access to water through two projects: Radio Waves (since 2014) and Zambia Speaks! (since 2016). This case study shows how the programmes helped to improve engagement between citizens and local authorities, resulting in examples of governance issues being addressed, as verified by listeners, station staff and local stakeholders. Click here for more detail and full case study ...

The Children’s Radio Foundation (CRF) in South Africa has published a users’ guide to using WhatsApp for radio. The guide is the sixth in MDIF’s Media Advisory Services’ series of practical guides for media managers and practitioners and is designed to to produce better radio, and increase community participation and audience interaction. This practical toolkit is based on CRF's experiences supporting eight radio stations across South Africa to integrate WhatsApp into their reporting and broadcasting environments. Click here for guide ...

The media plays a powerful role in determining how we see the world around us and good reporting plays a vital role in increasing understanding of violence against women. This guide, aimed at journalists, offers comprehensive advice on various issues from interviewing survivors to providing relevant context and ensuring that violence is neither trivialised nor sensationalised. Click here for the full guide and the four-page summary document ...

This report was commissioned to examine the nature and quality of media stories produced by journalists supported by the Voices of African Migrants pilot programme (see http://migrantvoices.org/), managed by International Media Support (IMS), in four migration ‘Hubs’ in Africa, and explored how local audiences interpreted and responded to those stories. It used content analysis, interviews and focus group discussions. The research findings show that most stories used human interest frames and foregrounded migrant experiences. The migrants’ main contributions to the stories were to provide a human face to hardships and suffering. Meanwhile, NGOs were included to provide facts, statements of general causes of migrations, statistics, and a sense of scale. Government statements were used to provide a comment on policies and solutions. Most articles were supportive in their sentiments to the plight of migrants. Participants in the focus groups (especially migrants themselves) recognised that migrant voices were missing from mainstream media reporting on migration, that reporting on migration tends to be negative, and that there are pressing issues relating to migration that need to be discussed in the public sphere. Focus group participants generally responded with empathy and understanding in response to stories about the hardships migrants face. Some stories ...

This article critically assesses the possibilities and limitations of strategic communication initiatives to enhance cultures of governance among youth in Northern Ghana. The analysis is embedded within contemporary debates about communication and social change, with particular focus upon dynamics between citizen media development, youth-centred citizen journalism, and processes of community mobilisation and development. Findings suggest that the project has opened up to dynamic, youth-led social change processes, evidenced by the creative, proactive enactment of citizen engagement. Youth changed not only their self-perception around agency and ability to act, but also influenced community development in a variety of ways. Click here for full article ...

This Handbook has been customized for journalists to tell the climate change story specific to the region. It explores the essential aspects of climate change, including its injustices to vulnerable communities, especially women and girls and least developed countries, and provides examples of best practices and stories of hope unique to the region. It can be used as a resource for journalists to understand the science of climate change, as well as helping journalists to improve their reporting of the environmental, social, economic¸ political, technological and other angles of the story. The Handbook is part UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication’s Series on Journalism Education. The series aims to reinforce the capacities of journalists, journalism educators and their institutions to promote sustainable development, by enhancing the abilities of journalists to report on science, development and democratic governance. The Handbook has been produced under the umbrella of a project supported by Malaysia. Its sister publication, Climate Change in Africa: A Guidebook for Journalists is also available as part of this series. With this book tailored for the Asia and Pacific, UNESCO urges journalists in the region to empower themselves so as to enhance the ability for citizens and their ...

This report examines how digital-born news media in the Global South have developed innovative reporting and storytelling practices in response to growing disinformation problems. Based on field observation and interviews at Rappler in the Philippines, Daily Maverick in South Africa, and The Quint in India, the authors show that all three organisations combine a clear sense of mission and a commitment to core journalistic values with an active effort to find new ways of identifying and countering disinformation, based on a combination of investigative journalism fact-checking, data and social network analysis, and sometimes strategic collaboration with both audiences and platform companies. In the process, each of these organisations are developing new capacities and skills, sharing them across the newsroom, differentiating themselves from their competitors, and potentially increasing their long-term sustainability, in ways the authors believe other news media worldwide could learn from. Click here for full report ...

With independent media around the world in crisis, what is the role of international donors and private foundations? And how can these international actors provide effective support when the driving forces behind independent media’s decline—simultaneously technological, financial, social, political, and institutional—are so complex and difficult to disentangle? This report argues that complexity is no excuse for inaction. Solutions to this crisis will require that political agency rise to the daunting level of the challenge, and that the structures of international cooperation—forged as the global response to World War II—are now put into motion to safeguard the foundations of independent media. Based on input from media actors, freedom of expression activists, implementers, and donors, the report puts forward three interrelated objectives that, if achieved, would help to international cooperation in the media sector. 1.  Build the high-level political will and donor capacity needed to increase support to the media sector 2.  Strengthen approaches to international cooperation focused on the development of media sector institutions 3.  Enhance the effectiveness of media sector support by making it more demand-driven and coordinated Click here for full report ...