Young Lives: How Youth in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe Consume Media (Discovery Learning Alliance, 2019)
Discovery Learning Alliance commissioned the Research, Insight and Evaluation team at M&C Saatchi World Services to help deepen their understanding of the rapidly changing media consumption habits of young people in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. The study offers a new analysis of existing data on youth media habits, alongside newly conducted targeted interviews with relevant experts to produce insights that will help us and others harness the opportunity for impact. The report gives valuable insight into the preferences, interests and consumption habits of African youth. It also helps to understand what kind of content young people are seeking. Click here for full report ...
South Africa elections 2019: Journalist safety kit (CPJ, 2019)
South Africa will hold national and provincial elections on May 8. As the country celebrates 25 years of democracy, the press in South Africa faces old and new challenges, including physical harassment and cyber bullying. The press freedom environment, including the safety of journalists, will be one of the key indicators for the health of the country's democracy and the freeness and fairness of its polls. CPJ's Emergencies Response Team (ERT) has compiled a Safety Kit for journalists covering South Africa's election. The kit contains information for editors, reporters, and photojournalists on how to prepare for the election and how to mitigate digital, physical and psychological risk. Click here for full details ...
An Unfavorable Business: Running Local Media in Myanmar’s Ethnic States and Regions (MDIF, 2018)
This 66- page report assesses the business challenges faced by the country’s local media outlets. The report is based on research conducted from April-August 2018, as well as data gathered during the three years that MDIF has been running its business capacity building initiative, the Myanmar Media Program (MMP). MDIF’s research identified 55 local media outlets operating in Myanmar’s seven ethnic states and seven regions that serve the information needs of particular geographic areas or ethnic nationalities. It found that local media establishment has surged since the political opening in 2011, with 38 of the 55 media launched over the past 7 years. The research confirmed that the largest number of local media outlets are located in Chin State, Shan State and Sagaing Region, and there is at least one media outlet in each of the country’s seven ethnic states. An interactive map produced by MDIF shows the locations and basic information about each of the 55 outlets. The existence of dozens of local media in Myanmar may suggest a healthy environment for these outlets, but the report identifies multiple internal and external obstacles that severely hamper their prospects for sustainability and continued existence. Most notable among them are uneven advertising market development, ...
Register now: Beyond Visual Stereotypes: A Symposium on Media and the Middle East (27 April, Norwich, UK)
This symposium on media representations and the Middle East will be filled with talks, workshops, and panel discussions and will end with a screening of Asghar Farhadi's About Elly (2009). Moving beyond visual stereotypes, organisers invite attendees to join them in thinking about and challenging media representations. A more detailed programme will follow but registration is now open. Click here to register ...
When Facts Don’t Matter: How to Communicate More Effectively about Immigration’s Costs and Benefits (Migration Policy Institute, 2018)
At a time when people have more information at their fingertips than ever, it feels as though it has become equally easy to share it widely or to ignore, discount, and discredit it. Several factors have contributed to this state of affairs. New technologies have given a platform to a wider range of voices, but this has also meant that unvetted information and politically motivated “fake news” find their way more easily into the bloodstream of public debate. Human nature also shapes how people consume and recall information, making them more likely to resist information that contradicts their existing beliefs and personal experiences. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in debates about hot-button issues such as immigration. Whether in the run-up to the 2016 UK referendum on Brexit, elections across Europe and North America, or responses to the 2015–16 European refugee and migration crisis, emotionally charged and anecdotal narratives about immigrants, refugees, and their effects on receiving communities often seemed to drown out arguments made on the basis of robust data and evidence. Yet policymaking in democratic societies relies on the engagement of an electorate able to access and think critically about new information, and to adjust their views ...
Underneath the Autocrats (IFJ South East Asia Media Report, 2018)
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the South East Asia Journalist Unions (SEAJU) launched the first ever IFJ Media Freedom Report for South East Asia. Underneath the Autocrats: A Report into Impunity, Journalist Safety and Working Conditions is the first major collaboration by IFJ and SEAJU in the region. The report, supported by UNESCO, is intended to be an annual advocacy tool that holds governments and media to account on efforts to protect journalists. The IFJ’s major research into South East Asia’s media canvassed the views of nearly 1000 journalists and media workers across the region in 2018 and included extensive research into legislative controls hampering independent journalism, as well as asking questions of governments, media owners and other key players on journalist safety and working conditions. Click here to find out more and download the report ...
Comparing ‘New’ and ‘Old’ Media for Violence Monitoring and Crisis Response in Kenya (IDS Working Paper 520, 2018)
This paper seeks to determine the comparative opportunities and limitations of ‘new’ and ‘old’ data sources for early warning, crisis response, and violence research. The authors compare the information set produced through social media violence reporting with conventional violence reporting around the August and October 2017 Kenyan elections. Specifically, they leverage data from a sample of social media reports of violence through public posts to Twitter. These reports are compared with events coded from media and published sources coded by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) along three dimensions: (1) the geography of violence reporting; (2) the temporality of reporting; and (3) the targeting of reporting. Click here for full paper ...
How has media programming supported polio eradication? (BBC Media Action Research Briefing, 2018)
This briefing synthesises findings from research conducted in the three countries – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Somalia - with a focus on Afghanistan. Research findings suggested that BBC Media Action’s programming provided listeners with accurate, trusted and clear information against misinformation and harmful rumours, increased knowledge on the requirement of multiple doses of vaccines and vaccination schedules, prompted discussion and dialogue in communities, garnered trust and confidence among caregivers through the use of doctors and religious leaders and encouraged parents to vaccinate their children by dispelling misconceptions about vaccinations. Click here for full briefing ...
The State of Humanitarian Journalism (UEA, 2018)
This report presents some of the findings from a four-year global research project into the state of humanitarian journalism around the world. The authors asked: Which news organisations regularly report on humanitarian affairs? How are they funded, and what ethical problems or professional dilemmas does this create for journalists covering humanitarian affairs? When natural disasters and violent conflicts are reported, what kinds of journalistic coverage do they receive? Do news outlets differ from one another, and if so, how? How interested are news audiences in journalism about humanitarian affairs? How well does existing coverage serve their needs, and the needs of those involved in international aid? Which significant ‘gaps’ are there in news provision? What effects does news coverage have on public attitudes towards international aid? Their analysis of news coverage reveals that only a small handful of international news outlets regularly report on humanitarian affairs, and identified a number of important gaps in humanitarian news coverage. Almost no articles looked at the specific problems faced by women and girls in relation to the conflicts in Yemen and South Sudan in 2017, for example. Click here for the full report ...
Myanmar’s media from an audience perspective ( IMS-Fojo, 2018)
This publication presents the findings from an audience study carried out by International Media Support (IMS), its partner institution Fojo Media Institute and Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation (EMRef) in May 2018. The report provides indications of the media habits of the population of Myanmar as well as people’s understanding of news and information flows. The study found that there is a widespread preference towards local media as people feel that these media outlets provide them with information relevant to their local communities and daily lives. Television is a preferred medium for consuming news but social media, and Facebook, in particular, is catching up. A culture of sharing news and information ensures that even people without access to Facebook know of the platform and get updates through friends and family. People’s trust in media differs but with many preferring state-owned media to deliver trustworthy and reliable news and information. Some news consumers showcase a natural scepticism towards news and information, but limited access to reliable information makes it difficult for them to verify what they read, see or hear. Based on the findings, the report ends with 12 recommendations. Six are directed towards the Myanmar media industry, journalists and other content producers while the remaining six are targeted at media development organizations and learning institutions. IMS-Fojo hopes that these recommendations can serve as inspiration for ...
Tips for running public awareness campaigns in Africa: Insights from eight case studies (DW Akademie, 2018)
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 ...
Defending Independent Media: A Comprehensive Analysis of Aid Flows (CIMA Digital Report, 2018)
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 ...