"This research paper was commissioned by BBC Media Action to support discussions in a national conference in Sierra Leone in April 2022 aimed at fostering an enabling environment for media investment and at exploring new ways of supporting independent media. Combining desk research and interviews, i
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t examines national funding mechanisms for private media in the five selected countries, and gives a general assessment of their role in promoting viable, independent, and diverse media." (Introduction)
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"Drawing on the author’s and other media trainers’ experiences over a 25-year period, this book provides important insights into tailoring training programs to specific regions and countries. Case studies describe training in radio and television management, broadcasting, and media sustainabilit
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y, and are contextualized against the cultural and historical backgrounds of each region." (Publisher description)
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"This midterm performance evaluation of the United States Agency for International Development’s Assistance to Citizens in Fight Against Corruption Activity (ACFC) and Investigative Journalism Program (IJP) examines the outcomes the activities achieved during the first two and a half years of impl
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ementation. Both activities started in September 2019 and will end in September 2024. The evaluation concluded that the two activities increased citizens’ awareness about and confidence in anticorruption activities of civil society in directly targeted municipalities, and awareness about media anticorruption reporting at a national level. More success stories and a centralized effort to promote results and messaging should follow, and all supported media requires an improved approach to audience engagements. Despite stagnation at the national level, citizens’ engagement in anticorruption increased significantly in affected municipalities, especially through locally based informal groups and CSO initiatives, as well as through well-tailored initiatives for monitoring abuse of public resources in pre-election campaigns and public procurement during the pandemic. The lack of coordination between direct beneficiaries, and with external stakeholders, partially caused by the pandemic, made anticorruption efforts fragmented and less sustainable. The pandemic and political stalemates negatively affected the high-level advocacy initiatives with modest results only in the areas of conflict of interest and public procurement, while the ACFC grantees had some results in their advocacy initiatives. The two activities were effective in getting institutions to process corruption reports and in stopping illegal activities in some of the institutions. Investigative journalism reports resulted in several high-profile corruption cases. Even though judicial effectiveness is improving, citizens’ distrust in judicial and other institutions still hampers gains in reporting corruption." (Abstract)
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"A survey in Cameroon revealed that journalists are faced with some challenges (such as lack of training and lack of resource persons) in covering environment topics, especially those related to forest and climate change adaptation. In order to address these challenges and contribute to the improvem
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ent of the journalistic style of reporting topics on forest and climate change adaptation with more scientific knowledge and to create a stronger scientific base of event coverage, pilot capacity-building initiatives were initiated with the specific objectives as follows: (1) training of journalists during workshops; (2) fellowships award for research activities to communication master students; (3) mentoring of senior and junior journalists and (4) open reflection on how to mainstream forests and adaptation to climate change in curricula of communication schools in Central Africa. This last initiative of mainstreaming forests and adaptation to climate change in the school curricula was seen as a possible sustainable way to promote scientific and environmental communication in Central Africa. These activities initiated by CIFOR (Center for International Forestry Research) under the framework of CoFCCA project (Congo Basin Forest and Climate Change Adaptation) were pilot initiatives aiming to inspire others on capacity building and research related to scientific and environmental communication in Central Africa." (Abstract)
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"The COVID-19 pandemic, global economic downturn, anti-press violence and worsening situation of labour precarity for journalists around the world have led to increased stress, trauma and burnout in the profession, which raises questions at the heart of media sustainability and approaches to media d
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evelopment in a global context. Our study builds on the conceptual framework of professional and collective resilience research to analyse the content of media development work on publicly facing websites of a census of implementing organizations represented on the Center for International Media Assistance website (N = 18). Our findings suggest that donors and other sponsors of media development work should consider making resilience a core component of global programmes in support of media democracy and journalism. Though programmatic agendas in global media development are crowded with multiple goals in response to complex problems, we believe that resilience should be prioritized. This work cannot be done without a nuanced analysis of local causes of emotional distress as well as local understandings of emotional labour and repair. Working with journalists’ support organizations and employers in conducting diagnoses, identifying suitable actions and promoting sustainable practices is imperative. Recommendations and actions need to be sensitive to local conditions, demands and opportunities. While immediate remediation actions are important, it is also important to keep attention on long-term structural matters that cause emotional distress." (Abstract)
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"Worldwide, the revenue base for journalism has been disrupted by digital innovation and the dominance of technology platforms in the audience and advertiser-facing markets. Revenue models relied upon by news and information services have collapsed, and credible journalism and its social function ar
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e at risk. Future-proofing the viability and sustainability of public interest journalism in Africa must encourage platforms to pay fair value for the benefit derived. This will require trust and collaboration between governments, the news and information services that produce public interest journalism, and civil society. To achieve this, three pillars grounded in the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa are proposed, namely: i) designation of public interest journalism as a public good, ii) incorporation of national public media funds to resource the supply of public interest journalism and safeguard its public value, and iii) draw revenue for these funds from a collective fee mechanism paid by digital indexing and publishing platforms." (Page 1)
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"In this article, I examine the development of journalism in Vietnam by exploring documentation from two media aid projects carried out by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) from 1993 until 2007. The project documents contain fieldnotes, evaluations and reflections from
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the trainers who were recruited from Swedish media houses to conduct training in Vietnam. A qualitative document analysis was used to examine the content with a conceptual framework built on notions of comparative media systems, global media ethics and the salience of social connections in Vietnam. The findings explore how the Swedish media aid intervened in the Vietnamese media by contributing to a technological transition of journalism although the training in newsroom management and media ethics were challenged by conflicting journalism ideology and social norms. The article contributes to the existing research on media development, reflections on media aid and the development of Vietnamese journalism by analysing project documents that provide first-hand information from a period when Vietnamese journalism underwent a dramatic transition towards the digitalized media system existing today." (Abstract)
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"What comes next for media development? Though the contributors to this volume [i.e., the special issue focusing on international media development] provide answers from diverse perspectives, they each touch upon questions of agency and localization. The contributors investigate major issues with a
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bearing on media development literature in a bid to explore some conceptual frameworks and lay down a path for an action-oriented practice." (Page 137)
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"We find that there is a will for reform from the civilian part of the government, the international community, independent media professionals, and a handful of Sudanese CSOs. However, pushing for a free media is a low priority for most of the population, who have more urgent survival and security
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needs. Furthermore, the military/Islamist wing of the transitional government seems to want to control, not free, the media." (Conclusion, page 24)
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"The media reform process in Ethiopia’s political transition has made significant improvements to the policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks. If institutionalized and implemented with robust stakeholder engagement, the reform could help build a sustainable, vibrant, independent, and viable media
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business environment essential to democratic consolidation. The task, however daunting, has shown the resolve of state and nonstate actors to work collaboratively in spite of staunch differences to reach compromised solutions and build consensus on important media reform issues. That volunteer legal and media experts have spearheaded a participatory legislative and regulatory reform process will help instill a democratic culture, which would be instrumental in operationalizing a sector-wide self-regulatory mechanism and capacity-building efforts to professionalize the sector. Ethiopia’s political transition has been rather bumpy and full of crises that have threatened progress—a situation that should be expected to continue into the future." (Conclusion, page 21)
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"El Kul is seen as an impartial, timely, relevant and trusted source of information in Libya: the vast majority of the survey respondents (over 90%) agreed or strongly agreed that El Kul is informative and provides balanced and trustworthy content. There was a 7% increase in the proportion of respon
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dents who strongly agreed with each of these statements between March 2020 and March 2021.
• El Kul helps to promote social cohesion and acceptance of diversity: 93% agreed or strongly agreed that El Kul represents Libyan society in its diversity, and 45% could recall examples of El Kul content demonstrating Libyans taking actions that contribute towards peace and reconciliation. They mentioned for instance recalling content showing individuals taking part in reconciliation or peace initiatives at the local/ community level or doing acts of solidarity between different regions or groups. Participants also reported that El Kul content prompted interest in understanding more about different ethnic groups and regions in Libya.
• El Kul supports women’s empowerment: Participants said that El Kul publishes useful content on women’s rights, issues and experiences. They said this made them think differently about the role of women in society and the violence and discrimination they experience. Two-fifths (42%) of survey respondents reported speaking in support of women’s empowerment/equality, and 26% of these said that they were strongly encouraged to do so by El Kul." (Key findings)
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"Après l’ingénierie, les équipements et la fourniture des programmes, la formation professionnelle est le troisième axe de la coopération des pays africains avec les pays occidentaux. L’assistance des pays ou d’agences étrangères a permis de créer des centres de formation dans certains
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pays, souvent au sein d’universités locales. Ces centres ont connu plus ou moins de succès selon les conjonctures politiques ou économiques. Cependant, des centres de formation régionaux (Cameroun, Sénégal) ou nationaux (Côte d’Ivoire, Tunisie) continuent à attirer les étudiants des pays voisins. « Le financement de structures de formation est complexe et englobe diverses participations: celle des gouvernements locaux et étrangers, des fondations, des organisations internationales, etc. En fait, la formation est un champ d’action typique pour la coopération au développement en matière de médias (notamment en provenance de la France, du Canada, de la Belgique, et de la République fédérale d’Allemagne).» (Page 325)
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"Gender perspectives in media development are common in grey literature produced and promoted by media development actors. Yet, academic research investigating gender dimensions in media development practice and discourse remains scarce. This paper wants to contribute to filling this gap. The empiri
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cal data results from my PhD field research with women journalists in proximity radios in Burkina Faso. Based on the perspective of women journalists, the study gathered transversal data that sheds light on how they experience and perceive media development activities. The data was collected in 2019-2021 through interviews and audio diaries with a total of 10 female journalists. This paper examines media development activities and their effects on women journalists’ lived experiences. The analysis uses an intersectional lens to grasp the interdependences of different power structures. Findings show how media development interventions might have both positive and negative effects on women journalists’ everyday life. As such, media development activities shape the power structures within the media environment, enabling and restricting women journalists’ access, interaction, and participation in content production and decision-making. The data also shows how the security situation in Burkina Faso affects women journalists in a different way and sheds light to blind spots in the efforts of NGOs to incorporate gender dimensions in their approaches. The analysis reveals the complexities in which media development interventions at times challenge and reinforce existing inequalities in the media sector." (Abstract)
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