"Media development assistance and media systems research are intricately connected: by describing, assessing, and attempting to change them, media development actors produce knowledge about media systems and directly impact them. This research review explores the intersections of academic media systems research and practices of describing and assessing media landscapes in the media development sector and suggests how both could learn from each other. In what follows, the most important publications on media systems since the Cold War era will be reviewed, tracing the ongoing process of refining concepts and definitions. Alongside a geographical broadening of the research scope, models as well as methodological approaches have been questioned and reinvented. The review places a special focus on the peculiarities of researching media systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Referring to academic as well as grey literature, it suggests points of departure for meaningfully linking academic knowledge and practitioners’ knowledge about media systems, concluding with recommendations for informed practice." (Abstract)