"Large parts of media development work have focused on providing support to create privately owned, independent media in transition and developing countries. The accepted logic of many donor organisations has been that creating external pluralism, i.e. having many different private media companies o
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perating in one country, is the best way to build democracy and to provide access and voice to citizens. Often the model of choice was the one that has dominated the media landscapes of the United States and Europe since the Second World War: privately owned media funded through advertising and sales revenues. But as advertising income dwindles for traditional media and as newspapers close at alarming rates, the question arises whether promoting this business model in the developing world is the right way forward. In developing a response to this question, this article explains how media assistance has developed, identifies the main characteristics of the current crisis in journalism in the developed world and indicates how some of the experience gained in media development can help to provide answers to the current crisis. Media development itself has come a long way in recent years and today adopts a more holistic approach that focuses not only on building private media but recognises the need for legal reform, civil society involvement, enhanced professional capacity, strengthened institutions that support media freedom and development of technical media infrastructure." (Abstract)
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"As a follow up on the Media and Development Forum, which took place in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) on 11-13 September 2008, the European Commission initiated this study to map out the projects and programmes which European donors have in place to support media development in Africa [...] Some 240 co
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ntacts were identified and sent the questionnaire. 148 responses have been collected. 200 projects/programmes have been identified and analysed. These projects/programmes amounts to a support worth more than 100m €. The projects/programmes involve 46 out of the 57 African countries. Training is the dominant activity area. More than 1/3 of the projects have training as the main content. Additionally, in many cases the training activities support other activity areas, like production of programmes, setting up of radio stations etc. Only one small project address education of future journalists. 152 projects (76%) address only one country. These projects include 36 countries (63% of the countries in Africa and 78% of the countries which have received support). The projects targeting only one country amount to 60.739.635 €, which is 60% of the funding recorded in the survey. Very few countries receive the majority of the funding. The three countries receiving support for more than 5 mil € receive 32,8% of the total support. The data indicates that the major part of the support goes to countries in conflict/post-conflict or democracy crisis situations. ¾ of the projects are implemented by non-African organisations/institutions. Regarding New Media, the analysis shows that mobile phones and the Internet are gaining importance in the continent because of the numbers of subscribers and access possibilities are increasing. Initiatives are taken in many countries to make these tools real means of communication as well as sources of information and evidence and channels of dissemination of information in several areas of development. Despite of this development, only very few projects address new media." (Executive summary, page 5-7)
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"International initiatives have gained momentum around analysing ‘media development’ — a notion related to, but generally distinct from, media’s contribution to ‘development’. The focus on the ‘development’ of media is conventionally (although not logically) about international inter
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ventions in non-dense media environments. The conceptual and normative character around the terminology of ‘media development’ can be critically interrogated, and the meaning of the phrase revised with the aid of the concepts of ‘media mobilization’ and ‘media density’. The topic can also be contextualized against a historical backdrop, and questioned in terms of its assumptions about media effects. Critical theorization of ‘media’ also shows the need to go beyond the blinkers of ‘old’ media." (Abstract)
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"This report provides an overview of the discussions and conclusions from the International Partnership Meeting in New York on 26 January 2010 organised by the Open Society Institute and International Media Support. At the meeting, 30 media support and press freedom organisations from across the wor
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ld met to discuss partnerships and countries in which the partnership process might be pursued in 2010. Nine target countries in 2010 were selected for partnership action in 2010." (IMS website)
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"This article analyzes how selected programs articulate broad media objectives with program goals and apply indicators to determine impact with the goal of understanding how media assistance goals are operationalized and measured, and how program goals are linked to broad objectives. Guided by the n
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otion that institutions and institutional incentives matter in international aid, it is proposed that IMA program goals should not only be the reflection of normative arguments about desirable media structures and practices, and models of development and change. They also need to be viewed as the expression of the dynamics and organizational goals of aid institutions." (Abstract)
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The report analyzes spending on media development by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which budgeted $140.7 million for media development efforts in FY 2010. This figure represents a dramatic increase when compared with the $68.9 million spent only
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five years earlier. Based on data provided by the State Department, the paper outlines trends in spending on media development, broken down between State Department and USAID programs and by region.
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"In 2004-2005, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Transition Initiatives commissioned Altai Consulting to conduct the first comprehensive media evaluation of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, looking at the impact of the Afghan media on opinions and behav
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iors three years after the beginning of the country’s reconstruction. The evaluation found, among other things: that Afghans were avid and sophisticated media users and that cultural barriers to media use were less significant than previously expected; that the radio played a predominant role throughout the country; and that media are instrumental in social progress and education. However, since publication of that report1, Afghanistan’s media sector has seen important changes. To inform future assistance from the international community to the Afghan media, it was deemed necessary to assess the current state of the Afghan media – by reflecting a full and accurate audience profile, to determine program preferences, to measure the impact of the Afghan media on local opinions and behaviors and to gauge Afghan expectations in terms of programming and messaging. A large-scale research project was thus planned and conducted from March to August 2010. This research included a deep probe into the media sector and the public’s behaviors and expectations. The methodology used to achieved this included a combination of: literature review; direct observations; key informant interviews with most relevant actors involved in the media sector; 6,648 close-ended interviews in more than 900 towns and villages of 106 districts, covering all 34 provinces of the country; an audience survey on more than 1,500 individuals run daily for a week; about 200 qualitative, open-ended interviews; and 10 community case studies. Such an effort guarantees that results presented here are fairly representative of the Afghan population at large. This document provides a comprehensive synthesis of data collected during the survey. A database of media actors, 16 priority district reports, 10 case study reports, a complete description of the methodology and the original datasets from the main quantitative research and the audience research are publicly available, allowing anyone interested to access more focused information as needed." (Introduction, page 8)
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"Only a target-group oriented, sustainable and integrated development approach can improve long-term participation possibilities – and therefore people’s living conditions – in our partner countries. This approach ranges from the qualification of media content producers, to media legislation a
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nd to the public’s access to all aspects of the media system. To achieve this goal, media development also aims to maximize the synergy effects offered by the media in projects spanning almost all branches of development cooperation." (Abstract)
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"This report discusses the state of media development indicators in relation to a new Results Framework (RF) drafted by USAID in 2009. There were three aims for the report: To collect and screen the strongest indicators developed by different organizations or individuals for measuring meso-level obj
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ectives or results related to media development; Compile an annotated list of indicator sources reviewed; Determine the extent to which the indicators available for the given results met set criteria; Provide recommendations for USAID investment in improving indicators for media development." (Introduction, page 1)
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According to this document "media support interventions tend to be conceived and implemented late in the electoral cycle". Support to media around elections could be developed through: mechanisms to map the implications of rapid media and communication changes for electoral outcomes; mechanisms for
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lesson learning on which media support strategies have proved most effective (or ineffective); coordination of media support around elections.
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"Western-supported media assistance in transition and developing countries has a long history. Building independent media, preferably through the nongovernmental sector, is seen as an important aspect of achieving mondernization and democratization. This article questions the idealized assumptions u
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nderlining such programmes and argues that media assistance donors rarely analyze it critically. The article discusses the political character of Western media assistance and explores the organizational eco-system in which the NGOs flourish. The article concludes by observing NGOs' unexpected power in the process of providing Western media assistance." (Abstract)
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"The essential thesis of this paper is that the requirements and problems of the media sector differ substantially from country to country according to its political, social and economic conditions: in authoritarian states the scope and intensity of media assistance is quite limited, whereas democra
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tizing countries are open for foreign assistance on developing an independent media sector; in war-torn societies the first objective should be to provide increased access to accurate news, and post-conflict societies offer good opportunities for the promotion of independent media. For each of these four categories the paper proposes different media assistance intervention strategies." (commbox)
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"In den vergangenen Jahren hat Ghana einen großen Sprung gemacht, was die Achtung der Pressefreiheit und der Menschenrechte betrifft. Aber eine grundlegende qualitative Verbesserung der Medienlandschaft würde beinhalten, dass sich die Journalisten ihrer verantwortungsvollen Rolle in einer Demokrat
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ie bewusst sind und sich nicht nur an den Vorgaben der beiden großen Parteien orientieren." (Einleitung)
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"After nine years of military rule, Pakistan today finds itself in the second year of a challenging transition to democracy. Unlike previously unsuccessful transitions to democracy, this transition is characterised by the presence of a newly liberalised mass media. This can prove to be to be a cruci
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al – and positive – factor, but only if the media can assume a role as a watchdog of democracy. Even though Pakistan’s media is vibrant this is a difficult task, because the media is faced with a number of challenges. By highlighting these challenges, this report seeks to focus on how the Pakistani media is affected by, and functions under, the conflict currently unfolding. Furthermore, the report outlines a series of recommendations that can support Pakistan’s media in facing future challenges." (Executive summary)
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"La investigación que se presenta en estas páginas tuvo un doble objetivo: por un lado, estudiar la cooperación española, bilateral y multilateral, con un seleccionado conjunto de paÃses de iberoamericanos en materia de patrimonio y cultura clásica (artes plásticas, espectáculos en vivo) y d
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e industrias culturales (incluyendo a los medios de comunicación y a las nuevas redes digitales) durante el periodo 1997-2007. Por otro, conocer las opiniones de destacados expertos (gestores, creadores, académicos) sobre los futuros lineamientos de las polÃticas y las estrategias de cooperación en cultura y comunicación en Iberoamérica." (Página 15)
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"Las Industrias Culturales (IC) aparecen hoy como el centro nuclear en donde se juega el destino de nuestras identidades, nuestros valores compartidos y la calidad de nuestras democracias. Es también, por eso mismo, el espacio fundamental para los intercambios interculturales, en donde se dirime el
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grado de diversidad efectiva de nuestras culturas, su capacidad de abrirse, de entenderse e integrar al otro en uno mismo. Es, finalmente, un conjunto de sectores, ramas y relaciones económicas de cada vez mayor peso en el crecimiento económico y el empleo de las naciones y las regiones de paÃses. Las IC constituyen asÃ, por múltiples razones entrecruzadas, el centro ineludible de las polÃticas públicas culturales y de comunicación pero también, inseparablemente, de las estrategias privadas y de las polÃticas industriales que las apoyan. Y ello tanto en el terreno nacional como en la arena global. Cooperación y desarrollo se dan la mano pues inevitablemente con el comercio y la competencia. Entender e integrar esas múltiples caras en el espacio iberoamericano, y en las polÃticas que pueden consolidarlo no es ciertamente fácil. Pero esa complejidad se redobla ahora en medio de dos procesos que están transformando profundamente la realidad: la globalización de las IC, mucho más sistemática y generalizada que la del resto de la cultura; Y la pionera y acelerada digitalización de las IC, seguramente el mayor cambio que la cultura humana ha sufrido desde la aparición de los aparatos de reproducción de contenidos simbólicos, allá por la segunda mitad del Siglo XIX." (Resumen)
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