"This research study examines and assesses the progress of media development work in the Southern Mediterranean region in the wake of the Arab Spring. It highlights the challenges faced by international agencies and presents examples of effective, innovative interventions that could help to shape be
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st practice in this field." (Executive summary)
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"Recommendations revolve around five building blocks of a co-ordinated strategy that calls for: 1. A regional news hub for the Russian language that embodies the values of fairness, accuracy and watchdog reporting, and builds a network of partners to leverage high-quality news content to wider audie
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nces across platforms [...] 2. A content sharing platform (“content factory”) to encourage the production and distribution of highquality programming on television and online, with particular emphasis on content that reflects local issues and local lives [...] 3. A centre for media excellence in the Russian language that co-ordinates the work of governments, NGOs and educational institutions in ongoing market research and media monitoring, media literacy programmes, professional training and peer-to-peer exchanges. 4. Alongside the three main building blocks, a basket fund should be established to provide a critical mass of funding for the building blocks [...] 5. On top of the three main building blocks should sit a multimedia distribution platform that guarantees a degree of “buy in” and ensures content generated by the news exchange and content factory reaches the widest possible audience." (Page 4)
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"In the field of media development, the public sector is often viewed as a monolithic barrier to the development of independent and sustainable media. Although governments do frequently pervert and capture media sectors in countries around the globe, the enabling conditions under which media can ach
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ieve and maintain independence are nevertheless reliant on institutions of government. Therefore the media development community must rethink its approaches to public sector engagement in more holistic efforts to improve the environment for media systems in emerging and fragile democracies." (Introduction)
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"Freedom of expression and access to information inform every aspect of DW Akademie’s work in media development. Following on from this, our strategic model has human rights at its core, with our goal being to enable all people to freely inform and express themselves. The model provides a comprehe
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nsive framework for the planning and implementation of sustainable media development." (Page 1)
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"1. Incorporate media assistance into a larger framework of development aid.
2. Incorporate media indicators and audits into governance diagnostics and needs analysis.
3. Co-operate with media development CSOs and determine media objectives and outcomes, not methodologies.
4. Focus on building publi
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c demand for inclusive policy dialogue.
5. Support independent, sustainable, and capable local media in developing countries.
6. Foster ownership as a central component of support.
7. Promote citizen access to the media and mobile technologies as well as citizens’ media literacy.
8. Encourage links between media institutions and the rest of civil society.
9. Support systematic research on the effects of media and information access on domestic accountability.
10. Learn about and harness new technologies." (Strategic principles for media assistance, pages 104-106)
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"From Tehran to Tahrir Square to Gezi Park-to mention only three key sites of protest made prominent in 2013-social media has been lauded as one of the key factors enabling popular uprisings and social movements. This has provided further hype for new or digital media, which were already being toute
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d as a tool for social change, liberation, and the representation of marginalized or oppressed voices. In this essay, I argue not against new media per se but against technological determinism and fetishism. I argue that the transformative or repressive potential of different media changes dramatically across different sites of research and depends on the sociopolitical realities of the region being studied, including factors such as censorship, access, and infrastructure. Drawing on my research in Afghanistan, Iran, and Tajikistan, among other neighboring countries, I show the striking differences in the degree of effectiveness and ineffectiveness of different media in bringing about social change in those respective countries as well as regionally. Comparatively speaking, I focus on television and social media's catalytic role in stirring popular uprisings and the subsequent backlash and attack on those media. I also examine the gendered dimensions and dangers of media use and activism. In the case of Afghanistan, I consider the impact of international and transnational funding of media and human rights efforts. I conclude that in order for international interventions into local social movements to succeed, international experts in development, human rights, and media must take the lead from local residents and contexts, technologically and culturally, and work collaboratively with them." (Abstract)
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"Since the early 1990s, media outlets in Sub-Saharan Africa have proliferated extraordinarily, freeing Africa's press and liberating the airwaves from monopoly by the state. This paper summarises these developments and analyses in how far foreign donors were catalysts of this development. Myers desc
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ribes the motives and mechanisms of this aid, and discusses whether media proliferation necessarily led to pluralism and genuine freedom. She concludes that "considering the media sector as part of the wider political economy of a country is becoming more widespread in donor circles and, although there is still room for improvement, there is much greater recognition today that supporting a healthy media is a matter of encouraging a wider enabling environment. This requires attention not just to the media outlets themselves but to the laws on free speech, broadcasting regulations, etc." (CAMECO Update 1-2105)
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"This article explores the nexus between the democratic transformation of the media and international media assistance (IMA) as constrained by the local political conditions in the five countries of the Western Balkans. It aims to enhance the understanding of conditions and factors that influence me
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dia institution building in the region and evaluates the role of international assistance programs and conditionality mechanisms herein. The cross-national analysis concludes that the effects of IMA are highly constrained by the local context. A decade of IMA of varying intensity is not sufficient to construct media institutions when, in order to function properly, they have to outperform their local context. From today’s vantage point it becomes obvious, that in the short-term scaling-up IMA does not necessarily improve outcomes. The experiences in the region suggest that imported solutions have not been sufficiently cognitive of all aspects of local conditions and international strategies have tended to be rather schematic and have lacked strategic approaches to promote media policy stability, credible media reform and implementation." (Abstract)
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"International media assistance took off during a time where the ideological extremes of USA vs. USSR were set to disappear. Following the Cold War, international relations focused on democracy building, and nurturing independent media was embraced as a key part of this strategy [...] The US and UK
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led the way in media assistance, with their liberal ideas of a free press, bolstered by free market capitalism. America was the superpower, and forged the way around the globe with its beacon of democracy [...] This essay looks at the history of media assistance and the ongoing debate on the impact of media assistance over the long term, its motives and the new balance of power appearing in international media development." (Abstract)
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"Clear categorization of what is media development and what is communication for development is often problematic and much of this chapter focuses on continuities that exist across the fields whilst acknowledging there are genuine, well-argued, and real reasons why there should be a strong conceptua
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l distinction between the two. There are numerous cross-over organizations, which are clear in their support to both media development and media for development. The delineation between media development and communication for development is blurred. There are many reasons to think that the future will make such distinctions more blurred. The chapter looks at current trends likely to make these distinctions less useful, and suggests a terminology that might be more useful in describing the very real conceptual differences between the two fields." (Summary)
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"The author proposes three ways that the international community could improve its work on media development and build stronger political commitment for independent media. First is strengthening country leadership and ownership of media development initiatives. This requires building local knowledge
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about the role of media in open societies and about how to manage a strong, independent media system. Second is integration of media development work within the broader development agenda, leveraging more of the $135 billion that donors spend annually on official development assistance. Third is improving data, diagnostics, and learning on the media sector, particularly in developing countries, and creating a better understanding of how countrylevel media sectors are evolving, and how they can be best supported." (Abstract)
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"As an introduction to this special issue this article deals firstly with defining and clarifying terms and concepts which are used in the context of international media assistance. Secondly, the themes of the different articles in this collection are enumerated: these are broadly the how to of medi
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a assistance, evaluation and the ongoing debate about proving impact of media assistance project; negotiating the tensions between the state and the media and finally, the fundamental question of why and to what purpose is assistance to the media sector given in the first place." (Abstract)
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"For the third consecutive year in a row, the Myanmar Media Development Conference, a unique multi-partner, multi-stakeholder enterprise, gathered government officials, journalists, media owners, editors, reporters, NGOs, local, regional and international organisations for discussions on the status
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and way forward of media development in Myanmar in the year gone by. The theme of the conference was ‘Moving Towards a Sustainable Media Environment’ and in constructive and dynamic discussions, Myanmar media stakeholders debated the current status and way forward for the Myanmar media environment three years after the first media reforms were set in motion in 2011." (Introduction)
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