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![TMCNet: Do the Media Matter? (Part 1) [column]](http://images.tmcnet.com/siteart/invisible.gif)
Do the Media Matter? (Part 1) [column]
Accra, Jul 06, 2009 (Public Agenda/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) --
Three weeks ago I did an article on Media Development in the Context of Development Communication. The essence of that article was the fact that donors are now reconsidering supporting specific media directly so they can devote most of their news coverage to developmental issues.
In that article, I stated that two researchers, one from the London School of Economics and another from the New York University had visited Ghana to study the impact Ghanaian media are making on government policy on sustainable development. Both of them used Public Agenda as a baseline for their study on how Ghanaians media influence government policy on equitable development.
Globally, there is an emerging awareness of the need to integrate the media into the development process, rather than treating the media as a 'nuisance' which make life uncomfortable for politicians.
A new study by Internews Europe and the Global Forum on Media Development (GFMD) has made a very strong case for state and donor support of the media to grow into national institutions, contributing to development.
Titled "Why Media Matters: Global Perspectives", the report delved into the rise of an information and communications economy and culture, and the relevance of media and media assistance to international development. Fundamentally, it tried to solicit answers on "How and why the media is important in international development, and what contribution the media can play in achieving the Millennium Development Goals?" In Ghana for instance, except Public Agenda which has devoted much time and space to covering the MDGs, very little is heard of the these development goals in the other media.
In the report, Shashi Tharoor, the United Nation's Under-Secretary General for Communication and Public Information outlines how new communications technologies are a key driver of globalisation, but also how the Information Divide runs across technology, gender, governance and content.
He is concerned that the globalised media is dangerously lacking in authentic voices from the developing world. Taken at the local scene, there is massive under representation of the concerns of the voiceless in the media in Ghana. It is all about prominent politicians and their wives, the cars that are being seized and the bungling of the BNI in investigating alleged corrupt officials of the previous government.
The study cites, Thomas Jacobson, of Temple University's contribution on how the media can lead to the development of democracy and promote an inclusive public sphere . The thrust of Jacobson's argument is the challenges that young democracies face in developing the social norms and cultural processes that underpin deliberative politics, and the complex information flows that media systems need to facilitate if governments are to remain responsive to citizens. Jacobson characterises government responsiveness to its citizens as "a requirement that is related to, but separate from, the news media's important role in facilitating governmental transparency and accountability. It is the additional requirement that media represent public opinion in a way that accurately expresses the voice of citizens across the full range of their interests. Below are five essential points the report suggested to policy makers regarding the need to strengthen the media to be useful tools for development.
1. The New Governance Agenda: Independent media are integral to good governance. Media and press freedom indicators are being included in governance monitoring frameworks. But development agency engagement in media and communications assistance remains fragmented and marginal.
Media support needs to be mainstreamed far more effectively across both policy and practice.
2. Media, Governance and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): Independent media systems have a positive impact on governance, democratic transitions and the 2015 MDG targets.
A growing body of empirical evidence exists to demonstrate this. New communications technologies are reframing relationships between media, citizens and the state. Community media empowers those poorest communities who will benefit most from achieving the MDGs. However, research on the impact of media and communications on the poor needs to be strengthened.
And donors should engage systematically in media development in countries affected by extremism, as this threatens progress on the MDGs.
3. Counterbalance to Extremism: Independent media systems that are inclusive and responsive to diversity play a key role in preventing the exclusion of voices that breed extremism. Healthy public spheres can host a wide range of views which can dilute intolerance. Policy makers should increase support for media assistance programmes to widen access for moderate voices and balanced discourse.
4. Media and Global Issues: the lack of local media coverage of the external driving forces of change on poor countries - international trade, climate change and global health for instance - is generating deficits in governance through continued public disengagement in these issues. These deficits can be tackled, however, through concerted media and communications strategies, that include assisting developing country journalists to cover processes such as the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol.
5. Strategies for Healthy Media Systems: a global media assistance community exists that has its own history, experience base, metrics and research agenda. Development agencies need to engage with this sector with more urgency in order to harness the proven contribution that media development can make to the MDGs; through established strategies such as support to media policy and legislation, the development of journalism associations, the provision of affordable capital, professional training and the capacity-building of indigenous media assistance organisations.
Based on these five potential policy support for media development, the Global Fund for the Development of the Media (GFMD) is suggesting that media development become a component of future aid to developing countries.
The kind of media assistance GFMD envisages would be to strengthen regional, national and local media systems and institutions in ways that serve the public interest. Examples of media assistance include support to regulatory reform, journalism training and media business management. It also covers support to community media, citizen journalism and media for sustainable development - on health and environmental issues, for instance - in ways that ensure that people are able to access information and to express their own opinions and priorities in the public arena.
A major point of consensus among media advocates is the need for the media assistance to be placed within the framework of international development. The pioneering work of the World Bank Institute had made the case for the role of the media in economic development in its publication "The Right to Tell". The GFMD called for the role of media and media support strategies to be examined more broadly against the wider canvas of the development agenda, encapsulated by the set of international targets, the 2015
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Essentially, how media relates to the governance and accountability agenda in international development
Is gaining currency within the development arena. A stream of agreements, declarations and reports - from the 2005 Paris Declaration of the OECD Development Assistance Committee on Aid Effectiveness to the Africa Commission Report of the UK Government - now underline the vital importance of in-country ownership and accountability of governments to their populations in meeting the MDG targets. (See you next week)
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