Despite rapid growth in the development of the Armenian media which recently has come in the form of increased internet accessibility, there is still a worrying lack of access to information for more than half of the Armenian population today, with the latest national survey on internet accessibility conducted by the World Bank in 2008 revealing that only 5.8% of Armenians use the internet. Citizen journalism has been identified as a possible means of attracting interest in new technologies and existing civil society resources, as well as promoting youth activism in the region. The...
IPDC project priority: Promoting Freedom of Expression and Media Pluralism
The right to information is guaranteed by the presidential decree of December 1999 on press freedom in Niger. However, in reality, the exercise of press freedom has yet to manifest itself. The inhabitants of Niger's rights to the state-run media are neither constitutionally guaranteed nor equitable. Presenters--for the most part trained at the Institut de Formation aux Techniques de l'Information et de la Communication (IFTIC, Institute for Training in Information and Communication Techniques) generally enter the professional system with no career or ongoing training plan; they exercise...
With the advent of the 3rd Republic, the National Assembly of Mali can now be considered as the nation's barometer of democracy, on account of the debates conducted within that forum. However, where institutional activities are concerned, and parliamentary affairs in particular, Malian citizens on the whole are under-informed, and express little interest in the acts adopted by their parliamentary representatives. Popular indifference in this respect could constitute a factor of under-development, and a potential source of social crisis. Participation figures suggest a crisis both in terms...
Although only 1% of Burkina Faso's 13 million inhabitants speak French proficiently, it is the predominant language in the print and audiovisual media. Thus, the vast majority of the population has no access to written information in any of their national languages. Supporting local-/national-language newspapers is a means to increase citizen involvement and thereby strengthen democracy and promote local development. The project aims to build capacity among national-language newspaper editors/managers and copy-writers through training in newspaper publication, namely the collection and...
Media play a crucial role in the construction of women's images and in orienting collective representations and attitudes toward women. Arab Media perpetuate prejudices and stereotypes that underestimate women, depreciate their contribution to development, and confer negative qualities to womanhood. Most conferences and reports on women and the media stress the fact that these media damage and even sometimes distort the image of women. The obstacles facing women to capitalise on the media as a powerful tool for transformation of discriminatory practices are numerous. However, the CAWTAR /...
The Press clubs located in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) are under-resourced and underdeveloped. There are seven independent press clubs in the FATA, with the membership of 250+ journalists working with the print and electronic media. In their current form, the press clubs primarily provide a 'journalistic identity' through membership to their members and a platform for the exchange of information. They do not provide a means of broad professional development. Nor is there any formal mechanism for the members of the clubs from different areas to share experiences with...
The majority of journalists and other media professionals in these means of transmission do not have an independent capacity from the major companies which own most of the existing frequencies. This situation, among other things, does not facilitate the respect of freedom of expression at the national or local level. Since 2009, there has been widespread censorship, including the dismissal of journalists who do not share those changes, or closure of their programs, which is clearly a violation of their rights. This situation reinforces the perception of the country with a freedom of speech...
As the free flow of information and ideas is at the heart of democracy and the cornerstone in human rights, the up-dating of the publication of Freedom of Information: A Comparative Legal Survey in 2008, and its translation into Chinese in 2009 are of great symbolic importance. The dialogue on freedom of information between China and the rest of the world is just beginning and the Chongqing University of China calls on UNESCO to seize an opportunity to capitalize on this unique occasion. This project intends to use the launch of the Chinese translation of the Freedom of Information...
We might find communities into which this technology and advances in communications are not reached. This situation tends to increase the levels of poverty and makes more difficult the achievement of real development of the rural communities. This is why there is a strong need to strength media communications in the communities, such as the creation of a bulletin board, information sheets, posters, community radio stations, newspaper articles, door to door flyers and magazine articles, which would allow the communities to rescue their form of living, their needs, dreams, achievements, and...
Since the year 2000, IPYS has been working systematically with regional and local media, and journalists of the Andean sub-region. It has proven that most of them have very few financial, technical and professional resources and that this negatively affects the quality of their production. The public, on the other hand, is far from being familiar with fundamental issues such as the design of public policies, as well as matters of finance, health, education and environment. The consequences of such a situation are clear: democratic participation is hindered on matters ranging from electing...
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