A research summary report of the African Media Development Initiative (AMDI)14, indicates that literacy rates for urban areas of Tanzania average 35.4% and that the country has some of the lowest rates of access to Television and Newspaper based media across sub-Saharan Africa, with only 34% watching TV and 31% reading a newspaper at least once a week. The AMDI report also highlights low levels of professional, ethical, management and technical standards among media practitioners, which is attributed to: insufficient or poor-quality training institutions; rapid expansion of media outlets (...
IPDC Project scope: Regional
A lot of expansion and some progress has been realized in the media landscape, not only in Kenya but in the entire Eastern Africa region in recent years, including the rapid increase in media training institutions, both at the University and tertiary level. Reservations nonetheless continue to be expressed regarding the quality and depth of media content in broadcast and print production, based on the growing sophistication and high levels of expectations from a more educated and democratically aware citizenry.
Following discussions among East African Potential Centres of...
Many countries in the Asia-Pacific Region present serious concerns in gender imbalances and inequities in employment opportunities, female participation and the portrayal of women and girls. This project designed in line with The Beijing Platform for Action for Equality, Development and Peace, which places specific obligations on the media, both in the way women participate and in how they are portrayed and has objectives that require signatory nations and their citizens to ‘increase the participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the media and new...
The safety of journalists is not only about physical wellbeing. Safety extends to protection against impending psychological injury resulting from exposure to violence, conflict, disaster and tragedy. Both psychological safety and physical safety are inextricably linked. Research shows¹ that people who experience psychological trauma may have impaired decision making processes and take more physical risks than non trauma affected persons. Further studies show that people who are educated about ‘emotional (trauma) literacy’ are able to change their behavior and understand the emotional...
Based on a number of informal meetings and discussions with lecturers and students of journalism schools as well as with media practitioners and through direct observations, a clear need has emerged to strengthen and improve the quality of journalism in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. One of the entry points that can be used for this effort is journalism education, especially through the development of curricula to make it competency-based and up-to-date with new trends and challenges taking place in recent times.
Within the above context, UNESCO's Tehran Cluster Office planned...
The Caribbean has a varied level of media development, with Trinidad and Jamaica being the most sophisticated and Dominica and Guyana the least. This is a function of internal capacity and reflects in the local content production, quantitatively and qualitatively. The Caribbean TV landscape is almost totally dominated by imported U.S. Television, and there is also a clear and urgent need for production capacity building for both men and women producers in order to foster greater capability for the region to develop more in the area of freedom of expression.
Two of the main...
In this age of information, the processes of production, circulation and consumption of information, are leaving the unidirectional broadcasting logic and are radically transformed by the development of a decentralized network. In this context of disintermediation, it is essential to understand and adapt to the possibilities that new technologies bring to not continue reproducing obsolete communication models. It is a priority, then, to highlight the most favorable aspects of the adoption of ICTs and encourage uses that contribute to strengthening the fulfillment of human rights, such as...
Organized crime and corruption are the principal sources of direct violence that have brought about the killing of more than a hundred journalists in the past decade, mainly in Mexico and Honduras, the forced exile of hundreds of journalists; and the shutdown of dozens of media outlets. News media self-censorship has become institutionalized as "common practice." Recklessness and negligence in news coverage is due to the lack of training in basic investigative techniques, inadequate compensation for journalists by their employers; and absence of solidarity and camaraderie among journalists...
Science and technology hold the key to solving many of the challenges faced by the modern world. To be able to grasp this concept, populations must be able to recognize and identify the importance of these two fields among the mass of information derived from modern rational knowledge. In delivering this message, scientific media and scientific journalists play an essential role. Scientific journalism contributes to a better understanding of the vast domain of science. It also contributes to the advancement of the latter since it presents scientific findings to the public, evaluates and...
This project is aimed at Capacity Building within leading broadcasting organizations in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing particularly on correcting serious gender imbalances and inequities in employment opportunities, female participation and media portrayal of women and girls in the region. The project is in line with The Beijing Platform for Action for Equality, Development and Peace, which places specific obligations on the media, both, in the way women participate and in how they are portrayed. Its overall aim is the achievement of the Beijing Declaration objectives, that require...
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