"Two Questions: The What and the How?"
Sina Odugbemi from the World Bank opened the session by quoting a former colleague: "I'm interested in two questions about media and governance: the what and the how?"
Pippa Norris from the Kennedy School engaged these questions with vigor, presenting findings from a new report, Public Sentinel: News Media and Governance (See http://www.pippanorris.com/) She offered data from studies by former World Bank official Daniel Kaufmann, showing some direct correlations between press freedom and reduced corruption -- in functioning democracies, that is. (Alas, partial democracies and non-democracies don't show the same results.)
Her study seemed to be platform neutral -- no arguments on print versus online here -- but it did favor structured media, that could serve as their societies' watchdogs, agenda-setters, and gatekeepers. In her matrix, professionalism was a positive force; and societies should feel obliged to take on the problem of media market failure to ensure a strong and pluralistic media.
Peter Goldstein from InterMedia offered a striking presentation on his new project, AudienceScapes, due to launch in January 2010: http://www.intermedia.org/news_recent_news.php
This project promises to add a major dimension of information "from a user perspective, demand-side" on media consumption in the developing world. (Not entirely foreign to what Pew does in the U.S.) So far, the pilot has completed studies in Ghana and Kenya, with some striking results.
What is a "highly trusted institution" in Ghana? The military. (Not so in Kenya.) How do many early adopters in Africa use their cell phones? To listen to the radio, of course.
And, high on the list of what audiences care about in both countries is the category "health and medical information."
Participants talked about their need for more and different data on media and audiences, and Pippa Norris assured us there' s a lot out there to be harvested -- some from the International Communications Association, which meets every year and might be open to a new bridge to the media development community. http://www.icahdq.org/
All in all, a bonfire of ideas were sparked in terms of the "what and the how." (As well as the "who").
