Media and Digital Policy Course’s Post

The year isn't over yet! There's still time to add the course on Media and Digital Policy in Africa to your educational journey for 2024. Don’t miss this opportunity to deepen your understanding of key issues shaping the media landscape in Africa. #AfricanMediaPolicy #DigitalLiteracy

+++ CHAPTER 40: Namibia +++ Admire Mare explores the current state of Namibia's media landscape, highlighting the broader political, social, cultural, and economic influences that have shaped its journalism culture and the role perceptions of journalists. By examining print, broadcast, and digital media infrastructures, he considers how trends like marketization, democratization, liberalization, digitization, and platformization have contributed to a polarized pluralist media system. In this system, private media prioritize watchdog journalism, while public media are constrained by lapdog journalism. Additionally, while media pluralism exists in Namibia, the concentration of media ownership—through both vertical and horizontal integration in the print and broadcast sectors—has impacted the achievement of true media diversity. The Media Compass is OUT NOW! 👉 Make sure you also give us a follow on Twitter / X: https://lnkd.in/gJ7WKdrz 👉 Order the book on Wiley's official website: https://t.co/xt1kAhZh2P 👉 Order the book on Amazon: https://lnkd.in/gnmtjRCY Photo credit: Zairon / Wikimedia Commons

Exciting news! The Irish Journalism Awards 2024 judging is in progress and we have an incredible judge back again this year - Sive O'Brien Editor, House and Home magazine and Brand Consultant! Stay tuned for updates: irishjournalismawards.ie NewsBrands Ireland Google News Initiative presscouncil.ie #IJA24 #journalismmatters #irishjournalismawards24

📲 Technology has and will continue to transform #investigativejournalism. 🌍As part of a project in Sub-Saharan Africa, PMA & partners developed a #toolkit combining video tips, guides and other resources. This toolkit supports journalists learning how to use digital sources alongside the latest tools - to uncover new knowledge and evidence for short or long investigations. While this toolkit is aimed at broadcast journalists in Sub-Saharan Africa, it can serve as a useful resource for any media worker interested in blending investigative journalism with #digitaljournalism. Click here to explore the free to use toolkit 👇 https://lnkd.in/eKzreSD7

Just back from the International Journalism Festival in #Perugia and really excited to see the creation of local and national funds to support journalism worldwide. It's great to see bold initiatives being taken to redress the power imbalances between platforms and independent media and between the global North and South. So excited that Brazil is part of this. Check out the discussion by Maia Fortes, Roby Alampay, Sameer Padania, and Anya Schiffrin on how to build efficient mechanisms to give media organizations more direct access to funding through local coalitions, multilateral cooperations, or national public policies. bit.ly/3JDTv22 Also, check out the 'Decolonizing media development' session https://bit.ly/3QlgiU1 in which Nishant Lalwani highlighted how media development has been undersupported in international development policies with only 0.3% of development funds destined for media development. As much as we need principles and agreements by international organizations, to see a real shift in media development power, as put by Christine Mungai, organizations in the global south need direct access to resources to fund their impactful work. And that means that intermediary organizations in the north that have been concentrating the international funds for media development for a long time need to commit and let go of their power: “Funding to do impactful work is really scarce. What’s abundant is training, mentorships, fellowships, capacity building, and that assumes the media ecosystem in a place like Kenya needs help to develop. The reality is that we’re there, we’re doing the work, we understand the landscape. What we don’t have is just money, and money is not expertise or knowledge. Money does not come with any insight or wisdom or even information. It really annoys me that folks with money assume that they know things. But money is not knowledge.” bit.ly/3QlgiU1 #MediaDev

Media needs to improve practices and win back trust, but the Govt should support it by measures to protect the public, a new study finds. A new report on protecting journalism and democracy in New Zealand recommends a levy be charged on global platforms like Facebook and Google to fund media firms undertaking public interest reporting. It also calls for the reinstatement of a powerful Broadcasting Commission to distribute public funding for journalism and other NZ content, and also to regulate media operators to uniform standards. And it urges the Government to consider according charitable or special tax status to media businesses who can demonstrate the work they do is of public benefit. The report, from the Koi Tū: Centre for Informed Futures think tank attached to the University of Auckland, does not spare the media sector from responsibility for what it calls an alarming fall in trust and rise in news avoidance, saying the industry must agree common core principles and improve practices.

Findings from my latest publication, with Jesse Abdenour: Independent news outlets in Rwanda outperform government-aligned outlets on several variables measuring quality news. The data come from the global Journalistic Role Performance Project, and the article was published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. Check it out! https://lnkd.in/eMuPHgi8

Interested in digital and media policy in Africa? This webinar and course are worth a look.

It was an absolute pleasure showcasing some the topics andcontent of the free online programme on Digital and Media Policy in Africa offered by Stellenbosch Department of Journalism and the Namibia Media Trust. Alongside Koliwe Majama, Zoé Titus, and Guy Berger we touched the tip of a constantly evolving debates on Digital Regulation and Democracy in Africa. We discussed what informed digital regulation in the continent twenty years ago and tracked its path to the current characteristics of the digital society, where online polarization, unclear content moderation practices (e.g. political micro-targeting), shrinking civic space and press freedom in some countries, rising surveillance practices and self-censorship, concerns on data governance and privacy and much more have come to shape it - particularly during periods of elections. With the rapid growth in user numbers and technological shifts—such as the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) by state and non-state actors—we now find ourselves in a time of uncertainty that demands greater attention and action from all stakeholders of the information society on the policies and practices. If you haven't yet, be sure to make time and register for the professional certificate course which delves into the regulation of media, AI and much more! Find all the details here >>> https://lnkd.in/dE-y7b7d

An important conversation about ways to increase the funding and financial support for independent public interest media. Decolonizing global philanthropy is part of the discussion, but unlocking regional funds is also an important part of the discussion.