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African Media and ICT4D: Documentary Evidence

Author

2003

Summary

This study was an effort to encourage journalism and coverage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and information society issues. It provides a snapshot of the extent of coverage of ICT issues in the African media over a 2-month period in 2003, and identifies areas of weakness. The study focusses on print and broadcast media coverage of these issues in Egypt, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ghana, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Senegal. Following a peer review process, UNECA opted to publish the study and launched it at the 2003 World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva.


Key trends identified in the survey include:

  • There is lack of critical analysis in ICT reporting: the views of influential spokespersons are almost never challenged by the media.
  • Stories are seldom followed up; instead, newsrooms seem to wait for the next press release, ministerial announcement, or company cocktail party launching a new product. So the unfolding story of ICT developments in any one country is largely absent.
  • The voice of the people is absent: the average citizen would not be able to identify personally with most ICT stories encountered in this study. They are largely impersonal, and deal with government issues, large organisations, big companies, or large sums of money.
  • Rural ICT projects are seldom or never reported: most stories are generated in the capital city and other urban areas
  • There is silence on ICT policy and WSIS
  • Editors are uninformed on implications of information society developments
  • Journalists lack knowledge on information society developments
  • Newsrooms lack connectivity: many newsrooms have no Internet access at all. It is often the case that newsroom journalists have no real skills in online information retrieval, or in evaluating information found online
  • There is poor NGO/media liaison
  • There are too few women in ICT journalism.

The report recommends:

  • A series of expert "awareness" workshops for editors
  • Training and networking of journalists and other media workers
  • Online ICT courses for those teaching journalism skills
  • News exchanges for ICT stories, with an archive of older stories
  • The creation of an African information society debate journal
  • A learning process in which NGOs strategise about how to get their stories into the media. (They need to build realistic communication and media liaison strategies into projects)
  • The creation of ICT-related journalism awards

Click here for a summary of the article; click here for the full survey in PDF format.

Contact

To order printed copies, contact:
Link
Publications
Economic Commission for Africa
P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel: 251 11 551 7200
Fax: 251 11 551 4416 (Addis Ababa)
1 212 963 4957 (New York)
ecainfo@uneca.org
aopoku-mensah@uneca.org

Source

Internet and Technology abstracts from Pambazuka News 146, forwarded to the bytesforall_readers list server on March 5 2004 (click here to access the archives).


Placed on the Communication Initiative site March 18 2004
Last Updated March 18 2004

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