POLIS Conference: Background Paper

"[T]his paper makes one central assumption: media freedom is a fundamental, non-negotiable and universal platform for any debate on the role of media in development...[W]ithout media playing a role in society of informing citizens of their rights and of the issues that shape their lives, of providing channels for people to air their perspectives in public debate, and in providing spaces for such debate, development policy as it is currently structured will very probably fail and democratic debate will perish."

This 5-page paper offers context for a conference that was held on March 22 2007 at the London School of Economics (LSE) in the United Kingdom (UK) to explore current international development strategies and thinking related to the role the media play in development and in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The event was inspired by the July 2006 release of a "white paper" by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) titled "Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance Work for the Poor".

The conference - hosted by POLIS, a joint initiative of LSE and the London College of Communication - sought to explore the implications of a £100 million "Governance and Transparency Fund", which was announced in the DFID paper. This fund is designed to support media, as well as civil society, trade unions, and other actors, to help "hold governments to account." The background paper focuses on 2 of the main preoccupations of current development policy in relation to the media which this new fund has brought to light: advocacy and accountability.

The paper begins by examining the current international development context, exploring why budget support means that development strategies are increasingly dependent on effective and plural media. Aid spending is apparently rising rapidly internationally; this trend has raised various issues. For example, even while most bilateral and multilateral development organisations would argue that they have always supported free and independent media as a cornerstone of their vision of developing countries becoming increasing open and democratic societies - and have, accordingly, often made protection of freedom of expression a condition for providing development assistance - the authors of this paper contend that supporting media and other communication-related fields has generally been a peripheral priority for development assistance. However, the DIFD paper seems to indicate that this situation may be changing. The author explains here that "Western donors...no longer see the role of the media in development as simply an indicator of democratic progress in the countries they are supporting. They increasingly see them as an essential instrument of accountability, and indeed - along with civil society - as fulfilling a critical accountability function..."

Several questions emerge from this analysis; among them, do the media have the desire to play this role? The author discusses the "continued determination of journalists to investigate the truth", even while enduring governmental pressure and/or harassment - or losing their lives while pursuing their profession. That said, such media "rarely see themselves acting in the interests of 'development policy', the MDGs or any other development related good. Rather they see their mission as...acting in the interest of citizens..."

In addition, do the media have the ability to play this role? As a way into this question, the author traces various trends in the media sector over the last decade, citing "a fresh vibrancy and energy" that is illustrated by the fact that "[h]undreds of new radio stations have sprung up as media policy has been liberalised in many developing countries, opening up fresh opportunities for public debate, particularly through talk shows. New technologies have made old media more interactive, and substantially lowered the costs of media entry and sustainability, and mobile telephony in particular is transforming how people interact and communicate with each other. Thousands of newspapers, hundreds of television stations, hundreds of thousands of blogs, vlogs and independent websites have all opened up new media and public spaces." Despite this growth, the authro finds that much attention has been focused on urban areas, with an emphasis on consumer interests in those markets; as a result, investment in investigative journalism (especially that focused on poverty-related issues) has dropped off, as have transmissions in local or minority languages or programming designed specifically for marginalised or vulnerable audiences. Though community media geared toward the needs of people living in poverty can play an "extraordinary role" in "deepening democracy", the economically poor still suffer from a lack of information which might enhance their capacity to hold governments to account.

Having offered these reflections, the author stresses that there is a dearth of research and understanding of the information and communication realities and needs of most of the economically poorest people on the planet - and, crucially, how media is or is not meeting those needs. It may, thus, be premature for development agencies to assume that the media has interest and/or capacity in addressing development issues such as poverty. Major non-governmental organisations (NGOs) might do well to also examine their use of the media, this paper suggests. If the media are conceived as a conduit for advocacy messages, can the media remain an independent sector central to deepening democracy and strengthening the voices of the most marginalised in developing countries? This issue is further complicated in resource-poor countries, where limitations on media capacity can mean that advocacy messages come from different agencies, outside the country, which "can potentially muffle and squeeze out indigenously driven debate on the issues that most concern those living in poverty."

A key goal of the POLIS conference is to spark a more structured dialogue between those in the media for development community and a broader set of actors in the non-governmental, bilateral, academic and other development-related communities. To that end, several examples of initiatives intended to spur conversation and action in this area are shared here.