The Drum Beat 196 - Media

Below are some recent initiatives, thinking, publications, and upcoming events that relate to and highlight the use of media for development and social change.

Please send additional examples to Deborah Heimann at dheimann@comminit.com

PROGRAMMES

1. Table - Ronde Formation Radio - West Africa
Panos West Africa organised a 2-day regional round table discussion in Dakar, Senegal in December, 2002 to discuss training for radio personnel in West Africa. Sessions focussed on questions such as: What are the priorities for each type of radio (community-based, private, public)? How might one coordinate regional training sessions for a larger impact? What is, or should be, the role of the partners (silent and direct) in decision-making about training of radio personnel?
Contact Johan Deflander radio@panos.sn OR radio@panos-ao.org

2. Breeze FM - Chipata, Zambia
A private community radio station which is shaped by its public service mission - providing access to useful, relevant, and up-to-date development-related information that will foster growth at personal, family, and community levels. Programme focus ranges from HIV/AIDS and health to agriculture and the environment. To facilitate community participation in its programming, the station will carry out periodic monitoring and evaluation of programmes through letters to the station, telephone calls, focus group discussions, and audience surveys.
Contact Mike Daka breezefm@zamtel.zm

3. TV-Turnoff Week - United States
The TV-Turnoff Network hosted its annual TV-Turnoff Week April 21-27, 2003. Launched in 1995, this grassroots effort involves encouraging children and adults in the US to turn off their televisions for one week. Community groups, schools, clubs, and churches organise activities in support of the effort. The TV-Turnoff Network site is a key strategy in the effort to provide information and encourage action. The annual event is also meant to support the TV-Turnoff Network's More Reading, Less TV, a 4-week classroom programme designed to encourage schoolchildren to develop a deep enjoyment of reading while helping them reduce the amount of television they watch. A teacher's guide and interactive site with designated sections for parents, kids, and teachers are key components of this programme.
Contact Frank Vespe fvespe@tvturnoff.org

4. Radio Voice of the People (VOP) - Zimbabwe
A registered communications trust whose programmes are broadcast (in Shona, Ndebele, and English) in Harare every evening on short wave. VOP was established in 2000 as an alternative voice for Zimbabweans in the days prior to the last Parliamentary elections. Programme content includes ideas and information designed to foster the social, political, and cultural development of the country. VOP journalists work to present issue-driven (rather than event-driven) news and programmes and to provide clear, complete, and detailed information.
Contact John Masuku voxpopzim@yahoo.co.uk OR voxpop@zol.co.zw

5. Children in Newspapers: A World Study - Global
The World Young Reader Network of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) is engaging schoolchildren as participants in research to evaluate the portrayal of children in newspapers worldwide. The goals of the survey are to increase consciousness about children’s diversity and to look at the way children believe that newspapers reflect this. Media participants are from 30 countries and range from large papers such as The New York Times (USA), O Globo (Brazil), and The Hindu (India) to small community weeklies. Students ages 11 and 12 at 2 partner schools in each paper's circulation area will study the content about children in that newspaper for one week. The researchers will provide a step-by-step guide for participating schools and newspapers.
Contact Jan Vincens Steen jvs@mediebedriftene.no OR Aralynn McMane amcmane@wan.asso.fr

6. IslandBeat Radio - Caribbean
Launched in Feb 2003, "IslandBeat - News from the environmental frontline of the Caribbean" is a weekly series of 5-minute stories about environmental and other development issues affecting the Caribbean region. Broadcast on more than 20 Caribbean radio stations, the purpose is to stimulate discussion, debate, and the search for sustainable solutions to local problems. Because the correspondents of the series are located in widely dispersed islands and countries, digital technologies are used to provide audio and printed reports to the editors. Many radio correspondents record their reports on conventional sound equipment, but send the digitised pieces via email to the studio, where digital editing is done. IslandBeat is distributed on compact disc and the Internet free of charge to the region's largely commercial radio stations.
Contact Julius Gittens gittensj@cernnet.net

7. Interactive TV and Radio Programmes - Nigeria, Lagos State
A project from the Program for Appropriate Technologies in Health (PATH) and the IMPACT project to link mass media HIV/AIDS prevention activities already being implemented by these organisations with interpersonal communication activities - especially peer education. 30-minute TV and radio call-in programmes have guests from the partnering organisations and topics such as voluntary counseling and testing (VCT), rights of people living with AIDS (PLHA), and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can be discussed. The shows are also played and discussed in peer education sessions, counseling sessions, community group meetings, etc. Feedback from these activities influences the content of future shows. A weekly competition related to the subject matter of the week is conducted through an HIV/AIDS telephone HelpLine.
Contact Ken Kutsch kkutsch@path-dc.org OR kenkutsch@hotmail.com

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PULSE POLL

Does this Kofi Annan observation about communication patterns in African society resonate with your culture?: "...because in traditional African society people discussed issues. They talked and talked - you know, the tradition of palaver, you go under the tree and you talk. If you can’t solve the problem, you meet the next day and you keep talking till you find a solution..."

For context see The Drum Beat 195.

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THINKING

8. A Small Scale Study to Map the Implementation of Media Literacy & Image Education in Ireland, the Netherlands & United Kingdom - produced by Peter Merry & Gavan Titley
"Image education and media literacy are relatively new educational fields in European societies, yet the primacy of visual culture in these societies has been noted for quite some time. Since the post-war development of national broadcasting systems the trend has been for regulatory rather than educational measures, motivated by a public service ethos, a sometimes dismissive attitude towards the artifacts of popular culture, and assumptions regarding the social reception of media..."

9. Media Literacy, Education, Communication in Brazil - by Ismar de Oliveira Soares
"Media education has been legitimized as an important subject and the new legislation is calling for its improvement, but the schools have been slow to change." Why?...

10. What is the special significance of community media to civil society?
"Community media provide a vital alternative to the profit-oriented agenda of corporate media. They are driven by social objectives rather than the private, profit motive. They empower people rather than treat them as passive consumers, and they nurture local knowledge rather than replace it with standard solutions. Ownership and control of community media is rooted in, and responsible to, the communities they serve. And they are committed to human rights, social justice, the environment and sustainable approaches to development...."

AWARDS

11. Commonwealth Press Union Fellowship
Mid-career African journalists working for organisations affiliated with the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) are eligible for an all-expenses-paid Master's degree course in international journalism at London's City University. Fellowship begins Sept 22 2003. Deadline: May 12 2003.

12. 2003 Native Media Awards
Entrants must be voting members of the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA), except in categories specifically aimed at non-Native individual journalists. In those cases, non-Native entrants must be associate members of NAJA. Open to journalists in the United States, Canada and Latin America. Deadline: May 15 2003.

13. TAF (The Advertising Festival) Awards
The Advertising Festival (TAF) will take place in Paris, France from September 2-5 2003. The qualifying period for the awards is July 1 2002 - June 30 2003. Deadline: May 16 2003

MATERIALS

14. Radio and HIV/AIDS: Making a Difference - by Gordon Adam & Nicola Harford
Available in English, French, Spanish, and (new!) Portuguese - this manual has sections on needs assessment, pre-testing, selecting information, reporting HIV/AIDS, programme formats, health campaign planning, scheduling, making radio interactive, partnerships, monitoring and evaluation, training etc. The handbook is intended to facilitate creating health radio programmes, teaching about health communication, and partnership-building between HIV/AIDS workers and radio/mass media.

15. Tuning in to Diversity: Final Report
Academics and NGO professionals from Italy, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom worked to develop methodologies for monitoring discrimination in and by the media in Europe and arrived at an evaluation of good practice, guidelines and recommendations.

16. The Right to Tell - The Role of Mass Media in Economic Development
Based on the premise that an independent press is essential to sound and equitable economic development, helping to give a voice to the poor and disenfranchised, contributors explore the role of the media as a watchdog of government and the corporate sector, and the policies that prevent the media from exercising that role.

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The Synergy Project has enhanced its website.

You can now: order USAID HIV/AIDS print publications online; subscribe to the monthly USAID HIV/AIDS E-Newsletter; submit HIV/AIDS documents and publications to the searchable Synergy online library of documents; simultaneously search all USAID-funded HIV/AIDS partner websites; order Synergy APDIME HIV/AIDS Programming Toolkit CD-ROMs and suggest new resources for the Toolkit; learn about Synergy Project Technical Assistance, Training & Capacity Development; join the Children Affected by AIDS (CABA) Online Forum; search the HIV/AIDS conferences calendar; add a link to your HIV/AIDS Website to an index of global and regional HIV/AIDS websites; and, download updated USAID HIV/AIDS Country Profiles.

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EVENTS

17. Basic Newsroom Management Course for Radio Journalists - May 12-17 2003 - Johannesburg, South Africa

18. Newsroom Management Seminar - May 13-15 2003 - Maastricht, The Netherlands

19. The Institute for Strategic Communication for Nonprofits - May 18-23 2003 - Washington, DC, USA
Will focus on issues that face mid-level professionals including strategic communication, planning, marketing techniques, digital media, media strategy and advocacy and evaluation.

20. 2003 Media Training Program on Trafficking in Women & Girls in Southeastern Europe - May 28-31 2003 - Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Part of a yearlong training programme throughout Southeastern Europe aimed at improving journalists' abilities to cover the issue of human trafficking. After the workshop, experts will visit the media outlets of the participants to further consult on the trafficking issue.

21. Essentials of Broadcast Leadership - Jun 2-6 2003 - Grahamstown, South Africa

22. Journalism & Citizenship: Expanding the Horizons - Jun 23-25 2003 - Maastricht, The Netherlands
Will include discussions of how to ask new and better questions in the coverage of civic affairs, how to build better stories, and how to engage audiences in the reporting process.

23. Conflict Reporting: The Role of the Media - Jun 30 - Jul 2 2003 - Maastricht, The Netherlands
The seminar will concentrate ways the media can act as a forum of communication between conflicting parties in the absence of negotiations.

24. Scripps Howard Latin American Media Ethics Seminar - Jul 7-15 2003 - Washington, DC, USA

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The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

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