Confronting the Crisis in Independent Media: A Role for International Assistance

With independent media around the world in crisis, what is the role of international donors and private foundations? And how can these international actors provide effective support when the driving forces behind independent media’s decline—simultaneously technological, financial, social, political, and institutional—are so complex and difficult to disentangle?

“Free Internet” and the Costs to Media Pluralism: The Hazards of Zero-Rating the News

In many countries, mobile operators have teamed up with social media platforms to offer free access to specific websites or internet services—including news websites. The most well-known of these offerings, Facebook’s Free Basics, has been explicitly pitched as a way to give citizens in developing countries greater access to news, but Facebook is not the only company touting these so-called “zero-rated” arrangements as a bridge across the digital divide. This report examines whether these arrangements are broadening access to diverse sources of news, as promised, and whether they might have broader consequences for the news market.

Defending Independent Media: A Comprehensive Analysis of Aid Flows

When donors provide assistance to the media sector, they frequently back projects that aim to strengthen the media’s contribution to good governance in some way or another. This kind of funding is consistent with recent declarations made by the international community on the importance of protecting independent media for the sake of democracy and development. Yet, in the bigger picture, donors still only commit a tiny fraction to this sector and appear to be responding slowly, if at all, to the unique challenges of press freedom in the digital age.

A New Wave of Censorship: Distributed Attacks on Expression and Press Freedom

In both authoritarian or democratic contexts, new forms of censorship online are carried out through distributed attacks on freedom of expression that are insidiously difficult to detect, and often just as effective, if not more, than the kinds of brute force techniques by state agents that came before. Their goal is not always to block users, content or themes, but to attack the democratic discourse, weaken trust in institutions like the media, other governments, the opposition, and civil society. These strategies increasingly polarize and diminish the networked public sphere, resulting in a more dangerous and confined space for media and civil society to operate.

Media Pluralism, Public Trust, and Democracy: New Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean

As elsewhere, public trust in the media is on the decline in Latin America and the Caribbean. Is this trend attributable to social media? To a broader anti-establishment backlash? Or does it reflect growing concerns over pluralism in the media and the dominant control of the media by a few elites. Understanding the public perceptions on these issues is essential for building broad coalitions for reform.

Tracking Media Development Donor Funding

International donors, both public and private, play an essential role in media development worldwide. Visit our Media Development Donor Profiles page for all of CIMA’s research on donor funding levels and strategic priorities.

What is Media Development?

The term “media development” refers to evolution and change in the fields of news media and communications. This evolution can be stimulated by donor support, private investment, or indigenous processes of change led by media owners, managers, journalists, or other players such as media industry associations, or other collective efforts.

CIMA's Blog

The Source

3
May
Between Hope and Fear: Ethiopian Media in the Age of Abiy

By Simegnish Mengesha When I was forced to leave Ethiopia in 2014, it was a dangerous time to be a journalist. Attemptin...
16
Apr
India’s Other Media Boom

Digital news and social media hold increasing sway over public opinion, but as the world’s largest democracy goes to t...
9
Apr
A Critical Juncture in West Africa: Why Regional Processes Matter

In CIMA’s recent report, A Regional Approach to Media Development in West Africa, co-published with the Media Foundati...
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Events

Thursday, January 31st, 2019

Protected: Confronting the Crisis in Independent Media: Strategic Approaches for International Donors

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Replay Event

Thursday, December 13th, 2018

Reading the Charts: What Data Can Tell Us About Defending the Information Space

Thursday, December 13 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. EST (Lunch served 12:00-12:15) National Endowment for...

Replay Event

Thursday, July 19th, 2018

Reclaiming the Internet for Democracy

Thursday, July 19 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. EDT Lunch will be served at 12:00pm With remarks from Rep...

CIMA's Most Recent

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How Social Media Taxes Can Burden News Outlets: The Case of Uganda

In July 2018, the government of Uganda implemented a tax on individual users of social media platforms. In the first three months following the introduction of the tax in the country, internet penetration dropped from 47 percent to 35 percent. Given that a significant amount of news circulation now ...
Aggregated

Press Freedom Scores

Montenegro

In Montenegro, business leaders and government pressure independent media. The government tends to play favorites towards certain public media outlets. In addition, right to access is not always respected, especially with regards to government corruption incidents. Check out what the major media freedom indices have to say. (All scores are adjusted to a 0-100 scale).

  • IREX
  • FH
  • RSF