MS7082 Global Communication and

Development

Media for Development and the Role of

Journalism

Dr Maria Touri, [email protected]

Part 1
Context
Mass Media in Development - Reminder
• Effective mechanism for delivering relevant information.

• Can reach relatively very large numbers of people, very

quickly, repetitively and inexpensively.

• Information disseminated through mass media is linked

directly to individual behaviour change.
Conventional/Mainstream Journalism
• Disseminates information in an objective and unbiased
manner
• Provides neutral, balanced, and accurate reports of events
• Relies on official and credible sources
• Exposes the truth in government, business, and institutions
• Distinguishes between ‘facts’ and ‘opinion/analysis’
Part 2
DEVELOPMENT JOURNALISM
Internal Development Reporting
 Development Journalism – Key Points
• Concept was coined by academics from the
Philippines, during the 1960s.
• The strategic reporting of development news about
rural, education, health, and economic issues that
affect the majority of people in the “global South” and
are in line with national development goals.
• An attempt to use the work of journalists towards
meeting development objectives.
(Manyozo, 2008)
Development Journalism –
Key Points
• Also defined as rural journalism
considering that several areas remain
largely rural.

• Historically, a practice pioneered by

extension agricultural workers in India and
the Philippines whose job was to
disseminate information on new
agricultural methods to farmers during a
period of broad agrarian reforms.
Development Journalism
Two aspects/categories:

1) Emancipatory/ Participatory Journalism

2) Journalism as Nation-State building instrument

(1a) Emancipatory/Participatory Journalism
Journalism consisting of ‘news’ that should:
• Examine, evaluate and interpret development plans, projects, policies, problems.
• Indicate disparities between plans and actual accomplishments.
• Include comparisons with how development is progressing in other countries and
regions.
• Provide contextual and background information about the development process, and
speculate about the future of development.
• Refer to the needs of people, such as food, housing, employment, transportation, energy
sources and electricity, cultural diversity, recognition and dignity (see Shah, 1996).
 (1b) Emancipatory/Participatory Journalism
Development journalists should:
• Bring out popular voices in the identification of problems and solutions

• Facilitate citizens’ participation in politics.

• Influence development policies by indicating issues that need attention, offering

perspectives and solutions, and monitoring policies and programs.

• NOT act as observers but play a key and active role in the development process

(see Manyozo, 2008; Shah, 1996)

Case Study: Project Village Chhatera
 Case Study: Project Village Chhatera
▪ The project started in 1969 and focused its attention on a small village Chhatera in North West
Delhi.

▪ The Hindustan Times offered a fortnightly column describing the lives of the people in the village.

▪ A team of reporters wrote with sensitivity giving detailed stories of the situation in the village:
aspirations of people, livelihood issues and festivities.

▪ Photography was used to document problems of electricity, water supply and deficit rainfall

▪ Reporting proved to be a important catalyst in bringing various services and benefits.

▪ Solutions to problems were available due to attention of the local leaders: machines, bridges,
roads and banks were brought into the project area thanks to the media’s attention
Conventional Journalism Development Journalism

• Factual reporting • Interpretative/subjective reporting

• Focus on the ‘what’, ‘when’ • Focus on the ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘how’
• Objectivity, balance, neutrality • Development oriented
• Detached observer • Participant observer
• Descriptive • Descriptive and prescriptive
• Occasionally provides possible • Elicits solutions to problems as
solutions to issues understood by the people
 (2a) Nation-state building instrument
• Development journalism becomes the strategic production, packaging
and circulation of development reports as a contribution to the goals of
national development policies.

• Active government participation in the media in order to help get

important information spread through the nation.

• Journalists support government policies and programs designed to build

integrated, stable, and economically developed societies.
(2b) Nation-state building instrument - PROBLEMS
• Press freedom: Can journalists criticise governments and hold them
accountable in countries that face tensions and divisions?

• Government corruption: should a government’s development policies

be supported when a government is corrupt? Shouldn’t corruption
exposure be part of ‘development’?

• Contradictions: showing the achievements of government programs

can be antithetical to the aspirations that journalism should report
“non-elite” news about the concerns and demands of ordinary people.
Part 3
External Development Reporting: International Media
and the Global South
Media Representation and
Public Support for Foreign Aid
• Donor countries commit budgets to
development projects.

• Support from voters and taxpayers is

required.

• Media coverage of development and

humanitarian issues can determine public
support for official development policies and
allocation of foreign aid (See Scott, 2014).
24
Media Representation and
International Country Image
• Negative media representations of the
Global South.

• Reinforcing imbalances of power between

the North and the South.

• A new form of colonialism and of cultural,

political and economic Western
imperialism and hegemony.
Commodification of poverty
and pity
• Media reporting of distant events and crises
allow audiences to experience pity for
certain communities.

• On the one hand, television news

contribute to global efforts to alleviate such
suffering.

• On the other hand, pity becomes a

commodity and Western news reproduce
Eurocentric hierarchies of place and human
life (see Chouliaraki 2006, 2010).
Commodification of poverty and
pity – Possible Causes

• Media Commercialisation

• News Gathering Practices

• NGOs as News Sources

• Charitable & Philanthropic Celebrities