Well, I finally had to bite the bullet and upgrade my blog. This one - http://aimd.wordpress.com - is now just an archive. My new blog can be found at http://adventuresinmediadevelopment.com.

As I said in my blogpost “Give me some sugar, WordPress“, my taste for WordPress.com soured. The biggest thing was that I couldn’t use Javascript on WordPress.com, which was killing any chance of experimenting with social media widgets from sites like Twitter, Facebook, and especially CoveritLive–the kinds of tools that really driving blog innovation and online interactivity. In fact, it was getting to the point where I really couldn’t try much of anything out, and that’s a bad thing for someone in international media development. How else am I going to arm myself with new tools and tricks for my work in developing countries than to practice them myself?

I had held out for so long to the mantra that I would stick to free tools to maximize the likelihood that my perspective would stay, as much as possible, rooted in realities faced by the people I tend to work with in developing countries. Most people won’t or can’t pay for luxuries like hosting a site or learning the technical skills needed to do what is really rather advanced to your average person anywhere in the world. So, you have to come to them, meet them on their technological and financial terms.

But, I finally gave in. I was stunting myself too much.

So, there’s this new site now. It’s still very much in its beginning stages. I figured, rather than wait, it would be best to go ahead and announce it, and shift all operations over to it. Why slow down? This means that the design’s likely to go through some changes as I figure out what I want it to look like and how I want it structured, and it means that content will be a little light for a while. However, I am also going to transfer my content from my old blog here to that new blog, to get all of my content under one roof. That will take time. I’m not planning on running at full speed to get it all over there.

Let the new era begin.

Doesn’t it make my blog so much more interesting now that it is cast in this new light? If you are someone who would answer this question in the affirmative, well, I’m happy to hear it and welcome you to join me in appreciating a view of the world slightly off center. If you answered in the negative, well, I guess there’s still time for you.

I won’t pull any shenanigans and try to trick you into thinking there’s a deeper, hidden meaning behind this blog name origin. I needed a name that captured the essence of what this blog would be about, namely, a collection of my thoughts and experiences in media development around the world. Something that would express the gusto that I bring to my work, something lively and energized, full of adventure–I don’t just sit at home thinking about media, I go out there and live it with, well, gusto.

Then this movie flashed before my eyes. In one fell swoop, it rounded out something else that needed to be evoked by the title. A tip of the hat to the absurd, but not simply the absurd for absurd’s sake. Something a little more me. Something visceral, something rooted deep within the arcane, almost grotesque, reaches of our pop cultural treasure chest. Something that blipped on our radar for a moment, but disappeared as it should have, awaiting a subtle reminder such as a blog title allusion.

With this name, I am both mocking this cultural blip and sublimating it for its strange perfection in capturing that ridiculous and facile quality that was distinctly America in the 80s.

Thank you, Adventures in Babysitting. You came through when I needed you most.

And since I am categorizing this post in “Music Tuesday”, I should leave you with a little music from the movie. Somehow this one scene captures what went so wrong and was so bizarrely fascinating about the decade that largely shaped who I am today.

Photo 1:  Courtesy of Quentin X.

The main culprit has been an evaluation I’ve been managing since November of a Thomson Reuters Foundation business journalism training program for African journalists. The final report of findings, a beast of over 90 pages (appendix not included) came due this past week, and it was a multi-week sprint to the finish to get this thing done. Many personal envelopes were pushed in the making.I should probably devote at least a post just to this evaluation later. My goal today was just to get back in the water.

While I was away, I moderated a panel at the Policy Making in the Digital Age conference at Columbia University, which prompted me to write this post to get the digital age policy juices flowing (doubling as my last post before this unintended hiatus). I started to write a post after the panel and then disappeared into a vortex of deadline.

However, at least one good came out of the conference for me, if not more. I was introduced to someone who needed her company’s Web site to be customized a bit, which secured some Web work for me, and gave me a chance to meet someone in marketing and communications in New York City. Given that she isn’t really publicizing her Web site right now, I won’t speak in specifics yet, or link to it at this time. But, it has been a chance to hone and refine some of my HTML, CSS, and javascript skills.

Another piece of good news is that my research on Bolivia media education needs, after the potential disaster that it seemed it could become as I kept running head first into walls, finished a success. I’ve been researching media education needs in a bunch of developing countries, including Bolivia, for the European Journalism Centre as a part of the Press Freedom 2.0 program they are building. This research has been called “better than being there”–as in, “We went to the country to meet with stakeholders, and we actually learned more from your research”, which is one of the best compliments I think I’ve ever received.

Speaking of EJC, they are flying me out to Utrecht to meet with them and Internews-Ukraine this weekend. Internews-Ukraine is at the half-way point of the new media training program that I have consulted on and conducting training for last summer. They are going to Utrecht to brainstorm on what they will do for the second year of the program, and to interact with Western news media professionals. I’m going to help them think through and strategize. Can’t wait.

Finally, I’ve been working on a political campaign to elect Bryan Allen to the Pennsylvania State Senate in the 6th district, Bucks County. I’m leading the campaign’s Web strategy, including designing his campaign Web page (done under serious time constraints–I’m happy with it, but feel I could have done more with more time), his Facebook page, and his monitoring of news media and keywords. I’m also about to embark on a Google Adwords campaign, once we refine our keywords to target. This has been a fascinating process, to say the least. We get a lot of coverage on the news about national election campaigns, but most politicians are local, and we don’t really get a lot of views into what that’s like. I’m sure there will be blog posts to follow.

Innovation at Light Speed

Everything about digital technology innovation is moving in light speed. The technologies are constantly changing, adapting, and advancing as rapidly as they are spreading. It’s almost like a supervirus that, unless some kind of cataclysmic event comes along to cure it, will just keep mutating and infecting. Over half the human population now uses a mobile phone, and there are projections that 35% of those users will have a smartphone by 2012. In the past ten years, the number of people accessing the Internet has grown 380%. And, people are flocking in droves to social media Web sites, with Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter representing respectively the #2, #3, and #12 most trafficked Web sites in the world (as of Feb 2010). Moreover, if you used any of these sites for any period of time, then you know how quickly they are changing, upgrading, becoming bigger, stronger, faster. Lest we forget that Web design used to look a lot like Craigslist (which, by the way, has made its way to countries like Ghana).

Possibility Itself is Changing

With all of this innovation, and adoption of the technology spewing out of so many brilliant minds, we are seeing rapid evolution in possibility itself. Certainly we can now easily stay in touch with our friends in Ukraine, or Brazil, or wherever, just as easily as we can find just about anyone, with any interest or expertise, that maintains some kind of Web presence.  We can also, for only the cost of a computer, electricity and time (and without any Web programming skills), fire up a blog about pretty much anything, and that blog can theoretically be read by anyone in any country without extreme Internet restriction. In such a short period of time, we as a global society have advanced at a blistering speed into one in which the spread of ideas is flourishing in ways unprecedented in human history. That’s important, given how significant knowledge and access to information are to freedom, progress, and opportunity in the thinking of people like Joseph Stiglitz and Thomas Jefferson.

A Golden Age of Digital Democratization

Digital technology is making it possible to challenge the status quo, authoritarian regimes, and more corrupt elements of society. As we have seen in events like Iran’s election last year, digital technology is making it possible to reveal to the world in real time a grim reality such as mass political unrest and violence that some might hope to contain and control. Information is, after all, a weapon feared most by totalitarians and the corrupt. Now, anyone with a smartphone, a blog, a Twitter account, and/or a YouTube channel can suddenly become a citizen journalist at a moment’s notice, and play the watchdog documenting evidence for the world to see and keeping the powerful a little more honest. We are witnessing, in many regards, a golden age of digital democratization.

A Darker Side

But there is another side to this. A darker side, if you will. We are sure to hear at this conference about the concerns this wave of innovation is causing. Those out there, especially in developing countries, that aren’t keeping up are, well, being left behind. We are losing our status as private citizens, and control of our identities, as what we put on the Internet can come back to haunt us, and as mobile technology can be used to catch us in, and mass distribute incriminating photos and videos of, an act we’d rather keep to ourselves (Michael Phelps knows what I’m talking about). The easier it becomes to transmit information between two points, the easier it becomes to commit cybercrimes, driving us toward greater need for regulation and security. Yet, on the other side of the regulation and security coin, we are seeing countries that are stifling expression and innovation from oppressive regulation, filtering technology, and imprisonment. Digital technology makes it frighteningly easy to pirate intellectual property and mass disseminate it, which is running roughshod across whole business models. Speaking of business models, we are seeing newspapers hemorrhage audience to the Wild West of alternative (and often dubious) online sources of information like blogs. If one of the panelists refers to the “echo chamber,” and you hear someone yell “Bingo!” you will know that I just hit the middle square on my digital media policy conference scorecard. And who among us has not found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on one thing at a time, and for extended periods of time? All of these concerns, and more, are begging serious questions about the real benefit of digital media to human society.

In the Face of All of This, How?

In the face of all of this, how DO we make policy in this digital age? Our borders are disappearing before our eyes. Our ability to subvert authority is keeping the most dangerous of us always one step ahead of authorities. Ours is becoming a generation that expects for free what previous generations paid for. And with it all happening so fast, next year could make this year unrecognizable. There’s just no way any government that doesn’t employ the tactics of an iron fist will ever be able to keep up.

This is why I’ve only managed to take my digital age policy thinking as far as “with great flexibility and a watchful eye.” When it comes down to it, forming true policy involving anything touched by digital media, and expecting that policy to stick for more than a few minutes, might be a lesson in futility. Or worse, it could lack a grasp on reality if we don’t pay attention to what is happening, and keep that watchful eye. So many of our definitions are changing, or need to change, that perhaps our definition of policy itself will undergo a metamorphosis.

None of this changes the fact that we still have to make policy in this digital age. That need won’t just go away. While it is evident that making policy is clearly growing more challenging and complex, we have no choice but to find some way to do it, even if it means that our policy will have to remain flexible, a constant work in progress. Otherwise, what will guide our thinking as we make decisions that could affect the lives of millions, or even billions?

Policymakers Must Understand What’s Changing

The reality is, as our world continues to digitize, the policymakers of the world must commit themselves to understanding what is changing and the technologies underneath it all. They don’t need to become Web programmers, of course. But they do need a firm grasp on what these technologies are enabling people to do, for good or ill. Without this understanding, they risk forming policy that could minimize the benefit of digital technology, and maximize the cost, the effects of which could be devastating.

Without enmeshing policy education in the context of digital technology, there would be a gaping hole in this education, and subsequently, in future policy. This is why it is incumbent upon us to push our policy schools, and our policy students, to stay current with what exactly is changing in this digital age if they hope to stay relevant.

Review of colorful words that tell the story: light speed, supervirus, mutating, infecting, cataclysmic, blistering, wave, six million dollar man, unprecedented, spewing, echo chamber, Wild West, iron fist, Bingo!, hemorrhage, watchful eye, linebacker, metamorphosis, enmesh, gaping hole.

Note: This post was originally published on The Morningside Post.

Photo 1: Courtesy of Lightworks.
Photo 2: Courtesy of Wesley Fryer.
Photo 3: Courtesy of purpleslog.
Photo 4: Courtesy of purpleslog.

I know that there are huge swaths of Ukrainians out there who will be feeling somber about this today, as they have been on a steady somber slide since the collective chant of “Yu-shchen-ko, Yu-shchen-ko, Yu-shchen-ko!” first filled the streets of Kyiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and elsewhere.

I remember back to late 2005, early 2006, the mood in western Ukraine was already shifting back toward the pessimism from a millennium of outside invasion, brutal dictatorship, soul-crushing bureaucracy, scant traces of self-rule, and the din of empty promises. As the honeymoon of the Orange Revolution was beginning to fade, people said to me that they had hoped for a strong leader, and that it was clear that Yushchenko wasn’t the right man for the job.

To me, the shame in Ukraine is that Ukrainians were basically left with two equally abysmal choices to run their country for the next five years. One the one hand, there was Yanukovych, who represents the establishment that still stood after the Soviet Union crumbled, the grey factories and treacherous coal mines of the East, the oligarchs that control most of the country’s real assets, the preference of Vladimir Putin, and a regress from the momentum that had pulled Ukraine toward true independence this past decade. On the other hand, there was Yulia Tymoshenko, who represents the perennial firebrand that stokes the coals of political instability, the relentless politician that always seems more concerned with her political gain than the real good of the country, the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

And then there was Yushchenko himself, who didn’t even make it to the runoff, after years of approval ratings that couldn’t even scratch 10%. Ask Ukrainians about Yushchenko even during the Revolution, and many would have admitted that he was more a figurehead for the great demand for change that swept over Ukraine in 2004 than the right candidate to lead the country out of its darkness. As the cheering face in early 2005, the bitter pill of reality sank in. The new president of Ukraine was not the kind of leader that Ukrainians were going to respond to. He wasn’t strong. He was authoritarian. He wasn’t charismatic. He was a banker.

What is sad in the Yushchenko saga is that he was in many ways a change for Ukraine. Probably for the better. Overall, press freedom blossomed. Visa requirements were relaxed and tourists and their foreign currency from all over were welcomed (whether or not there was infrastructure to make their stay comfortable). Ukraine was quickly becoming the friend of the west, as Yushchenko banked a lot of frequent flier miles in Europe and the United States. Ukraine cracked down on corruption and joined the WTO. A lot of things were changing for the better.

And yet, the forces of status quo saw to it that Yushchenko would fail. Russia toasted every winter with threats of shutting off Ukraine’s gas. Tymoshenko, her cronies, and an assortment of Ukrainian political figures turned everything government into a neverending circus of scandal and accusation. And sadly Yushchenko wasn’t strong enough to turn down the bait (I saw Yushchenko speak in 2005, and he already seemed more like a bitter old senator than a hope factory like Barack Obama). He always got pulled back into the circus, and never had time, or much of a chance, to govern without vitriol.

So, with Yanukovych on his way to victory, it is doubtless that many are marking down this day as the official time of death for the Orange Revolution in the annals of history.

Here is my take. I was there in Ukraine when millions stood up. I saw the moment when the way people carried themselves changed, when everyone seemed a little more positive, a little friendlier, a little stronger, a little more independent. No matter what comes of this or any future election, nothing will erase the fact that the Orange Revolution happened. And it happened because peopled joined together and made it very clear to the government that it was going to have to add a third election, one that wasn’t rigged, to the calendar. Sure, there was support from the west, as money and resources funneled in, that played an important role in keeping people going those cold December nights in Kyiv. But, none of that would have mattered had people not gone to Kyiv in the first place. And it wasn’t just in Kyiv. This was happening everywhere.

Perhaps the government didn’t change permanently. Maybe it’s still dominated by corruption, political infighting, and “old think”. But that doesn’t mean society didn’t change.

The truth is, the Ukrainian government isn’t going to change until Ukrainian society continues to change. It might take a generation or two, but remember that Ukraine got to where it is after countless generations of things being a certain way. What is vital is that people don’t just accept things the way they are, and resign themselves to a fate of bad government and status quo. For those who want the corruption to end, it is on you to not participate in it first, and push for those around you to stop participating in it.

Of course, in a place like Ukraine, the system itself is corruption, and it can be near to impossible to do anything without being corrupt in some way yourself. That’s only going to change if everyone first says, “I won’t do this”. From there, it is vital to continue to push against the walls and forces against progress. If you want true freedom, true independence, and better government, it can happen as long as you keep pushing. The Orange Revolution is proof of this, as it was also merely a step in the process. Eventually, Ukraine’s leaders will have no choice but to follow.

The Orange Revolution may have passed. But as long as people still want what it stood for, then the spirit of the Orange Revolution will live on.

Photo:  Viktor Yushchenko in better days of his presidency.

Yeah, that’s pretty much how I’ve been feeling. I have been beating my head against the wall trying to answer the questions I am researching. Main problem? I don’t speak Spanish. Other problem? Almost everything in Bolivia is in Spanish.

Not that I am letting this stop me. But, it is adding elements of challenge.

Other issues are adding challenge. For starters, I’ve noticed that a lot of Web sites in Bolivia use graphics in place of text, especially for navigation, which makes translating sites with Google Translate difficult (not to mention it can hamper SEO, if the sites aren’t designed properly). Second, a lot of sites provide only a contact form, and no email address, so it’s tough to contact anyone directly. Add to that that a LOT of university emails have been bouncing (it’s been near pandemic for me). Third, a lot of sites are designed either in a very busy way so that they become disorienting to try to process mentally, or they look like they might have been programmed in 1999.

This is not meant to be critical of Bolivian Web sites. There are a slew of reasons for this that only defend the argument that there is opportunity for development assistance. I am here to say that if you are looking for ways to help with media in Bolivia, here are some things to consider that are clearly in need.

It hasn’t been all disaster. I’ve managed to find experts who are pointing me down the right road. I’m starting to get a sense for media education needs and challenges in Bolivia. I have to admit, it’s exciting. I’ve spent so much time on Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, it’s nice to gain the perspective of another continent.

Things I’m finding:

• Evo Morales is clearly not the friend of independent media. Not a surprise to the world, I’m sure. But he’s even gone so far as to declare independent media an enemy of the government. Nice.

• It’s been interesting to find out that apparently Morales spent a bunch of government money to set up community radio stations. Funny, since so many pro-democracy organizations want to set up community radio stations, too. Obviously there are differences in how these are designed and what rules they operate under. But, fascinating that community radio doesn’t fundamentally equal independence.

• Journalism programs in universities are sorely lacking. Mainly because on the whole journalism isn’t really it’s own degree, but part of something generally called social communications. Very little specialized curriculum for journalists.

• Extractive commodities like natural gas and lithium play significant roles in the Bolivian economy, and yet early indications suggest that there is little or no education in education or training in reporting on extractives. No big surprise, given that journalism doesn’t really have its own degree, and that it’s so often the case the developing economies with a strong presence of extractives lack any real training or education on extractives reporting.

Not bad for someone who doesn’t speak Spanish, right?

Photo:  Bolivian private media’s best friend, Evo Morales.

It’s been a long time coming, of course. I work in international media development, and given that mobile phones are the game changing technology for communications in the developing world, it only makes sense that I go this route. It’s not for lack of interest that it took this long. Just a bad economy. But, now that I am here, I am ready to go. Whole hog.

It was a tough decision, one that added to the delay. Obviously every mobile phone decision in the United States should go through the iPhone. But, my big concern with the iPhone was 1. What’s it going to be like abroad, especially in developing countries, and 2. What about mobile applications development vis-a-vis international development?

The iPhone will work abroad, given it is a GSM phone. At the same time, it’s locked, so I’d be stuck with either AT&T’s exhorbitant international plan, or unlocking the phone to put in my own sim card, risking turning my phone into a coaster should there be problems. As for applications, sure there’s a vast apps market. Yet, the market is closed, meaning that there are significant barriers to entry, and the iPhone isn’t exactly the top 3G in the world at this point, so those apps are probably not going to fly as a developing country solution.

I’ve tried other phones. Touch screen was important to me, with it’s flexibility and fluidity of use. If a phone isn’t touch screen, it seems to be lagging in the latest technology and demand. And, what Web sites look like on the browser was also a big deal. On top of my other concerns, of course. Other phones just felt like cheap knockoffs compared to the iPhone, like they wanted to break, like they weren’t serious about my business.

One other thing: I was already a Verizon Wireless customer. Did I really want to make the switch? I was pretty happy with my service, and the main competition in 3G (sorry, Blackberry, but your 3G phones are pretty bad), AT&T has been getting hammered lately on its network.

And then along came the Droid Eris.

Thanks to the Eris, I am catching up on mobile communications. At light speed.

My reasons for choosing the Eris:

• Verizon Wireless – I’m already a customer, so I could stay one. Plus, AT&T is getting pretty hammered right now for its 3G network. Oh, and since iPhone is exclusive to one carrier, they clearly don’t want my business right now.
• Touch Screen – This is the only phone I’ve tried out that feels like it was made using today’s technology, other than the iPhone. Everything else, even the Droid at times, feels dated.
• Browser - I tried out all my usual Web sites on a bunch of phones. Other than the iPhone, this is the only one whose browser consistently never distorted the Web pages I looked at.
• Google – I’m on gmail. I use Google Docs extensively. YouTube is THE online video resource in the world. All of my scheduling and personal planning is done on Google Calendar. Let’s face it, Google is key for me. And the Eris syncs very nicely with Google products. Makes sense, since Google owns the OS.
• Android OS – Here’s the kicker. Android is open source. For most people, this might not be a big deal. For someone in international media development, this should be a very big deal. Open source makes it possible to develop your own applications. But, just as important, it enables people in developing countries to develop their own applications–because it is open, there are lower cost barriers, which is a key factor for aggregate innovation in countries with high aggregate price sensitivity. Also? Android is where a lot of international development applications are already being built upon (btw, probably the definitive resource on mobile phones and international development is MobileActive‘s Web site, in case you were unaware).

Now, I haven’t had a chance to really test out the Eris in an international development context yet, or test out the related apps. But, I have had a chance to get to know a lot of the applications that make mobile phones such a game changing technology.

My favorite Android applications, so far:

• Twidroid – You can use it as your Twitter app. But what I like about it is that you can easily share links to Web pages on Twitter. And it shortens URLs, too.
• Bookmarks for Delicious – Bookmark Web pages using your Delicious account.
• Camera - Shoot pics or video, and “share” them on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, you name it.
• UStream – Livestream your video on the Internet.
• Pandora - Your phone becomes essentially an Internet radio receiver from the Pandora Web site.
• Location Based Services -
  • Places Directory - Find restaurants, bars, taxis, etc. in the area.
  • Banks & ATM – Find them in the area, by company.
  • Where – Find all sorts of types of places in the area, but my favorites are Gas Prices and Traffic. But my favorite thing about Where is the “Pulse” feature. When you push it, you access the “pulse” of what is happening on Twitter in your area.
  • ShopSavvy – Find products in the area by barcode.
• Foursquare – This is location based, but next level. It’s also a social-networking game. Basically, visit real world locations, “check into” them on the app, amass points, see where your friends are.

For seasoned veterans of Android phones, or even just 3G smartphones, this might no longer sound revolutionary. Or, it might be easy to forget how revolutionary it is. You’ve probably been using these for some time. And you might be very much in touch with the digital divide that exists between the availability of these services in the developed world versus developing countries.

Yet, when I plug my imagination into places I have been, like Lviv, Ukraine, or Accra, Ghana, I can’t help but feel something visceral. For starters, these applications make it possible for someone to be citizen journalist. That certainly comes with concern, given that it opens Pandora’s Box of Endless Misinformation Possibilities. Though, in my opinion, that only strengthens my argument for teaching media literacy, which is tremendously underserved even in the United States. But, this capability is very important nonetheless. Corrupt authorities the world over have less to fear when there is little capacity to broadcast their corruption. These technologies, on the other hand, can make it abundantly possible for anyone with these phones and apps in hand to report corruption. Suddenly private eyes are watching you.

Or they can report on poverty. Or neglect. Or dilapidation. Or success. This last one is at least as important–people are drawn to project and program success, and are more likely to give to something producing success than something bleak.

It’s likely going to be some time before these location based services reach deep into the developing world. When they do, this too could be a revolution. I think back to my time in Ukraine, where it was often impossible to know where the nearest store or business of just about any kind was. So many of those businesses had yet to catch onto the importance, or practice, of advertising their business in a way that draws in new customers. I personally think a lot of that is carry over from the culture of underground business is in the Soviet Union. It was also difficult to compete in prices. Find more than one business with that product was hard enough. Then, if they were in a major city, that meant a lot of time and public transport going from place to place. Sure, you could call on the phone to ask the price, but in my experience, businesses in Ukraine went to great lengths to not divulge their prices beyond the walls of their business (even a catalog was often a coup). And forget about Web sites.

Now imagine what happens, in situations like that, when you can find products using your phone. It subverts the whole existing system. Maybe subversion sounds dogmatic, and evolution is more your goal. I guess it all depends on how you look at it. If your goal is to promote economic development, I don’t think empowering customers to compete through great choice is such a bad way to do it. When I was in Ukraine, I found that customers seldom had the power to compete. Of course, Ukraine is quickly changing, and this is less the case. Especially as mobile phones and 3G service are penetrating rapidly. But, think on a macro level, and imagine this technology in other cultures still stuck in post-Soviet hangover, or other kinds of information scarcity.

What might seem commonplace in the United States could revolutionize the developing world. In fact, it already is.

I’m just excited to have finally joined that revolution.

Researching Extractive Industry Transparency and Journalism Development in Africa

I began the year leading a team through a study to assess needs and effective training practices to raise the level of business journalism in Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda. Our findings would then be synthesized into a report to provide training and media development recommendations to Revenue Watch Institute, which wanted to use training to improve business journalism, and promote extractive industry transparency. The best part of this project was that I got to spend two weeks in January in balmy Nigeria–a country the Bradt guide calls “Africa for the Advanced”–and meet face to face with Nigerian journalists, journalism educators, and media development experts. Lagos, in particular, was INTENSE. And fantastic. I also got a chance in this to bone up on my skills developing surveys and interview guides, building networks of contacts, designing a team research wiki, and producing a report of findings.

Blog posts on my adventures here:

• Slave to the Traffic Jam
• Electric Power to the People
• A Tale of Two Fridays
• Development Economics and the Rule of Murphy’s Law

Finishing The Morningside Post‘s Redesign

One of my favorite moments during my time at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) was redesigning The Morningside Post. The Post was started as a simple blog on international affairs just a few years before. But, when I came aboard, I quickly began to see the technological limitations of the Typepad version that was in place–what we had made it difficult to manage content such that we could segment and differentiate it, making it difficult for people to find what they were looking for.  It was clear to me that we were on the cusp of opportunity to bring together many different stakeholders in the SIPA community, and yet what we had with the first version of the site made it so their content looked like everyone else’s. We also couldn’t really incorporate the latest Web 2.0 technologies as we wanted.

To overcome all of this, I led our team through a redesign to build a new interface on a WordPress platform to integrate all of these ideas and significantly expand our capabilities (which we completed in January 2009, and is what you see at the site today). Now, The Post is a much more effective content management system, in which users can view content based on their preferences (e.g. by region or by topic), many different groups in the SIPA community can post and manage their own content, and it is much easier to feature Web 2.0 content such as Google Calendar, YouTube, and CoveritLive liveblogging boxes. And I personally came away with more experience leading a team through creating a Web site concept, finding a vendor to design it, raising the necessary funds and managing the project budget, planning the production schedule, testing the end product, and publicizing the site through a launch event and other forms of publicity. Best part? We finished the site within our project schedule and came in within our budget.

Web Design by Donor Organizations for Low Bandwidth

I published a section of a wiki on New Media and Development Communication called “Web Design by Donor Organizations for Low Bandwidth“. The wiki was part of a course on new media and development taught by Anne Nelson at SIPA. My section of the wiki focused on providing recommendations on how international development organizations, particularly donors, should build their Web sites to make them more accessible in low bandwidth countries, in order to maximize the reach of their assistance. In my opinion, far too many development organizations design Web sites that make it virtually impossible for organizations in low bandwidth areas to access them, and thus they essentially cut off those most in need from assistance.

Web 2.0 in Egypt and Iran – Challenging Authority and Challenges to Expression

As part of my master’s degree coursework at Columbia, I researched how social media are being used to challenge authority and how authorities are using the Internet to challenge expression in Egypt and Iran (some of my findings can be found here: Egypt and Iran). This was a great opportunity to see what people are doing in these countries with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, in particular, to speak out against their governments, connect with the outside world, and organize movements. I also had a chance to dig into the issue of filtering and other technologies used by governments to clamp down on expression, and technologies like proxies used to counter this clamping down. With all that is happening in the Middle East right now (especially Iran’s election and Twitter, which was fascinating to watch shortly after this research), it has proven to be a great test case for Web 2.0 and challenging authority.

Liveblogging Events – Twitter and CoveritLive

One of the ways I built up my social media skills in 2009 was through liveblogging various events. Social media provide remarkable opportunities for people to gain access to at least the information of events they couldn’t attend an event, and give them an approximation of what it was like to be there. In real time, no less.

My particularly favorite tools have come to be Twitter and CoveritLive (CiL), used together. They sync up nicely. Just create a CiL box, assign it a hashtag of your choice, embed that box into a blog that is javascript enabled, and start tweeting. For example, while I was with The Morningside Post, we liveblogged New York University’s CATER Workshop on Technologies and Development in February 2009.

Graduating Columbia University with a Master’s Degree in Media Development

In May 2009, I graduated Columbia University with a Master of International Affairs degree. My concentration was Economic and Political Development (EPD), and within that concentration was a focus on Media and Development. I could have also changed that concentration to International Media and Communications (IMC) along the way, had I wanted to–I had the courses to do it. But, I stuck with EPD for consistency with what I had studied. When I first enrolled at Columbia, I knew exactly what I wanted to get out of it:  take advantage of Columbia’s vast media resources, study and get my hands on as many new media as possible (I came in with more of a traditional media background), and do whatever it took to participate in a media development-related workshop. EPD made the most sense at the time, because I could study international development itself, and with the focus component that was part of going EPD, I had a lot of flexibility to study media, and keep it connected to international development.

My plan worked like clockwork. I studied a comprehensive range of media and development topics: media for advocacy and communications, new media and development, international media business, international news reporting, social media for communications and organizing, Web 2.0 under authoritarian regimes, and journalism development and transparency in Africa. And, I got that media development-related workshop (mentioned above in the section “Researching Extractive Industry Transparency and Journalism Development in Africa”).

It’s a pretty broad range of topics, to be certain. But, I wanted to leave Columbia with as comprehensive and far-reaching an understanding of media as they pertain to development, communication, and expression as one could fit into two years. As I see it, these issues are all so intermingled and pervasive within all social, political, and economic development matters, and that the only way to be truly effective in media development is to have this degree of understanding. Mission accomplished.

Training Social Media in Ukraine

Almost immediately after graduation, I was flown to Ukraine by the European Journalism Centre to conduct a series of social media training seminars throughout Ukraine. This was an epic adventure, indeed. First, I was training social media, which were designed for personal expression, in the former Soviet Union, which had a long history imprinting a fear of personal expression. Second, while my Ukrainian is still pretty good, it made sense for me to present through a translator (something I hadn’t done before), given that we were dealing with a lot of new technology. Third, I would train with two other people I’d never met before. Fourth, I felt that the absolute imperative technologies to train were Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs, which meant that I had some serious work ahead of me to prep for these seminars to fit these social media into the context of the training needs of journalists and NGOs in Ukraine.

Of course, I blogged heavily on this adventure, its tribulations and its triumphs:

• A New Ukrainian Adventure in New Media
• A New Ukrainian Adventure in New Media (Continued)
• The Internet Is Not Your Friend
• Some Resources From Our Training in Kyiv
• Onward to Donestk!
• If You Can Play Donetsk, You Can Play Anywhere
• Teaching Twitter in Ukraine, Convincing the Skeptics of Its Power
• Training Online Social Networking in Ukraine, Americanskiy Style
• Heading Back to Ukraine
• Training Facebook in the Land of Vkontakte
• Training Materials for Facebook Pages and Groups, in Russian and Ukrainian
• Web 2.0 and Blogging – Training Links I Used in Ukraine
• YouTube and Video – Training Links I Used in Ukraine
• Twitter – Training Links I Used in Ukraine
• Facebook and Social Networking – Training Links I Used in Ukraine
• Facebook Pages for Journalists and NGOs in Ukraine

Incessant Viewing of Webinars on Social Media

I spent the summer of 2009 voraciously devouring webinars on social media (and still do, though not quite voraciously–my media development rapacity knows no satiety). The big winner this summer in receiving my traffic was HubSpot, which has been steadily producing great webinars on marketing. But, if you were airing a webinar on how to use social media for marketing, communications, advocacy, organizing, networking, blogging, whatever, chances are I was one of your viewers. I ended up with a “social media gut”, I consumed so much. And if you’ve been following me on Twitter, or happened upon my Delicious, you have probably noticed I’ve been regurgitating social media, as well. I’ve come out of this pretty well armed with social media strategy, to say the least. Delicious is my arsenal, Twitter is my howitzer.

Evaluating Journalism Training Programs in Africa

For the last month or so of 2009, I consulted on a project (ongoing) to evaluate business journalism training programs conducted by Thomson Reuters Foundation in a number of countries in Africa, including Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, Mozambique, Cote d’Ivoire, and Zambia. This has been a great opportunity to advance my skills in guiding a team through an evaluation, and deepen my understanding of media training in Africa. I discovered in this that I get a somewhat strange enjoyment out of designing online surveys (thank you, Survey Monkey, I owe you a Christmas card!), and then seeing what responses they get. Other than designing surveys, I’ve also worked on our interview guides and coached our team on doing this kind of study in an African setting.

Initial indications of our evaluation have shown our methods to be effective–results of the survey have been quite revealing. This is happy news, given that with any evaluation of a training program, it would be unrealistic for participant to say, “Everything was great, no complaints”. Reality is always a little harsh. As an evaluator, you hope to provide an accurate picture of what happened. It appears we are doing that.

Assessing More Journalism Training Needs in Africa, With a Side of Bangladesh

I also spent the last month or so of 2009 on a project (ongoing) to  conduct an initial assessment of journalism training needs, and identify potential training partners, in a number of African countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia), as well as Bangladesh. This is to support a potential European Journalism Centre initiative to promote press freedom and economic development in these countries.

Admittedly, it has been somewhat of a tricky affair. I have done this research from New Jersey, without funds to fly to all of these countries. So, I’ve had to be resourceful and a little creative. Ghana and Nigeria were already very familiar to me, so they have only needed a little supplemental research. But the other countries were new to me. And there aren’t a lot of great Web sites among the universities in these countries. They tend not to have a lot of journalism program information, if any info at all. This is a little crazy to me, given that they are the top media universities in their countries–you start to notice the gap immediately (great opportunity for media development projects, hint hint hint!). Fortunately, as a Columbia alum who has been working in international media development for a while now, I have a network of people in the industry I can tap into. They have been key to my assessment (a huge thank you to all!). Particularly in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe (as one journalism educator in Zimbabwe colorfully and tragically put it, “Journalism education here is all needs and challenges”). Expect some blog posts on this research soon.
Yeah, 2009 was a big year. I’m not sure there is much more I could have covered in media development in a single year (and even this isn’t every last morsel). Let’s see what 2010 brings.

That immediately struck me. The idea of helping people form new associations in the name of promoting prosperity within (and ultimately of) national economies is essentially a major driving force behind my work in media development. Reading this sentence pushed me to dig deeper. I began hunting down Fukuyama and what he had to say about social capital. I had read him before during my master’s degree work at SIPA, and remember feeling some connection then. I probably even encountered what he had to say about social capital. If so, it wasn’t till now that it caught my attention.

I found his article “Social Capital and Development: The Coming Agenda“. This was when the sparks started to fly. In my work, I’ve always felt that opening people to new ideas and expanding their networks of trust was integral to successful development. I just hadn’t really realized until hitting this passage that international political economists were not just exploring the idea, but even trying to write mathematical equations about it. Nice.

The following is a series of quotes from the article that struck me, succeeded by some of my own additional thinking and experiences relating to them:

“According to sociologist James Coleman, social capital refers to people’s ability to work together in groups. I prefer to define the concept more broadly to include any instance in which people cooperate for common ends on the basis of shared informal norms and values. Furthermore, many now regard social capital as a key ingredient in both economic development and stable liberal democracy”.

The community journalism program I began in Ukraine was largely founded on these principles (though not as eloquently stated). Our application was our newspaper, which brought together students and teachers from the school as primary staff to publish the paper, a local NGO that was given a page to publish content on its programs and resources, the local mayor who offered his blessing (important in a society with such a long history of government interference in news media), and local businesses that invested in the paper’s physical capital in exchange for local advertising. All of these different groups, typically splintered and mainly focused inward on group interests, suddenly had a medium that brought them together to find cooperation for common ends and shared informal norms and values. In the historical, political, and social context of Ukraine, they were strange bedfellows, indeed. But, within this program, something strange became normal.

“Societies in which people are accustomed to cooperating and working together in large organizations are much more likely to develop strong and efficient state institutions”.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? How the habit of people working together in larger groups toward some kind of larger purpose could be transferable to developing strong and efficient state institutions. In Ukraine, and other countries I’ve been to where corruption is not even corruption but just how things are done, I’ve seen first hand how people habitually undermine state institutions in order to survive. It is the only way things get done. Like the countless shopkeepers that have to keep two sets of books to overcome a tax regime that would otherwise cripple their business.

In fact, when I was fundraising for a project in Ukraine, and speaking with local district tax lawyers about the possibility of offering tax benefits to businesses donating to our project, they ADVISED me to do this off the books. ADVISED me. Lawyers. Lawyers that worked for the government. Advised me to break the law and conduct business under the table. Of course, I refused. But, when this is the society you are working in, one in which it really is everyone for him or herself, against a State that is clearly designed NOT to promote your well being in any real way, you start to see that any kind of development work is going to require countering this institutional divisiveness.

In my work in Ukraine, I couldn’t change the tax structure. But I could create situations in which people in government, civil society, education, and every day citizens joined together for a community project. Even something as simple as a beach cleanup, where everyone from the community inevitably enjoys a hot summer day, and inevitably must kick aside someone else’s trash that is not being properly disposed of for a whole slew of public and private reasons.

“Many states that looked strong on the outside proved weak because they lacked legitimacy—the former Soviet Union and Indonesia under Suharto are both good examples. Conversely, a surprising number of democracies, like Poland or South Korea since 1997, have successfully undertaken painful economic reforms”.

People can say what they want to about Ronald Reagan’s influence in the fall of the Soviet Union. Sure, there’s truth to it. But, having lived a few years on the other side of where the Iron Curtain once stood, I can say from experience that that structure imploded from a weak foundation more than anything. It looked strong from the outside, indeed.

How are you going to build a new structure to replace it, when so few really believe in the essence of a structure at all? When the preceding structure was so evidently designed to “atomize” the population, as Fukuyama calls it? So many people said to me in Ukraine, just after the Orange Revolution, “We are waiting for a leader”. Waiting is the problem. I found it better to encourage people to become leaders, even if in small ways. For instance, I gave as much control of publishing our newspaper as possible to the students and adults of our editorial staff. When one adult approached me with the idea for a special edition, I said absolutely, under one condition: she be responsible for getting it to the press, and into the hands of readers. It worked. In fact, she told me this year that she has since started a community organization, inspired by chances to be a leader, such as I provided her with.

“The sociologist Ernest Gellner put it bluntly: no civil society, no democracy”.

There should be T-shirts. This should be a campaign slogan. We need beer signs that read this as our mantra.

“Social capital is what permits individuals to band together to defend their interests and organize to support collective needs; authoritarian governance, on the other hand, thrives on social atomization”.

I’ve experienced in developing countries a crisis of confidence that every day people can change their country. Even in Ukraine just two years after the Orange Revolution, when millions of people stood up to change their country. I found in Ukraine that our newspaper was a great vehicle for building social capital in this regard. First, it gave something people could see, touch, and hand to someone else, something real. Second, it was a place to shine a spotlight on community action and activities, such as that beach cleanup I referenced. In running this newspaper, I had my first true experience with the power of self-expression to connect people to a common cause, to find common ground. It seemed that once people could witness this commonality, they could accrue social capital.

“A deficit of trust toward outsiders means that one’s strongest relationships of trust are reserved for family and close friends, creating the cultural conditions for a two-tiered moral system in which one feels few compunctions in behaving opportunistically toward others”.

I’ve absolutely seen this in my development adventures. And sadly, I see this here in America. I get a steady dose of emails promoting this mentality from the more conservative members of my family. I would love some numbers on the opportunity cost of this behavior. Economists, get to it. People understand pocketbook logic. If we can say, “Well, by pigeonholing everyone in groups, based on things like race, or economic status, or religion, we collectively cost our country X amount of dollars”, I bet you start changing some hearts out there. A family member of mine recently said he’s yet to see any studies demonstrating conclusive proof of the value in diversity. Now’s your chance to shine, economists.

“Nevertheless, as Edward Banfield explained more than 40 years ago, familism also constitutes a liability, since it denotes a lack of trust among strangers”.

Stranger danger! Stranger danger! Stranger danger! Or, stranger possible new experience that could open some important door of opportunity for us? Man, if I had a nickel for every time someone in ______ country (ANY country, developing or developed) told me about how terrible such and such group of people is that they don’t belong to.

Want to get over your fear of strangers? Become a Peace Corps Volunteer–you get a steady diet of strangers. And you begin to forget what is so frightening about “other” people. You start to see strangers as opportunities, you stop seeing them as a group.

“This ultimately puts limits on economic growth. It also limits business transparency: it is often difficult for outside investors or business partners to understand the Byzantine ownership structures and relationships among family-owned businesses”.

I’ve now spent almost two years working in media development to promote business and government transparency in African countries, which has given me a lot of interaction with transparency issues. One thing I’ve seen is how many business and government leaders justify their behavior on the “everybody’s doing it” principle. How do you overcome that? Well, news media calling people out, and “setting the agenda” by framing the news conversation around the error in this logic is what I hear from the more courageous African journalists. But how can they be courageous when media outlets have little money to pay these journalists, and so many are dependent on advertising from businesses and relationships with government officials?

We need numbers, economists. We need not only numbers for impact on GDP, but hard evidence that people at the top would benefit more in a transparent society than a corrupt society. And then we need to pump the news media full of this information (and not the number of women Tiger Woods has slept with).

“…Human beings have a tendency to build ‘in-group’ solidarity at the expense of outsiders; thus, societies with many tightly bonded groups or networks may be fragmented and rife with conflicts and hostility when viewed as a whole. Even innocuous groups that do not produce clearly negative externalities may be self-regarding and cut themselves off from information, innovation, or ideas”.

It’s this idea of cutting oneself off from information, innovation, and ideas. This is why I am in media development. I want to build channels of information flow, and build connecting points between people, especially people that would not usually or naturally connect. Media development is not the end, for me, but the means to the end of countering the act of cutting oneself off from information, innovation, and ideas.

“Sociologist Mark Granovetter has observed that it is often the heterogeneous member of a network, or the individual within it with weak ties and broken affinities, who serves as the conduit for new ideas and information into a closed group. A society with many loose and overlapping networks may be more economically efficient than one with many static, self-regarding ones”.

I love this idea of weak ties. I drove this home at the social media training seminars I did in Ukraine this summer. Weak ties are access to new ideas and opportunities. Otherwise, we are stuck. Social media offer technologically built-in avenues for connecting to other people’s connections, and thus their weak ties. Facebook and Twitter shine in this regard. Because of social media, we are on the precipice of a weak tie revolution.

“The single most difficult situation to deal with, from a policy standpoint, is a society that is thoroughly lacking in social trust”.

Well, after a society thoroughly infused with violence, bombs, warfare, I’d agree. But then, maybe a society thoroughly lacking in social trust is either in, or headed toward, an infusion of violence, etc. And yet, how many Americans don’t trust muslims, as a group? And how many eastern Ukrainians don’t trust western Ukrainians, and vice versa? For every person I talk to that exhibits this lack of trust, I hear a consistent void in this person’s information. This is why I believe information is crucial to trust.

“In the former communist world, Marxism-Leninism deliberately targeted and sought to undermine civil society and to atomize individuals; hence, it is not surprising that the vacuum of a collapsed state (i.e., the Soviet Union) has been filled with distrust and cynicism”.

I didn’t really need Fukuyama to point this out to me. But, it’s nice when someone respected for his knowledge notices something you notice, too.

“The problem that most low-trust societies face is not a total absence of social capital, but rather the fact that the average radius of trust of cooperative groups tends to be small. The kind of familism noted earlier that characterizes much of Latin America and the Chinese parts of Asia is one manifestation of this; so is the ethnonationalism of the Balkans. What is needed in these cases is to increase the radius of trust among individuals in the various small, inward-looking groups that comprise these societies, and to facilitate the building of cooperative relationships, in both economic and political spheres, between groups that typically have had little to do with one another” .

At what point do I adopt this as my mission statement?

“A uniform and transparent rule of law historically allowed modernizing societies in the West to extend the radius of trust and, thus, breed cooperation among strangers”.

It’s interesting how many people I encounter in America who are concerned with transparent rule of law, and yet are very untrusting people. Rule of law might pave the way for trust, but once both are established, it seems to me that you must then focus on maintaining both, and not just one or the other. No easy task. Especially when we as Americans export both the “virtues” of rule of law and xenophobic paranoia.

“The more realistic ways of building social capital through policy lie not at the macro, but at the micro level. At the level of a village, bureaucracy, firm, or department, there are many cases of organizations deliberately and successfully creating social capital”.

This is what I like about the Peace Corps model. Village-level change. It’s really hard to get people to listen to top down dictations from government officials telling everyone to start trusting each other and the government.

Face to face is probably the best way to achieve trust, and thus social capital. When face to face isn’t possible, media provide a decent substitute. Particularly social media, which are about as “flat” as media get. Look no further than, say, my Facebook “friends”, who are from every continent but Antarctica. On a regular basis, I can interact with people from all over the place, and I have just as much access to them as does any large company. I have a much more detailed understanding of Iran, Colombia, Zimbabwe, and Bangladesh, as a result.

“Unlike conventional human capital, which involves the transmission of certain specific skills and knowledge, social capital requires the inculcation of shared norms and values, and it is often brought about through habit, shared experience, and leadership. As noted earlier, conventional education often produces social capital as a byproduct (for example, when engineers or accountants are taught shared professional standards), but organizations can seek to produce social capital as a primary output”.

That idea of shared experience, again. There’s nothing more shared than getting together a whole bunch of people from a community who would never otherwise spend a Saturday afternoon in each other’s presence, and have them roll up their sleeves and get dirty in the name of cleaning a beach. All because some other country’s government formed an organization that sends crazy Americans to other countries to do crazy things like this.

“Most developing countries actually have an abundance of social capital in the form of kinship groups or traditional social groups like lineages, tribes, or village associations. What they lack are more modern, broad-radius organizations that connect across traditional ethnic, class, or status boundaries and serve as the basis for modern political and economic organizations. Seen from this perspective, many traditional groups embodying one form of social capital can actually be obstacles to development, because they are too insular or resistant to change”.

I almost wonder if this isn’t the real issue. Not a lack of social capital, but rather too much of one kind and not enough of another. People are awfully sure of themselves and their group, no matter where they are from. And those people sure could use better information most of the time.

“Many corrupt officials do not seek to transgress social rules; rather, the rules of their society demand that they help family and friends before they see to the general public interest. Nepotism is in many ways one of the most natural of human impulses. Hence we need to consider a broader agenda of cultural change that can be achieved solely through education, training, and the reinforcement of norms”.

This is the one that fascinates me. It’s so easy to point the finger and blame leaders and authority figures for their corruption. But, often I have encountered evidence that if these people were to suddenly stop their corruption, and become honest and transparent, people would freak out and wouldn’t know what to do with them. When everyone expects someone at the top to be a certain way, how can that person reasonably be expected to change?

I think of my Peace Corps Country Director, who told me about how he’d tried to run his office–staffed mostly from the local country–with an American style of management. He said it didn’t work. No one listened to him. By treating people with respect, in public, he was summarily ignored, though people often said yes to him, as if they meant it. So, he adopted the local custom of managing people, including treating people more harshly (or perhaps “sternly” is the right word) in public. But, over time, he evolved more and more toward the style he ultimately wanted in place. Best part? It worked. Swimmingly. And, I don’t think this is an isolated case, from what I’ve seen, and that in working to promote transparency, rule of law, democracy, social capital, trust, whatever, it is important to keep in mind that there are probably very understandable, and at times justifiable, reasons for why these things are not already in place, at the “top” or the “bottom”.

Anyway, long story short, I think Fukuyama, in these ideas of social capital, offers a look into crucial concerns for development. And, whether he realizes it or not, some great arguments for media development. At least, from my experience.

Photo 1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/limonada/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Here’s a taste of the last few weeks in my adventures and explorations:

Defamation of Religions and Freedom of Expression

I’ve been reading about the Human Rights Council’s resolution 7/19 “Combating defamation of religions”, passed last spring, condemning the defamation of religions as a human rights violation. It would make sense that religion be seen as a human right, and that we should aim not to trample upon any human right. The concern, however, is that it clashes with the human right to expression. By protecting a religion from defamation, in the way that it is broadly defined in this resolution, you put the clamp on the right to question and even criticize a religion. You give a religion itself the status of having rights, rather than an individual, which has been the norm in international law.

In a press release, Freedom House offered an important critique of the resolution:

“Although we are sympathetic to the stated goals of the resolutions of combating intolerance, racism, and religious hatred, we believe that such resolutions do not serve to achieve these goals but rather limit the ability of individuals to raise questions, concerns, and even criticisms at a time when people of all faiths need to engage in more, not less, dialogue,” said Freedom House and the Becket Fund.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe offered another strong critique of the resolution.

I’ve found this to be a fascinating issue. First, you have religion, which is so fundamental to the identity of so many people, and so sacred, at odds with expression, which is also fundamental to human identity, as well as democracy and independence. This is almost, at heart, really a conflict between group-orientation and individuality (or even self-determinism). Second, you look at the countries that voted in favor:  Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mali, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. So many of them have terrible records of protecting the human right of expression, or rights of the individual, for that matter.

Mobile Communications as a catalyst for Change

I’ve been reading the book Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold. Admittedly, the book is a bit dated, having been published in 2002. But, it is an interesting look at the early history of how mobile communications evolved and began to shape our society, and offers incites that we can now evaluate today. A lot of what he observed nearly a decade ago has become true the world over, and is certainly changing the game in important ways.

One of the examples from the book that stood out to me was what happened in the Philippines, with the the peaceful EDSA II Revolution that removed Joseph Estrada from the presidency in 2001. (Of course, I would coincidentally be reading this book and exploring expression and media issues in Southeast Asia, and these issues would manage to converge at just the right moment in my research–my life is always strangely like this.) There was an impeachment trial under way, and when it was ended by senators before all evidence could be examined, opposition leaders began sending out SMS messages. In just over an hour, 20,000 converged on the site of the EDSA I Revolution in 1986 that removed Ferdinand Marcos. That would soon turn into over a million people. According to Rheingold, mobile phones were crucial to this revolution, as there had been a burgeoning SMS culture, and thus a technology capable of sudden mobilization.

Journalism Education and Training Needs in Least Developed Countries

I’m conducting an initial needs assessment of journalism and education needs in Ghana, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, for an organization exploring potential programming in these countries. And, along the way, I am looking for organizations that stand as examples of this kind of education and training done well in these countries, either within the countries, or at least connected to them.

Again, I get to expand my borders with this project. I’ve done a lot of research in Ghana and Nigeria in the past, giving me a solid foundation to work with in those countries. But, now I have the chance to look at new countries, and push into Asia.

I am struck by how much the same the song remains with developing countries and journalism needs. The university system is lacking in proper training facilities and professors of adequate experience and education levels. Journalists fleeing the industry because it doesn’t pay them enough to keep food on the table, while opportunities in other countries or industries (especially PR) offer substantially more money. Publishing the whole story means risking physical harm, jail, and loss of crucial advertising revenue. As one contact in Zimbabwe colorfully, and tragically, put it, “Journalism education here is all needs and challenges”.

How on earth are things going to improve in these countries when the main institution of accountability that watches over business and government has no capacity to effectively watch and report?

One positive in this research has been stumbling upon some great resources:

• Friedrich Ebert Stiftung’s African Media Barometer reports – Analyses on the situation that journalism media face in African countries. Pretty much hit on all aspects and concerns.
• UNESCO’s Criteria and Indicators for Quality Journalism Training Institutions & Identifying Potential Centres of Excellence in Journalism Training in Africa – As advertised, offers a look into institutions doing good work in journalism education, and also some of the challenges they face.
• UNESCO’s Database of African Journalism Schools
• World Journalism Education Census database – Journalism schools around the world.

This research also prompted me to say on Facebook, “Needs assessment is fun. It’s like I’m this international needs detective in some movie about a development serial killer, and I’m tracking down contacts for leads, and piecing together the evidence to build my case”.

Evaluating Business Journalism Training Programs in Africa

I’ve been working on an impact evaluation of some training programs conducted by the client organizations this past year in various African countries designed to improve the ability of local journalists to report on business, and subsequently, improve local business investment as a function of access to better local business reporting. This project is still in its early stages. We’ve designed the survey we will give to trainees, and are finalizing the interview guide, as well. Once completed, members of our team will travel to several of the African countries of the trainees to meet with them face to face (almost always the best way to interview someone). After that, we compile our findings and write a report to give to our clients. Ultimately, our work is to help these organizations determine what impact their training has had on the journalists (with the question of impact on the investment climate being a whole separate issue for another time).

I’m always happy to take on projects that involve evaluating the outcomes of programs. Evaluation is a vital component of development, and it is often not done well, if at all, in development. In my experience, it can make the difference for institutional learning and future programming. How else are you going to know what worked and what didn’t? I’ve also found this to be something I enjoy doing–getting people in a room together and thinking deeply and critically not just about what worked and what didn’t, but what the right questions are to ask. It’s more of that detective work like I described on Facebook. Finding the right questions, in my opinion, can make or break any development project, and any stage of that project. They can make the difference, more than almost anything, in my opinion. And, with evaluation being a characteristic that can define effective organizations from ineffective organizations, I very much want to get inside of wherein lies that difference, so I can ensure I’m on the effective side.