Researching media education in Bolivia, running face first into walls

Well, my researching prowess is being tested. I’m doing an assessment to get a sense for where the needs and challenges are in journalism education in Bolivia, and seeing how Evo Morales fits into all of this. Or, maybe I should say, I’m what Sartre would describe me as if Sartre were to explain my being a researcher researching media in Bolivia–a being in the act of being a researcher of Bolivian media education. It’s not that I am not a researcher of Bolivian media education, it is that I am not necessarily one. Make sense?

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.

2009: A retrospective on my year of media development adventures

2009 was a banner year for me in terms of media development. It was not by any means my starting point in media, but it could go down as year in which my work achieved lift off. But all was done in the name of helping people spread information, express themselves, and/or strengthen their networks with other people to promote change. So, I thought I’d take a look back at my year in media development, get it all together in one place, take stock, establish something to compare 2010 to, reminisce a little.

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.

Free Expression, mobile communications, and journalism training – A couple of weeks in the life

Well, it’s been a vibrant and boisterous couple of weeks in Lake Media Development, my hometown. I’ve been busy with a wide range of topics for a wide range of reasons. Just like the McPoyles like it. I’ve long taken the view that expression and development issues are so entwined and intermingled that any truly effective solution to them requires an expansive and comprehensive understanding of them. So, any chance I get to dig deep into new facets is more than welcome. This is the stuff that I live and breath.

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.

Rethinking “Sustainability” in International Media Development

As an international media developer, I am frequently bombarded with concerns regarding sustainability and evaluation. Media development, particularly journalism development, is a very tricky field to create project sustainability, and an even trickier field to evaluate using the tools of the day.

The difficulty with journalism development sustainability is that journalistic outlets – newspapers, magazines, radio, etc. – face a whole slew of economic, social, and political barriers, including limited advertising revenue due to an undeveloped marketplace, a culture unused to how such outlets operate in a marketplace, cultures that distrust information openness, governments with a history of censorship, the list goes on. There are a lot of forces working against them, and few if any working for.

MediaNext: Facebook Pages for Journalists and NGOs in Ukraine

During my training on Facebook in Ukraine, figuring out how to use the Translations application on Facebook to translate Facebook to Ukrainian and Russian opened up the possibility of training Facebook Pages. Of course, about a week later, I discovered that Facebook had simplified the process by putting a link in the lower left corner of every page that can easily be clicked to switch languages, saving a lot of explanation time. The funny thing about all of these Web 2.0 sites is that they upgrade without being too loud about it. There’s a lot of serendipity to working with them.

I really became a fan of Facebook Pages during this training, when I saw how much they could do for journalists and NGOs that just isn’t that easy to do elsewhere. I came to understand just how extraordinary they are as a marketing and communication tool. And in the context of Ukraine, it was clear that they presented a paradigm shift in how journalists and NGOs relate to the internet. Here’s essentially what I trained:

MediaNext: Facebook and Social Networking – Training Links I Used in Ukraine

Here are the links I used during my MediaNext training seminars on Facebook, Vkontakte, and Social Networking for Ukrainian journalists and NGOs in June and July. You will find examples of how these tools are being used by journalists and NGOs (case studies, if you will), links to articles with statistics and trends in these tools, and other misc. links backing up with at I was training. You will also find at the bottom a section of “helpful links” and one on “Facebook Tips”. I was working with co-trainers, so these aren’t all of the links we used in our seminars. But, this gives you a good base.

Three other things to note:

1. Languages – You will see that some of this is occasionally in Ukrainian or Russian. In those instances, I tried to provide an English translation to make it easier to read for non-speakers. In some cases, I have used Google Translate to translate into Ukrainian. Be careful with these, because occasionally the translations are a bit funny. However, they are close enough to be informative. Also, ideally I would have a Russian version, Ukrainian version, AND an English version. But, time is finite.
2. Downloadable Version – I have also created a downloadable PDF version that might be a useful alternative for you. Please let me know if you have troubles with this, and I could post a different version.

I hope these links below will prove useful for you. I tried to stay current, using links and info only from 2008 and on. I’d love to hear any thoughts, questions, or feedback on any of this. Enjoy!

MediaNext: Twitter – Training Links I Used in Ukraine

Here are the links I used during my MediaNext training seminars on Twitter for Ukrainian journalists and NGOs in June and July. You will find examples of how these tools are being used by journalists and NGOs (case studies, if you will), links to articles with statistics and trends in these tools, and other misc. links backing up with at I was training. You will also find at the bottom a section of “helpful links” and one on “Twitter tips”. I was working with co-trainers, so these aren’t all of the links we used in our seminars. But, this gives you a good base.

Three other things to note:

1. Languages – You will see that some of this is occasionally in Ukrainian or Russian. In those instances, I tried to provide an English translation to make it easier to read for non-speakers. In some cases, I have used Google Translate to translate into Ukrainian. Be careful with these, because occasionally the translations are a bit funny. However, they are close enough to be informative. Also, ideally I would have a Russian version, Ukrainian version, AND an English version. But, time is finite.
2. Downloadable Version – I have also created a downloadable PDF version that might be a useful alternative for you. Please let me know if you have troubles with this, and I could post a different version.

I hope these links below will prove useful for you. I tried to stay current, using links and info only from 2008 and on. I’d love to hear any thoughts, questions, or feedback on any of this. Enjoy!

MediaNext: YouTube and Video – Training Links I Used in Ukraine

Here are the links I used during my MediaNext training seminars on YouTube and Video for Ukrainian journalists and NGOs in June and July. You will find examples of how these tools are being used by journalists and NGOs (case studies, if you will), links to articles with statistics and trends in these tools, and other misc. links backing up with at I was training. You will also find at the bottom a section of “helpful links”. I was working with co-trainers, so these aren’t all of the links we used in our seminars. But, this gives you a good base.

Three other things to note:

1. Languages – You will see that some of this is occasionally in Ukrainian or Russian. In those instances, I tried to provide an English translation to make it easier to read for non-speakers.
2. Downloadable Version – I have also created a downloadable PDF version that might be a useful alternative for you. Please let me know if you have troubles with this, and I could post a different version.

I hope these links below will prove useful for you. I tried to stay current, using links and info only from 2008 and on. I’d love to hear any thoughts, questions, or feedback on any of this. Enjoy!

There Will be Ink: A Study of Journalism Training and the Extractive Industries in Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda

Recently, we published a new study on Initiative for Policy Dialogue‘s site called “There Will be Ink: A Study of Journalism Training and the Extractive Industries in Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda“.

The backstory is this. I spent the last year at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs researching extractive industry journalism (oil, gas, mining) in Nigeria, working closely with Acting Director of International Media, Advocacy, and Communications Specialization, Anya Schiffrin. As part of this research, I spoke with Nigerian journalists and experts on media and development in Nigeria. These interviews focused on the challenges journalists face in covering oil and monitoring government revenues from this industry, and what is needed to overcome these challenges. Of course, this is an extremely important issue in Nigeria, given that oil revenues comprise the lion’s share of government income, and therefore play an important role in paying for government expenditure on infrastructure and services. And, Nigerian oil is rife with corruption, secrecy, and violence. The effect is that the money from this resource often goes into the pockets of the privileged and the powerful, rather than funding development that could overcome rampant poverty in Africa’s most populous. When people talk about countries experiencing a resource curse, Nigeria is very much drinking martinis at that party.

MediaNext: Training Online Social Networking in Ukraine, Americanskiy Style

This is how social networking is really done.

Teaching social networking in Ukraine is a fascinating experiment in “how can an American, with a rather different concept of social networking from Ukrainians, explain this concept and the tools to be used with it in a useful way for these trainees, and not offend anyone in the process?” 

The main tools for our social-networking session were Vkontakte and Facebook (not excluding all the other tools that qualify as “social networking”, like LiveJournal, YouTube, Podfm.ru, all things Yandex. However, before we got into the tools, it was important to explain social networking. After all, the tools aren’t the end, they are the means to the end. 

So what was the end in the case of this session? First, to help them understand the basic principles of social networking, and connect them to these tools. Second, to help people understand how social networking will help them as journalists, media activists, and NGO strategists. Third, to confuse people, and offend them, as little as possible with my “American” perspective of America, and more importantly, Ukraine.