The Media and Development

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Call for papers

The Media and the MDGs: What price for not keeping them on the public and political agenda?

Wednesday 16th July 2008, 11am until 4.30pm at City University, London (Boardroom – Social Sciences Building).

 "To what extent does the media feel that its role is to move beyond disaster reporting to examining the deeper challenges behind the bad news and the possible solutions? "  (Hilary Benn, the then UK Secretary of State for International Development, 2004)

This question from Hilary Benn in 2004, the then UK Secretary of State for International Development, was part of a speech he gave to an audience of TV executives and development experts at a conference jointly organised by the DFID and the BBC World Service Trust. 

Since then Hilary Benn has been replaced twice and the MDGs seems to have dropped off the political agenda.  Does this mean that the media has been let of the hook and can continue to focus on disasters, corrupt leaders and claims of election rigging?  We think not.  Therefore the Media and Development Study Group would like to invite paper submissions for presentation at its next meeting which will focus on why media perceptions of development in Africa doesn’t seem to be changing and what can be done to amend this so that the real ‘voice of Africa’ can be heard. 

This meeting is very much aimed at those who are interested in this particular topic and will be prepared to take actions forward.

We hope that representatives from academia, the media, the African Diaspora, and the NGO community will look upon this as an opportunity to put MDGs back on the media and development agenda.

Presentations should be aim to be around 15 minutes long

The study group meeting will be structured so that 8 of presentations submitted can be made and then a further hour allowing for discussions, plus a final round up of what the group would like to see achieved, the timescale and how this could happen.

Please send your ideas for presentations through to Jazz Shaban at jazz.shaban@yahoo.co.uk

About the Group

"We create our world by the way we talk about it" (Bertrand de Jouvenal).

This group has been set up in response to the growing recognition of the need for the development research community and the media to work together. The high profile events in 2005 such as the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, the Commission for Africa Report and the UN Summit on the Millenium Development Goals, represented an ideal opportunity to engage the media as another weapon in the fight against global poverty. It is an opportunity not to be missed.

The group aims to bring together development researchers interested in engaging with the media, people from NGO media/publicity departments, journalists, television directors and reporters. This is a group that will proactively build up a network of those interested in effecting a change in the way development issues are reported, to bring about a change in the wider public's understanding and appreciation of the diversity of developing countries.

We need to start talking about developing country issues in a different way to communicate messages of hope and positive action to encourage inward investment. There needs to be a greater understanding on behalf of the public at large as to the differences between developing countries, especially the African Continent. The media has an invaluable contribution to make here. Tom Stoppard said, "Words are sacred.... if you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little" - we hope that by bringing these groups of people together we can do just that.

We hope that through these meetings we can foster a greater exchange of ideas that will lead to more informed reporting on a wider range of experiences of developing countries. We want to do this to effect positive change.

To join the group and to be kept up to date with activities and events, please contact either Frances Hill on admin@devstud.org.uk or Jazz Shaban on jazz.shaban@yahoo.co.uk 

Past meetings

“A marketing campaign for Africa - can and will the media help?”

A Joint DSA/BOND Media And Development Group Meeting
Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research, Marble Arch, London
Wednesday 27th April 2005 2 – 7.30

Rationale for this meeting

1. The Report of the Commission for Africa sums up the need for action around a meeting such as this:

"Many barriers to investment in Africa are exaggerated due to 'Afro-pessimism'. Africa often appears to be seen as one large risky country, with little understanding of its diversity - driven by negative media coverage and a lack of country-specific knowledge among investors. But the perceived investment climate is as important as the actual one and so addressing negative perceptions is an important part of encouraging investment" (para 45, p223)

2. From the ODI report summarising the discussions in response to the Commission for Africa’s consultation report, “Action for a Strong and Prosperous Africa: The Response” (December 2004):

Several contributions argued that there were some good prospects, and that it was important to advertise the attractions. Hence ‘The African continent needs a marketing campaign to raise the level of awareness of all that is positive, the success stories and where things are changing for the better. … Hilary Benn himself said on the Today Programme … that it is this positive talk that is needed in order to encourage investment’, and ‘There needs to be a strenuous campaign to persuade the populations of wealthy western countries that the welfare of Africa matters to them. I suggest that a suitable slogan for this campaign would be, “Every one of us is an African"

The notion of a marketing campaign for Africa is a controversial one, but until more positive reporting is undertaken to demonstrate the success stories, in the eyes of the public, Africa will continue to represent tragedies such as Darfur, the HIV/AIDs pandemic and Zimbabwe. There is much more to this continent of 53 countries than this but the messages are not getting through.

3. Myles Wickstead, Commission for Africa, speaking at the DSA Annual Conference in November 2004, also underpins what this meeting is about – celebrating the diversity and successes of the African continent - and sharing these with a much wider audience:

“….. we also want to be instrumental in changing peoples’ perceptions of Africa. The people in this room don’t need telling that when the media reports on Africa they tend to see it as a single entity. Everything about Africa is now coloured by what is going on in Darfur – everybody assumes that because Darfur is going wrong that everything is collapsing in Africa.

The story about this Commission and why it’s appropriate to be doing this now is that many things are beginning to go right in Africa – fewer violent conflicts, many more countries with democratically elected governments, many of the education and health indicators are improving albeit being distorted by HIV/AIDS so things we believe are moving in the right direction. This is the moment when we can capture that forward movement and working with Africa we can really stimulate a step change in Africa’s development.”

Structure of the Meeting
This meeting is very much aimed at those who are interested in this particular topic and will be prepared to take actions forward.

We hope to have speaking representatives from academia, the media, the African Diaspora, the NGO community and the investment community who will outline briefly what can be gained by such a marketing campaign, whether it is feasible and how it could be executed (1 hr)

There will then be a further hour for discussions, plus a final round up of what the group would like to see achieved, the timescale and how this could happen.

• Convenor

  Jazz Shaban, City University, jazz.shaban@yahoo.co.uk

  Frances Hill admin@devstud.org.ukPage last updated: 14th March, 2008