Launch of the "AFRICAN MEDIA AND ICT4D: Documentary Evidence"

The Economic Commission for Africa of the United Nations (ECA) and The Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA)

Launch

AFRICAN MEDIA AND ICT4D: Documentary Evidence:
A baseline study on the state of media reporting on ICT and information society issues in Africa

DATE: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2003

TIME: 9.30AM

VENUE: WSIS PRESS ROOM, ICT4D PLATFORM

This study was commissioned by ECA with support from OSIWA . Roland Stanbridge, Director of the MA in Global Journalism, Department of Media Studies, Örebro University, Sweden, conducted and co-authored the study with Maria Ljunggren, Research Assistant in the Department. Eighteen journalists and media researchers in the nine survey countries conducted the daily media monitoring over a period of two months.

Recognising that the media has a pivotal role to play in the Information Society, this study is aimed at encouraging journalism and coverage of ICTs and Information Society issues.

The African Information Society Initiative (AISI) which is Africa's regional framework for ICT4D spells out the role of the media stating:

"in addition to being an essential means for information dissemination, the mass media plays a critical role in spreading awareness in Africa of the importance and benefits of the information revolution. Newspapers, radio and television provide an easy, accessible and cheap means of carrying information to the end user. Communities in Africa do not have to wait for the Internet to receive much of the information it carries. The mass media can access many of the existing sources of information and provide broad channels of communications to the poor and to remote areas".

The preliminary findings of the study have already been presented at several media and ICT fora on the continent, including the Second Media Forum on the Information Society organised by ECA in May 2003 in Addis Ababa with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

With the WSIS process, OSIWA and ECA are optimistic that media practitioners will better inform citizens, stimulate debate and ask the right questions. Reporting on ICT4D issues will definitely gain momentum in Africa, and this will be show-cased during the second phase in 2005 to be held in Tunis, Tunisia.

For more info, contact: Aida Opoku-Mensah (aopoku-mensah@uneca.org)

[Download the Document ]