Introduction

Question 1

What is the central question of the book?

Answer 1

The role media can play in addressing (or exacerbating) poverty and inequality as the processes of mediatisation and globalization increasingly transform the ways in which we live our lives.

Question 2

What are the examples that illustrate the role of media in international development?

Answer 2

Mobilizing power of social media in Arab Spring, images of starving children used for fund-raising, soap-operas design to prompt social chance, the training of journalists in fragile states, campaigns for freedom of information laws, foreign news coverage of humanitarian crisis and participatory video projects.

Question 3

What are the field of communication in this book?

Answer 3

Communication for development (C4D), media development and media representations of development. It also begins to identify some of the lessons we can learn from a closer integration of these three fields.

Question 4

What is communication for development (C4D)?

Answer 4

Social process based on dialogue using a broad range of tools and methods. It is also about seeking change at different levels, including listening, building trust, sharing knowledge and skills, building policies, debating and learning for sustained and meaningful change. It is not public relations or corporate communication. It was defined in 2006 at the Rome Consensus from the World Congress on Communication for Development.

Question 5

What is the main reason for the slow progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)?

Answer 5

Failure to recognise that open, inclusive, participatory communication and information processes are prerequisites for successful, sustainable development.

Question 6

How does Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron define communication?

Answer 6

Until very recently the fifth wheel in the car of development.

Question 7

What is the primary explanation for the relative lack of attention given to the field of C4D?

Answer 7

The difficulty of attributing development outcomes directly to media. This problem is compounded by the lingering perception in some contexts that media are somehow peripheral, or at least non-essential, to the real work of development.

Question 8

What are the community efforts to highlight the potential benefits that media have for development?

Answer 8

One of the ways to turn around the marginalized status of communication in development efforts is to demonstrate the positive impacts of communication on development initiative.

Question 9

How this approach may have unintended consequences?

Answer 9

Presenting media, and particularly information and communication technologies (ICT), as a magic bullet for development has also become a key feature of the discourse of many corporations involved in projects which draw attention away from the structural causes of poverty and inequality, in which they could be implicated.

Question 10

Why new communication technologies and media in general are not a panacea for development?

Answer 10

They cannot bring about development by themselves and they can even contribute to the exacerbation of inequalities. If raising the profile of media in development is achieved at the expense of cultivating a critical understanding of the role of media, then it is a dangerous agenda which may serve more than just the interest of the C4D community.

Question 11

What is media for development?

Answer 11

Media are seen as instruments for changing individuals’ norms and behaviours. Refers to in-country and donor-led initiatives designed to develop the media sector within a specific region or country.

Question 12

What does efforts includes?

Answer 12

Promoting independence, plurality, professionalism, capacity, an enabling environment, economic sustainability and media literacy.

Question 13

What is the distinction between media development and C4D?

Answer 13

The focus in media development is on developing the media, rather than on using media as a mechanism for achieving other development outcomes. Despite some progress in recent years, the field of media development still remains in its infancy, particularly compared to C4D.

Question 14

Why despite some progress in recent years, the field of media development still remains in its infancy, particularly compared to C4D?

Answer 14

Dominant C4D theories and discourses treat issues relating to media development – including the role of the media in democracy and good governance – either as a footnote or overlook them entirely. Indeed, it is estimated that USAID spends four times more on C4D-related projects than it does on media development.

Question 15

How is described spending in the area of C4D?

Answer 15

Haphazard, random, poorly coordinated with broader reforms and rarely led by the countries that are receiving the assistance. Most international donors do not recognize media development as a development sector in its own right.

Question 16

What are the media representations of development?

Answer 16

The study of media representations of development is concerned with the content, causes and consequences of media representations of both development and the global South, as they are communicated to audiences in the global North. This includes everything from humanitarian appeals and international news coverage, to novels, feature films and reality television programmes set in foreign countries.

Question 17

Why is this subject largely regarded as peripheral to the real work of development?

Answer 17

This marginalization persists in spite of the fact that arguments linking representations of development to development itself are compelling. The literature from both media studies and development studies contends that media coverage is heavily implicated in public perceptions of development and the global South and that this in turn has real-world consequences – for ethical consumerism, public policy, charitable donations and support for NGOs, among other things. It also highlights the way in which the appearance of the global South – which is itself another significant element of politics of development.

Question 18

What is the understanding of development within the field of C4D?

Answer 18

Shift between a narrow focus on targeted, measurable change in audience knowledge, attitude and practice (brought about by external change agent), to change that is unpredictable and driven by people themselves.

Question 19

What is the understanding of the role of media?

Answer 19

Shift from their being seen as instruments for delivering messages to being seen as a means of facilitating two-way, horizontal dialogue.

Question 20

What is the understanding of the field of media development?

Answer 20

The media are understood more as an institution, acting upon and in concert with many other institution in society. In this approach, the media are implicated, not necessarily in individual behaviour change or collective empowerment, but in aspects of democracy, good governance and economic growth.

Question 21

What is the understanding the media representations of development?

Answer 21

Their contribution either to public support for the activities of development actors based in the global North or to the circulation of discourses and how this contributes to global relations of power.

Question 22

What are the meanings of development?

Answer 22

Can stretch from a concern for modernization and/or economic growth to an expansion in freedoms and efforts to promote well-being in the name of development interventions have also been accused of actively exacerbating poverty and inequality.

Question 23

What is a central claim of post-development literature?

Answer 23

Process of modernity, in particular industrialisation, urbanisation and the weakening of communal ties, have led to massive increase in new forms of poverty that have been worsened by schemes of development such as poverty reduction strategies.

Question 24

What is media’s contribution to development?

Answer 24

Media’s contribution to development is not only multifaceted, it may not always been a good thing. Even if media can make positive contributions to development, this is not necessarily the same as reducing levels of poverty and inequality.