Information is the currency of democracy.
– Thomas Jefferson

Publications Archive
Research Reports

Empowering Independent Media: U.S. Efforts to Foster a Free Press and an Open Internet Around the World -- Second Edition: 2012

U.S. efforts to bolster independent media and an open Internet overseas are having significant impact but face a lack of funding, growth in online censorship and surveillance, and rising attacks on journalists. Drawing on original research as well as CIMA's past reports, Empowering Independent Media examines seven core areas of media development: funding, digital media, sustainability, media law, safety, education, and monitoring and evaluation.

Dangerous Work: Violence Against Mexico's Journalists and Lessons from Colombia

In many ways the experience of Mexico today mirrors the experience of journalists in Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s, when much of that country was a war zone and reporters and editors were being killed or driven into exile by drug traffickers, paramilitary squads, and Marxist guerrillas. Yet the response of the governments and media organizations in the two countries could hardly be more different, nor could the results. Many of the successful steps taken in Colombia could be implemented in Mexico in a relatively short time.

Digital Media in the Arab World One Year After the Revolutions

The year following the start of the Arab revolutions–in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and violent uprisings in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain–was followed by continued repression and threats to the exercise of free expression online and offline. But the year also saw great strides in the numbers of Arabs across the region turning to social media platforms and the ascendancy of online engagement. This report describes and analyzes the enabling of tens of millions of individuals to attract wide global followings with Facebook and Twitter updates and YouTube videos about rapidly changing events. 

Covering Elections: The Challenges of Training the Watchdogs

CIMA is pleased to release a new report, Covering Elections: The Challenges of Training the Watchdogs, by Rosemary Armao, a veteran journalist and journalism educator. Election training for journalists has been something of a sideline in most media development programs. Programs aimed at improving election laws, structures, and processes may include a journalism component, for example. Where specialized election coverage programs have been mounted, they have tended to be short term and timed directly before elections, with faulty recruiting of participants, little focus on skills to be imparted in the rush, and no follow-up.

An Explosion of News: The State of Media in Afghanistan

CIMA is pleased to release a new report, An Explosion of News: The State of Media in Afghanistan, by Peter Cary, a veteran journalist. Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, when there was virtually no media in Afghanistan, the country has seen an eruption of media development.

Continental Shift: New Trends in Private U.S. Funding for Media Development

CIMA is pleased to release a new report, Continental Shift: New Trends in Private U.S. Funding for Media Development, by Anne Nelson, an international media consultant. This work is an update of the October 2009 CIMA report, Experimentation and Evolution in Private U.S. Funding of Media Development by the same author. This report describes and analyzes the evolving landscape of private donor support for media development.

Media Codes of Ethics: The Difficulty of Defining Standards

Codes of Ethics incorporate best practices that may go beyond the laws of libel, defamation, and privacy. In the not-so-free world, these codes are not always the products of a self-regulating free press. They may represent a cultural and political compromise with a society or government that holds a more restrictive view of what journalists should and should not report. Media Codes of Ethics: The Difficulty of Defining Standards examines the different types of media codes of ethics and offers recommendations for making them more robust and useful in efforts to raise standards of journalism.

News on the Go: How Mobile Devices Are Changing the World's Information Ecosystem

Mobile devices now reach the farthest corners of the world. By the end of 2011, about 5 billion mobile phones will be in service in a world with 7 billion people. The implications–for politics, for education, for economies, for civil society, and for news and information–are profound. News on the Go: How Mobile Devices Are Changing the World's Information Ecosystem examines how a global information society might look with mobile media devices at its hub.

Matching the Market and the Model: The Business of Independent News Media

Matching the Market and the Model: The Business of Independent News Media, by Michelle J. Foster, a veteran international media management and marketing consultant. The report explains how lack of management skills and inexperience in developing effective business models poses a significant risk to the sustainability of independent news media. It explores a variety of different business models for media in several countries around the world and examines what lessons can be learned from those experiences.

Media and the Law: An Overview of Legal Issues and Challenges

Media and the Law: An Overview of Legal Issues and Challenges examines the different kinds of laws that affect the media and explains how they are used in many countries to influence the operations of news outlets and the information they offer. It primarily focuses on restrictive laws and legal challenges faced by journalists in developing countries, although laws in developed countries dealing with issues such as libel and terrorism are also considered.

Confronting the News: The State of Independent Media in Latin America

Confronting the News: The State of Independent Media in Latin America calls attention to the deteriorating environments for independent news media in many Latin American countries as governments across the region increasingly push for limits on the press and explores tactics used by these governments to silence the media.

Independent Media in Exile

Independent Media in Exile explores the challenges faced by journalists living in exile from countries with repressive regimes and examines the impact that their courageous reporting makes in their home countries. Drawing on the results of a survey of 36 individuals representing 33 exile media organizations from 18 countries, the report calls for increased coordination among journalists and organizations operating in exile and encourages donors and trainers to actively assist exile media. 

Funding Free Expression: Perceptions and Reality in a Changing Landscape

Funding Free Expression: Perceptions and Reality in a Changing Landscape, researched in collaboration with the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), explores shifts in funding patterns for international freedom of expression activity. It is based on a survey of 21 major donors representing a broad range of private foundations and and government and multilateral aid agencies in North America and Europe.

Voices from Villages: Community Radio in the Developing World

Voices from Villages: Community Radio in the Developing World explores the expansion of community radio in developing countries and the constraints and challenges these stations still faces. It also looks at community radio's record in terms of economic and political development and examines its real achievements against its ideals.

Iraq’s News Media After Saddam: Liberation, Repression, and Future Prospects

Iraq’s News Media After Saddam: Liberation, Repression, and Future Prospects examines the state of Iraq’s media and provides a prognosis for the future as seen through the eyes of Iraqi journalists, international media developers on the scene, and scholars who have studied the dynamics of Iraq’s nascent independent press.

Social Media in the Arab World: Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011

Social Media in the Arab World: Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011 examines the impact of digital media on freedom of expression in the Middle East prior to the 2011 protests.

Caught in the Middle: Central and Eastern European Journalism at a Crossroads

Caught in the Middle: Central and Eastern European Journalism at a Crossroads, by Ellen Hume, a veteran journalist and international media analyst and consultant, examines the state of independent news media in Central and Eastern Europe 20 years after the fall of communism.
 

By the People: The Rise of Citizen Journalism

By the People: The Rise of Citizen Journalism, by Eugene Meyer, a veteran journalist, examines both the challenges and opportunities facing citizen journalism around the world.
 

U.S. Government Funding for Media Development

U.S. Government Funding for Media Development, by Laura Mottaz, CIMA’s project coordinator, analyzes spending on media development by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The Pentagon, Information Operations, and International Media Development

This report, by Peter Cary, a veteran journalist with extensive experience reporting about the U.S. military, examines the impact of DoD information operations on international media development efforts and offers recommendations–including that the DoD leave media activities that could be considered public diplomacy to the State Department.
 

Registering Reporters: How Licensing of Journalists Threatens Independent Media

Registering Reporters: How Licensing of Journalists Threatens Independent Media, by Steven Strasser, an associate professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism, examines the impact of licensing journalists on press freedom.

Cash for Coverage: Bribery of Journalists Around the World

Cash for Coverage: Bribery of Journalists Around the World, by Bill Ristow, a journalist and international journalism trainer based in Seattle, examines the impact of bribery on the credibility of news media and offers recommendations to reduce the problem of cash for coverage.

Winds From the East: How the People's Republic of China Seeks to Influence the Media in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia

The report examines the Chinese government’s efforts to reshape much of the world’s media in its own image. These activities often result in helping authoritarian governments expand control over their local media, while working to undermine the Western model of a free and independent media.

U.S. Universities and Media Development

U.S. universities have long been partners in international media development, but in the past, universities tended to work within narrowly defined categories of media assistance, largely centered on journalism training.

Evaluating the Evaluators: Media Freedom Indexes and What They Measure

All over the world, studies that rank countries by media freedom figure prominently in civil liberties debates, aid programming, foreign policy decisions, and academic research. Evaluating the Evaluators: Media Freedom Indexes and What They Measure examines the strengths and shortcomings of existing media freedom indexes and offers recommendations to improve them.

Covering Corruption: The Difficulties of Trying to Make a Difference

The idea that a free press is linked to better, more honest government is accepted as a given, largely without direct evidence. Yet only recently have news organizations begun asking whether what they are doing is making any difference.

Shifting Sands: The Impact of Satellite TV on Media in the Arab World

This report, by Deborah Horan, a veteran journalist with extensive experience reporting from the Middle East, examines the positive effects satellite coverage has had on the media environment and the reasons why the region still lacks overall media freedom.

Broadcasting in UN Blue: The Unexamined Past and Uncertain Future of Peacekeeping Radio

This report, by Bill Orme, examines the role that peacekeeping radio stations have played in post-conflict countries and offers recommendations to help UN radio services make lasting contributions to free media.

Libel Tourism: Silencing the Press Through Transnational Legal Threats

This report by Drew Sullivan, a journalist, editor, and media development specialist, describes the legal risks that independent media worldwide face from libel and defamation suits.

Under Attack: Practicing Journalism in a Dangerous World

The report by Bill Ristow, a journalist and international journalism trainer based in Seattle, provides a clear look at the problem of violence against journalists and offers some potential solutions.

Funding for Media Development by Major Donors Outside the United States

This report, by Mary Myers, examines trends in non-U.S. donor financing of the media development and media for development sector.

Throwing the Switch: Challenges in the Conversion to Digital Broadcasting

This report explores the consequences for democracy of the worldwide conversion from analog television broadcasting to digital.

Experimentation and Evolution in Private U.S. Funding of Media Development

In this report, Anne Nelson, a former journalist now teaching at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, examines recent trends in private U.S. funding of media development projects around the world.

Digital Media in Conflict-Prone Societies

Throughout history, war has affected media, with conflict often creating an information void. In the 21st century, media has begun to affect war more than ever before.

Media Literacy: Understanding the News

This report, by Susan D. Moeller, director of the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda at the University of Maryland, explores why media literacy is crucial to many areas of development and how donors and implementers can coordinate their efforts and expand the field.

Media Literacy: Citizen Journalists

This report is the second in a series of three on the status of U.S. and international understanding of and funding for media literacy.

Media Literacy: Empowering Youth Worldwide

This report, by Paul Mihailidis, professor of journalism, media and public relations at Hofstra University, makes the case that as media become more central to the development of youth in society, funders should recognize that media literacy education for youth is an important part of democratic development.

Challenges to U.S. Government Support for Media Development

In this report, Andrew Green, principal of DG Metrics, a consultancy focusing on applied research in U.S. foreign assistance, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, assesses the U.S. government’s ability to support media development around the world.

Print and Broadcast Media Freedom: Disparities and Opening

Written by Karin Deutsch Karlekar, this report examines how the communications landscape has changed over the past decade.

Good But How Good?: Monitoring and Evaluation of Media Assistance Projects

This report by Andy Mosher discusses the importance of monitoring and evaluation in media development projects and shows that despite different approaches among practitioners, similar tools and techniques exist.

Sword and Shield: Self-Regulation and International Media

Written by Bill Ristow, this report examines the ways in which media around the world have attempted to regulate themselves.

Soft Censorship: How Governments Around the Globe Use Money to Manipulate the Media

This report, by Don Podesta, examines the use of money by governments to influence news coverage.

Empowering Independent Media: U.S. Efforts to Foster Free and Independent News Around the World

CIMA’s 2008 Inaugural Report provides an in-depth assessment of U.S. international media development efforts, both public and private, and calls on future efforts to be more long-term, comprehensive, and need-driven. The U.S., through government and private sector initiatives, spends at least $142 million annually on media development efforts in countries around the world.

Scaling a Changing Curve: Traditional Media Development and the New Media

Shanthi Kalathil, a media and development consultant, authored this report on new media.

The Role of Media-support Organizations and Public Literacy in Strengthening Independent Media Worldwide

This report by veteran media trainer and development consultant Ann Olson discusses two important topics in the media assistance field.

Independent Media’s Vital Role in Development

Written by Peter Graves, an international media consultant, this report examines the cross-sector impact of media on political, social, and economic systems worldwide.

University Journalism Education: A Global Challenge

Ellen Hume, Director of the Center on Media and Society at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, drafted this report.

Global Investigative Journalism: Strategies for Support

David E. Kaplan, an investigative journalist and media consultant, drafted this report based on a survey Kaplan conducted for CIMA.

U.S. Public and Private Funding of Independent Media Development Abroad

Authored by Peter Graves, international media consultant, and edited by Angela Stephens, CIMA senior coordinator, this report provides a snapshot of U.S. public and private funding of media development assistance across the globe.