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GFMD Tests Media Landscape Toolkit in Ghana

The GFMD toolkit for assessing media landscapes builds on existing indices, notably the Media Sustainability Index.  But instead of using panellists to give their assessment and comparing one country to another the GFMD toolkit uses as much quantitative data as possible, identifies data gaps and aims to create a baseline assessing the media landscape, which can be used to create targeted media development programmes.

The draft toolkit was prepared by the GFMD in partnership with IREX and on June 5-10, GFMD Director Bettina Peters travelled to Ghana to test the toolkit in cooperation with GFMD Member the Media Foundation for West Africa.

Initial results of the testing show some real gaps in the information available on the Ghanaian media landscape. There is no data on the media advertising market, there are few reliable figures on circulation or audience reach of media outlets and no local audience survey has been carried out.

“Our testing has identified some key areas where support for research is needed,” said Bettina Peters. “The donor community should consider investing into local market research that is publicly available. This would provide media development practitioners and donors with reliable information on which to base programmes.”

The testing of the toolkit is supported by the Center for International Media Assistance in Washington. The full report will be published in July.

Together with professor Kwame Karikari, director of the foundation, Bettina Peters reviewed all laws relating to media, identified all training institutions and journalism support organisations. In addition, assessment interviews were carried out with key media experts, including the head of the National Media Commission and several editors.

Work on the GFMD toolkit started over a year go with a review of existing indices and frameworks, including the MSI, the UNESCO framework of indicators for media development, the African Media Barometer and the Freedom House Index.  The aim of the GFMD toolkit is to give local media development NGOs the opportunity to assess their own media landscape and create baselines for project development. The toolkit, therefore, is not as extensive and labour-intensive as the UNESCO framework and uses more quantitative data than the MSI or African Media Barometer.