Statebuilding Missions and Media Development: A Context-Sensitive Approach by Kerstin Tomiak

Author:Kerstin Tomiak [Tomiak, Kerstin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Media & Internet, Africa, Peace, Political Science, Political Process, History, Security (National & International), General
ISBN: 9781000432718
Google: B8E1EAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 57346542
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-08-26T14:05:01+00:00

Miraya, as indicated earlier, is ‘owned and run by UNMISS’ (ibid.). It was started in Khartoum in 2005 as part of the UN’s mission in Sudan. It then aimed to support the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the civil war in the country. With the South’s independence in 2011 and the creation of United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Miraya was relocated to Juba. Internally, it is believed that Miraya’s broadcasting needs to be in line with the UNMISS’ public relations department, supporting UNMISS’ view.5 Dependency on and links to an institution, be it a government or an international organization, are not features of an independent media. Radio Miraya is not independent but has an institutional affiliation. The same can be said about other iNGO-run or donor-funded media. The iNGO Internews runs Eye Radio, and through Internews and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), it is financed by the United States government. The US government also finances the Voice of America (VOA) in South Sudan, whose parent the VOA has blatantly been named a propaganda tool (Uttaro, 1982). Moreover, the Deutsche Welle, the German government’s foreign broadcast, whose media development agency Deutsche Welle Akademie has run several projects in South Sudan, is funded through taxes, as stated on the Deutsche Welle’s website (Deutsche Welle, 2019), a clear indication of its affiliation with and dependence on the German state.

With all these connections, the media system in South Sudan can be classified as a developmental media system, which is also named a Third World media system, because it is most often found in the global South. Here, ‘the media become an outlet for some type of government propaganda but in the name of economic and social progress for the country’ (Biagi, 2007: 340). The development system has been described as an ‘amorphous and curious mixture of ideas, rhetoric, influences, and grievances’ (Hachten, 1987: 30). Its idea is the use of media for social and national growth and as an aid in the task of development; it was adopted by various leaders on the African continent and ‘adjusted to their system of governance, be it military, autocratic, one-party democracy or multiparty style’ (Skjerdal, 2011: 58).

Although at the beginning popular and widely used, the development system and concept of development journalism was early on also contested and subject of heated debates. For example, Freedom House, a US-based NGO that advocates for democracy and human rights including freedom of speech, accused the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) early for its support of development journalism (Ogan, 1980), and this is just one example for the concern and critic the concept evoked with ‘this alternative approach to journalism often [being] criticized as counterproductive to the objective norm of journalism and at times for being propagandist’ (Chattopadhyay, 2019: 1). The critique of the concept mostly centres around development journalism’s connection to government control – although with the aim to support development and hence for the good of the people.

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