Media Coalitions for Change: Assessment of the State of African Media Coalitions, Networks, and Programmes in East, West, and Southern Africa in Support of Media's Role in Democracy

"Effective media coalitions are needed now more than ever, and new and innovative approaches are needed for coalition-building."

This report, published by International Media Support (IMS), shares the findings of research to assess the state of media coalitions and networks in east, southern, and west Africa. Part of the IMS's Media for Coalitions Change (MC4C) project, the research investigates the effectiveness and advocacy agendas of coalitions in an effort to identify opportunities and innovative approaches that can strengthen coalitions to support the role of media in democracy and human rights on the continent. In particular, it looks at the role of coalitions in advocating for issues related to media freedom and technology, public interest media, and governance and the media.

The IMS defines a coalition as a "temporary alliance of different actors with a variety of interests and affiliations looking to achieve common goals through collective action and advocacy." The IMS believes that "supporting the development of public interest media involves intersected and complex matters beyond normative issues of journalism. The news media now operates in a complex ecosystem shaped by digital technologies and the ever-expanding communication ecology, where non-journalist actors are also playing a part. Digital technologies have accelerated changes in media production and consumption and introduced new actors into the communication ecosystem. These changes are taking place at a time when the continent is experiencing increasing political unrest, still grappling with poverty and faced with climate change. These challenges are accompanied by constrained citizen engagement and free expression, especially among variously marginalised and socially excluded groups. Public interest media however can amplify the voices of marginalised and underrepresented groups, drawing attention to their concerns and fostering social justice. This can contribute to reducing inequality and promoting inclusivity and ultimately strengthening participatory democracy and promoting effective public service delivery."

The assessment focused on the following 15 countries in East, West, and Southern Africa: Angola, Burkina Faso, Eswatini, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The study was conducted from July to December 2023, with data collection taking place from July 25 to August 31. Data were collected through interviews and focus group discussions and were complemented with a desk review of literature. Three sub-regional consultation meetings and a regional validation workshop were held in Dar es Salaam, Ouagadougou, and Cape Town. The meetings were held to discuss preliminary findings emerging from fieldwork in the selected countries and also served as platforms for further data collection.

Building on previous IMS and other research on media coalitions and emerging recommendations, the assessment adopts a thematic approach to identify advocacy priorities and strategies in three areas:

 

1. Net freedoms and public interest technology: This theme explores how coalitions can effectively engage in and influence issues related to the impact on media freedom, democracy, and human rights of technology - in particular, internet access and inclusion, internet governance, digital rights, artificial intelligence, and mis- and disinformation.
2. Media and public interest: This theme explores issues of how coalitions engage with and influence how the media and social media act as platforms for addressing and solving critical public interest issues such as climate change through formats such as but not limited to investigative journalism, as well as how journalism can engage relevant audiences and regain trust and purpose in the era of mis- and disinformation.
3. Media and governance: This theme explores issues related to media capture, media regulation, safety of journalists, and the media's function within political processes such as elections, with particular interest on how these issues affect the media's performance.

The study first looks generally at the history and state of media coalitions in the three regions in Africa and then outlines how coalitions are working towards achieving advocacy outcomes related to the three themes mentioned above. This examination is followed by an investigation into the specific strategies used to build coalitions and advocate on issues. The findings reveal the following, as outlined in the Executive Summary: 

State of media coalitions (summary findings here are from across the three sub-regions, but findings from individual regions are also included in the report)
 

• The state of media coalitions varies across the three regions covered in this study - that is, east, west, and southern Africa - and the political and socio-economic conditions of countries determine the nature and longevity of media coalitions in complex and contradictory ways.
• Though some journalists' associations or media advocacy organisations have been considered coalitions, they are not in the conventional sense. A few key media "coalitions" in the three sub-regions are either groupings of different organisations or registered non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with a variety of member organisations.
• Well-functioning media coalitions are rare.
• Most media coalitions lack both diversity and inclusivity. There are gender disparities, and youth are underrepresented and poorly integrated.
• Traditional and long-standing rights-based coalitions do not advocate for concerns relating to media freedom and freedom of expression. They often view these issues as distinct from other human rights concerns, such as right to health and education.

Coalition building in public interest technology and net freedoms, public interest journalism, and media and governance
 

• A variety of players are actively advocating for media freedom and freedom of expression, but coalition building is weak. Effective lobbying efforts on key issues pertaining to media freedom are primarily carried out by well-funded NGOs and think tanks like ARTICLE 19, Media Foundation for West Africa, the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), and these organisations occasionally collaborate with other local NGOs or operate independently. Local media coalitions often operate in the shadows of these organisations.
• In the areas of net freedoms and public interest journalism, coalition-building is notably weak, but, by comparison, it is strong around media and governance. Most media coalitions, networks, and journalists' associations are preoccupied with fighting for basic rights such as freedom of expression, access to information, and media regulatory independence.
• Advocacy on digital rights and net freedoms is limited to a few issues such as misinformation/disinformation and internet shutdowns, but advocacy strategies on these are inadequate.
• There seems to be a limited understanding by coalitions and advocacy organisations of the complex nature of information disorders and internet shutdowns. Media coalitions address these issues mainly during elections but do not seem to have a holistic strategy. In terms of public interest journalism, the focus for most media coalitions is on investigative journalism, while other aspects such as media diversity, inclusive media, and media viability are neglected.
• There are limited multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral coalitions that advocate for media freedom. When media coalitions and civil society organisations (CSOs) collaborate, the collaboration is frequently spontaneous and transitory.
• In a time when artificial intelligence (AI) and other cutting-edge technologies affect practically every aspect of the media and communications ecosystem, innovative and impactful coalition-building strategies are needed to respond to this, but there seem to be no effective strategies for how media coalitions can best establish relationships with non-traditional partners (e.g., the business community, actors in the tech space) and regional coalitions.

Analysis of coalition-building and advocacy strategies
 

• Internal factors that have been useful for coalition-building include shared vision, cross-sector collaboration, resources (grant and non-grant), and partnership with regional and global partners.
• Political opportunities, such as political threats, which appear to have a strong facilitative effect on media as they offer incentives to collaborate, and the identification of sympathetic political elites who can help advance the coalition's agenda are examples of external factors that promote successful coalition building.
• Advocacy seems to be reactive rather proactive: Advocacy frequently emerges as a reaction to specific events or concerns or as a response to a perceived need for change. 
• There are overlapping functions between organisations and coalitions that negatively impact coalition building.
• Advocacy approaches followed by most media coalitions in the three sub-regions are the legalistic and policy advocacy approaches. As such, there has been limited community and public engagement and grassroots mobilisation. The choice of advocacy approach has influenced the selection of specific advocacy strategies.
• Advocacy strategies most used by media coalitions include lobbying, media advocacy, grassroots mobilisation, protests, policy research, and analysis. Less-used strategies include public engagement, fact-finding forums, policy monitoring and accountability, negotiations, public campaigns, and protests.

Based on the findings, the report outlines recommendations for funders and international NGOs, media coalitions and for IMS. In brief, they are: 

Funders and international NGOs
 

• Promote and develop cross-sector and multistakeholder coalitions and networks.
• Facilitate exchange of information, skills, experience, materials, and opportunities for collaboration.
• Support youth-oriented coalitions.
• Support the development of leadership skills and capacities of media coalitions.
• Capacitate media coalitions to advocate for digital rights.
• Capacitate media coalitions in technology governance.
• Build a programme for promoting journalism as a public good.
• Capacitate media coalitions to tackle emerging governance issues in the media space.

Media coalitions
 

• Leverage intellectual resources of regional and global advocacy organisations.
• Build partnerships with global coalitions.
• Build intersectoral collaborations on net freedoms and public interest technology.
• Promote advocacy journalism.
• Work with established continental bodies.
• Promote local journalism.
• Empower digital start-ups that focus on public interest journalism.
• Scale up advocacy on the safety of journalists.

IMS
 

• Design a coalition-building multi-year resourcing strategy.
• Create an effective and detailed Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) system for coalition-building in the MC4C project.