What is it about?
Local media play a key role in ensuring that people remain informed about the issues that affect their lives in the areas where they live. In Global South countries, local audiences are often poorly served, often because media struggle to find the resources to stay alive. The article develops a taxonomy of "models" - the relationships that arise around different dominant sources of revenue: commercial, patronage, state, donor and community. The models serve as analytical tools that enable better understanding of the vulnerabilities of media for marginalised communities in the Global South, where a lack of alternatives gives them disproportionately greater importance.
Featured Image
Photo by Parsing Eye on Unsplash
Why is it important?
The article offers new tools to analyze local and community media on the basis of their funding sources. The approach assists in identifying vulnerabilities to capture and other forms of powerplay. These are often greater in marginal and poor communities, which harms the ability of local media to serve their audiences' information needs. A spiral of disadvantage may result.
Perspectives
I enjoyed developing the approach outlined in the article, as I feel that the dynamics about information and disadvantage are poorly understood. At the same time, it was interesting to see how patterns across many different countries may be similar. The relationship between marginalization and information seems to me such an important topic, which impacts directly on people's rights. And the specific circumstances of "news deserts" in the Global South need much better understanding.
Franz Krüger
University of the Witwatersrand
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Strings attached: Sustainability and dependence in five models of local and community media, Journal of Alternative & Community Media, November 2022, Intellect,
DOI: 10.1386/jacm_00111_1.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
