Contradictions in U.S. International Media Development Efforts and the Agenda for Critical Research

• In Event: Development Assistance and Independent Journalism: A Research Network Discussion

Abstract

Long-implicit in US foreign policy has been the contradiction of a mandate for encouraging media ‘freedom’ and plurality, accompanied by massive support for media sectors which conform closely to narrowly-conceived US commercial and strategic interests. US and British conceptions of journalism have underpinned efforts of media development organisations and been tied to conditional international aid. The author’s research has previously addressed negative consequences of US interventions in media policy and journalism in South Africa (in 1994) and in post-war Iraq (in 2011). This paper argues that violent and coercive US opposition to a diversity of journalistic voices following the 2003 invasion of Iraq is one justification for a critical reconsideration of the impacts of development assistance on (and for) journalism. This paper concludes by outlining an international and interdisciplinary research programme, funded by a UK research council, which is designed to investigate the relationship between development assistance and independent journalism.

Author

• Chris Paterson, U of Leeds