BBC Media Action - 2019
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This document summarizes BBC Media Action's work developing media in complex environments in Algeria, Libya, and Iraq. In Algeria, they are supporting public service broadcasting and conducted audience research finding that audiences want more locally relevant and representative content. In Iraq, their work aims to improve social cohesion and their research found audiences want impartial news. In Libya, their Facebook page became very popular but they want more accurate data on the media landscape, which a survey provided, finding audiences desire neutral and credible sources.
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BBC Media Action - 2019
- 1. February 2019 Developing media in complex environments: Algeria, Libya and Iraq
- 2. BBC Media Action ► BBC’s international development charity ► Media and communication: informing and empowering to transform lives ► Reaching over 200 million people through over 100 local partners Governance and Rights Health Resilience and Humanitarian Response
- 4. Audiences are at the heart of everything we do
- 5. Research in a changing and complex world
- 6. February 2019 Developing media in complex environments: Algeria, Libya and Iraq
- 7. Algeria: Context BBC Media Action supporting transition of state media institutions to a Public Service Broadcasting remit Restricted media and research environment Lack of audience data Lack of research agencies
- 8. Algeria: Research environment Aim to develop relationship with nationally based research institution ► Permission to conduct research in Algeria ► Tendering process and selection ► Balancing relationship (‘client’ vs ‘partner’) ► Development of our first audience- facing research in Algeria ► Nationally representative household survey (n=3010)
- 9. Algeria: Media landscape Key results: ► Increasing importance of the online space – especially for young audiences ► Facebook, YouTube and Instagram the most used social media for sharing content ► While trust in social media content is low, people recognise it provides a range of different opinions ► Audiences want content that is more relevant to their lives, focusses more on solutions to problems and is more representative of Algerian society ► Young people and women want more programmes that are relevant to them, in formats that they enjoy
- 10. Algeria: Dissemination and uptake of research Dissemination and up-take of research ► Sensitivity of criticism of state institutions ► Dissemination event ► Data portal ► Guidance to media partners on use of key insights
- 11. Algeria: Piloting and pre-testing content Pilot development and pre- testing of content ► Media partners developing youth-focused pilot programmes based in research insights ► Research to pre-test pilot concepts with target audiences ► Scale-up of successful programmes in next year’s project ► Now have the first programmes designed to meet audience (development) needs in Algeria
- 12. February 2019 Developing media in complex environments: Algeria, Libya and Iraq
- 13. Iraq: context BBC Media Action working to improve social cohesion through: ► Enabling and supporting a constructive dialogue between government and citizens, improving government accountability ► Countering rumours and and improving the flow of accurate information through cross- community media BBC Media Action works with two partners in Iraq: Al Mirbad and Nawa (Arabic and Kurdish)
- 14. 1 2 3.1 Spring 2018 Summer 2018 Winter 2018/19 DUHOK, ERBIL, SULEIMANIYA Face-to-face quantitative and qualitative research December – January 2018 Media consumption and evaluating impact of Radio Nawa Kurdish NINEWA, SALAHUDDIN, ANBAR Face-to-face quantitative research March – April 2018 Media consumption and evaluating impact of Radio Nawa Arabic BASRA, NAJAF, KARBALA, MUTHANNA Face-to-face quantitative research July – August 2018 Media consumption and evaluating impact of Al Mirbad radio and online BAGHDAD Face-to-face quantitative research March – April 2018 Comparison with north/west covering Radio Nawa Arabic KIRKUK, DIYALA Face-to-face qualitative research January 2018 Media consumption and evaluating impact of Radio Nawa Kurdish 3.2
- 15. Results: North/West and Baghdad PROFILE AND CHARACTERISTICS Largely Sunni provinces, Baghdad mixed Shia and Sunni TIMING OF RESEARCH Aftermath of IS occupation, but many areas still ravaged and large parts of population displaced FINDINGS Numerous media outlets consulted to verify news Greater consumption of media associated with other groups, but distrust remains Local content important, top consideration when choosing media source is professionalism and credibility
- 16. Results: South PROFILE AND CHARACTERISTICS Predominantly Shia areas TIMING OF RESEARCH Immediately after controversial elections and during protests in Basra over lack of jobs and public services FINDINGS Better online connectivity but media consumption is opportunistic and content-driven Top consideration in media choice is that it is not sectarian, growing resistance to partisan messages Political satire influential, especially when home- grown
- 17. Results: Kurdish Region PROFILE AND CHARACTERISTICS Kurdish populations in KRI and mixed population areas TIMING OF RESEARCH Just over a year on from the referendum for independence FINDINGS Media landscape is recognised and accepted as very partisan, yet trust driven by other factors Kurdish identity is key, but lack of Kurdish content Users of independent, impartial media demonstrate greater expectations of government accountability
- 18. Iraq: implications of research ► Care must be taken when supporting media serving particular communities, but need to be conscious of the role of identity ► Complex information pathways and more savvy audiences mean multi- platform media outlets will fare better ► Shorter, more engaging creative content needed to capture attention and get message across
- 19. Libya: Context BBC Media Action’s work in Libya ► Used to be based in Tripoli supporting local media, but had to evacuate in 2011 ► Revised our approach to work to be online focused, addressing the lack of reliable information ► Creation of El Kul (‘For Everyone’) – a youth-focused Facebook page providing information and covering issues of relevance to young people ► Grew to be one of top 5 most popular Facebook pages in Libya ► However project approach based on a lot of assumptions about the media environment
- 20. Libya: Research environment Research approach has evolved over time ► Research on the ground very challenging ► Use of small scale online/remote methods (e.g. online panel studies, Skype interviews) and ‘diaspora’ research ► Content analysis, network analysis, sentiment analysis of El Kul content (posts, likes, comments etc.) ► Nationally representative (n=3010) telephone survey on the media landscape in 2018 – most accurate data on media landscape for several years
- 21. Libya: Media environment Key results from media landscape survey: ► Most young people use Facebook everyday – social media is seen as more engaging than other forms of media ► Use of the internet and social media to access news is common across all age groups (including young people). For younger Libyans, Facebook is now the first place they look for information on important news events ► Trust in information sources is very low, however among younger Libyans trust in information online is now higher than for traditional media ► Libyans put a very high importance on the reputation of a media source, the credibility of journalists and how ‘neutral’ the source is ► When asked what they would most like from the media in future, the most common response across all age groups and gender was accurate and impartial news/information
- 22. Libya: Innovation in online research methods Research innovation - use of AI and machine learning on big data ► Looking to further refine our editorial proposition for the El Kul page – make it more appealing and engaging to different youth audiences Research to: ► Understand content that target audiences are consuming across different socials, search history etc. ► Ranking what drives engagement by different aspects (e.g. tone, type of content, language), including for news content ► Creation of ideal content profiles for different audience segments/pscho-graphics ► Testing our own El Kul content against these criteria, at scale with target audiences
- 23. Going forward ► More research on media habits, usage, engagement and impact of our projects – especially online and digital platforms ► To continue to collect data in challenging environments capacity strengthen of local researchers is key to our approach ► A priority is ensuring more of our media landscape data is available for practitioners
Editor's Notes
- Introductions of each member of the team We are researchers from BBC Media Action here to talk about conducting research in challenging environments where we are aim to use our research insights to support media development projects.
- Just to tell you a bit about who we are and what we do BBC Media Action is the BBC’s international development charity – we use the power of media and communication to inform, connect and empower people across the world. We implement media and communication projects in order to support three key outcomes– in governance, health and resilience and humanitarian response Our international HQ is in London but our projects are implemented through our country offices throughout Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Founded in 1999, we grew out of the BBC’s World Service but we are not an independent entity, funded through a variety of international donors. Our projects reach people at scale – over 200 million across the world – but how and why?
- As am sure everyone knows the role of media is changing. In many countries where we work the rapid spread of access to radio, TV, mobile and the internet means that people know more about what is going on in their region and country than ever before. However while more people have both the means and right to access information, the increase in information sources and fragmentation of media means that it is often increasingly difficult to identify the neutral public space where societies can understand that information, work through the problems they face and hold the powerful accountable for their actions. Without a shared acceptance of what is fundamentally true, societies can be undermined, as can people’s efforts to live healthy lives and secure their livelihoods. This means that the work of BBC Media Action, in many of our projects means creating programmes which will help inform people, spark discussion and or seek to change attitudes. This could be the creation of a question time style debate programme in the Middle East to help people feel informed and empowered to question decision makers and leaders or could be a radio drama – like this one produced for people living in Syria – to help people feel connected across the divides of conflict and informed about other peoples lives. The other key strand of our work is strengthen the capacity of local and national media organisations and systems to ensure that media organisations are better able provide more trusted, inclusive and independent programming. This could be working with state media, independent media or individual journalists or citizen journalists – building their capacity in production, editorial, technical and managerial skills in order to better serve their audiences. For example, this could be through training and mentoring and in many cases co production of programmes – such as this on in Myanmar – where we worked with the state broadcaster to help train journalists and produce their first ever programme which directly questioned MPs about their decisions and action.
- So why are we here as researchers talking to you about this? At BBC Media Action, audiences are at the heart of everything we do. This means, in order to ensure any project is effective we need to clearly understand the audiences we – and our partners – serve. This means understanding their needs, values, priorities, what they know think or discuss about a certain issue – and always means talking to them about their media access, habits, information sources. Using a range of mixed methods including nationally representative surveys, focus groups, interviews, observations and many others – we do research across our project lifecycle – to inform the project, monitor it and at the end – measure and understand if it made a difference to people lives – did they feel more informed about politics in their country? Did they feel better equipped to make decisions around their health? Did they feel more empowered to ask questions or their leaders? We have local research teams in the majority of countries in which we work – who we support from London.
- In the current climate, where media usage patterns are shifting fast, it is important to have up to date information of how people use media and make decisions around the content they view. This year, we have conducted 12 surveys to understand media landscapes, this includes in challenging environments such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and South Sudan. These surveys looked at media consumptions habits and decision making around how people chose the content they use. Results varied by context – and it wasn’t all about understanding change - in South Sudan, media consumption patterns had not changed significantly in four years – radio only increased from 52% in 2014 to 57% in 2018. Internet is still only at 15%. As I said, one key area of our work is to strengthen local media organizations so they can produce output which helps people engage more in society. A key element of this work is to provide media practitioners with a strong understanding of their audience by conducting research and using the insights to develop effective communication. So I am now going to handover to Alasdair and Suzanne who are going to take us through three case studies which explore some of these issues – how media is changing in complex contexts, how research is conducted, and how research is used and taken up in order to shape our projects and support our media partners in Algeria, Iraq and Libya respectively. 1) Iraq: How views of media have been changing, and where political satire has been successful in engaging audiences 2) Algeria: In a country that has been sceptical of media data, we have conducted an audience survey that has helped media practitioners develop new content. 3) Libya: Online analytics and a national media survey is helping to shape an online news platform which aims to deliver balanced and impartial news to young Libyans.
- Introductions of each member of the team We are researchers from BBC Media Action here to talk about conducting research in challenging environments where we are aim to use our research insights to support media development projects.
- MRS Accreditation and implement the MRS Certificate in Qualitative Interviewing within the South Sudan Division of BBC Media Action.