Great expectations have been placed on social media platforms as a panacea for the challenges facing societies worldwide. In particular, social media platforms are expected to strengthen open dialogue and public debate and to be sources of information and knowledge. They could have a revolutionary impact in the field of communication for development − provided they could demonstrate reliability, transparency, and legitimacy.
For the first three months after publication, articles from the current issue of Media Development are available for download by members and subscribers only. After that three month period, articles from all issues are freely available.
| US$40 | Individuals and subscribers worldwide |
| US$75 | Libraries and institutions in North America and Europe |
| US$50 | Libraries and institutions elsewhere in the world |
Scroll through
Media Development 2017-3 online magazine and pdf
Great expectations have been placed on social media platforms as...
Media Development 2017-3 Editorial
Great expectations have been placed on social media platforms as...
INGOs, public communications and the quest for legitimacy
In today’s world, media cannot be overlooked. Such is their...
Do social media platforms encourage or stifle public debate?
When first created, the internet and social media were thought...
Communication in tomorrow’s Caribbean
I love the Caribbean. I was born and grew up in the Bahamas, and...
Gaga over Google: Democratization of information in capitalist communication
Issues of human rights, gender equality, and democratic...
A road movie from Georgia to Palestine and home again: Interview with James M. Wall
Dedicated to opposing Israeli oppression of the Palestinians and...
Comunicación, derechos y desarrollo sostenible en Cuba
El modelo comunicativo imperante en el país necesita...
The INTERNET is a public good
ARTICLE 19 delivered the following statement at the 35th Session...
New media and citizen participation in Jamaica
In the early 1990s, the media industry in Jamaica was...
On the Screen MD 2017-3
At the 63rd International Short Film Days (11-16 May 2017), the...
Media Development 2017-2 online magazine and pdf
Reforming the Word Celebrating 500 years of the Reformation,...
Media Development 2017-2 Editorial
On 4 April 1967, the Revd Dr Martin Luther King Jr gave his...
A shifting media ecology: What the age of Luther can teach us
Well before people even named them, Martin Luther unknowingly...
Luther’s media phenomenon
Martin Luther did more than just serve as a catalyst for the...
Ten theses knocking on the door of public communication
In 1517, when Martin Luther hung his 95 theses on the wooden...
What does the Reformation mean today?
The 400th anniversary of the Reformation 100 years ago coincided...
L’avenir du protestantisme à l’ère numérique
Le protestantisme est né avec l’imprimerie, va-t-il...
Nine elements of digital citizenship
Digital citizenship can be defined as the norms of appropriate,...
The post-truth phenomenon: A challenge to WACC
In the last US elections, social media had the freedom to...
The Digital Humanities from Father Busa to Edward Snowden
What do Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower behind the NSA...
Regulations are a bigger threat than fake news
Fabricated or inaccurate news stories are not new; they are the...
On the Screen MD 2017-2
At the 67th Berlin International Film Festival (9-19 February...
Media Development 2017-1 Editorial
A recent report from the World Economic Forum (WEF)1 says...
Our digital ecology
In the last several decades, human intelligence has begun to...
Less freedom for digital media platforms
Internet freedom has declined for the sixth consecutive year,...
Revolución digital: ¿un universo para soñar?
Clic y scroll. El idioma anuncia nuevas incorporaciones mientras...
The future of digital communications and humanitarian response
With communication a central element in humanitarian crises and...
The future of mobile learning
In 2013 UNESCO commissioned a series of Working Papers on Mobile...
Digital media and transnational languages
In 2015, the United Nations calculated that the number of...
Facebook: friend or foe?
It was hard to escape news in early 2016 of Facebook’s...
Data innovation powering Sustainable Development Goals
The world is awash with data. Today, more data than ever in...
Discoverability and Canadian cultural policy
We can all relate to Charlie Chaplin in his classic...
Political culture and media in post-Suharto Indonesia
Freedom of expression through media has been important to the...
On the Screen (MD2017-1)
An Ecumenical Jury awarded prizes for the first time ever at the...
Media Development 2016-4 pdf
Entire publication as pdf
Media Development 2016-4 Editorial
The voice of the people is all very well as long as it can be...
Testing media freedom in “vibrant” Pacific Island democracies
Despite positive media freedom ratings and dedicated...
Media manipulation and the battleground of memory
The Italian daily newspaper Il Giornale runs a front...
Historical amnesia and the right to communicate in Indonesia
The relationship between media and historical perception is a...
La memoria en los medios
“No aceptes lo habitual como cosa natural.Porque en tiempos de...
La responsabilidad de hacer memoria
Hace 20 años que ejerzo el periodismo. Inicié muy...
Digital nostalgia
Some miss and regret past times or places, others are nostalgic...
The Caribbean and the right to memory
As we are discovering every day, with an increasingly elderly...
Preserving India’s palm leaf manuscripts for the future
India’s rich repository of knowledge has been passed down for...
Select annotated bibliography: Media and memory
This edition of Memory Studies centres on the theme of...
Down memory lane: Reflections and recollections on the dawn of participatory media in Nigeria
Community radios were often established as a response to...
On the Screen (MD2016/4)
On the Screen
Media Development 2016/3 pdfs
Local vs. Traditional Media Deep-seated changes in the newspaper...
Media Development 2016-3 Editorial
Today, profound changes in the newspaper and journalism...
Networking for a stronger journalism
James Carey, a communication and journalism scholar who taught...
Local journalism in Canada needs a boost
Local media are the active watchdogs that democratic communities...
Local media and digital frontiers: The Malaysian conundrum
Observers of the Malaysian media environment will notice two...
Local media and digital frontiers
The continued dominance of traditional journalism practice in...
“Not your father’s local media”, o cómo la revolución digital cambió (casi) todas las referencias
En 1988 una fábrica de autos intentó adelantarse a...
Who loves local news?
In the United States, it’s no longer newsworthy to say that...
Dominio o seducción
La literatura de todos los tiempos nos ha provisto...
Building communication policies with a public sense
As a starting point, we need briefly to address what is...
On the Screen
Nyon (Switzerland) 2016 An interreligious jury appointed by...
Media Development 2016/2 pdfs
Media Development 2016/2
Media Development 2016/2 Editorial
International principles of journalism ethics...
How do the media fuel Islamophobia?
We have to acknowledge that the media, more often than not,...
Islamophobia in Europe
Islamophobia is a term used to describe irrational...
El elogio de la diferencia
La pedagogía se ocupa de los seres humanos, de cada uno de...
Negative media portrayal of Islam
There is a current obsession in mainstream media and academic...
Muslim resilience and the right to communicate
Forty-seven years ago, Jean d’Arcy, the father of the right...
New Zealand newspaper coverage of Islam and Muslims
The following article provides an overview of New Zealand...
How Jerry Falwell Jr. is spreading Islamophobia
As an American Muslim who speaks at about 25 college campuses a...
Indian democracy and governance
Democracyas a system of governance is supposed to allow...
Medios y despolitización
El vertiginoso y deslumbrante desarrollo de la tecnología se...
On the Screen
The Ecumenical Jury at the 37th Film Festival Max Ophüls in...
Media Development 2016/1 pdfs
Media Development 2016/1
Media Development 2016/1 Editorial
A quarter of a century ago, in an essay published in the...
From theory to practice: The right to communicate
In 2015 I was lucky enough to be chosen by WACC to evaluate its...
Big data analytics and the right to privacy
My work addresses communication rights in the context of the...
No democracy without freedom of expression for Indigenous Peoples
On January 20, 2015, the town of Santa Eulalia Huehuetenango,...
Communication rights in a post-war country are a precondition for sustainable development
Is it possible to create an open community space so that people...
El derecho a la nacionalidad y el periodismo ciudadano
Las redes sociales se han evidenciado como instrumentos...
Genre, politiques et pratiques dans les médias au Bénin
Les femmes représentent la majorité de la...
Communication rights help empower migrants
Freedom. Democracy. Justice. These are a few concepts that many...
Communication rights in theory and practice
A good entry point for newcomers to the idea of communication...
Media Development 2015/4 pdfs
Media Development 2015/4
Media Development 2015/4 Editorial
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” is the first line...
Narratives of exclusion and the “other” in Spanish political communication
In the summer of 2015, distressing scenes of refugees and...
Valuing dialogue and respect in research
One factor that motivates research in the intersections between...
Empresas comunales de comunicación: Un camino hacia la sostenibilidad
Generalmente cuando reflexionamos sobre la sostenibilidad de los...
Media barriers in Afghanistan
Afghanistan once housed tourists from around the world intrigued...
Freedom of speech in crisis Europe
“Media freedom and democracy are about people’s happiness”...
La rendición de cuentas en Tabasco, una lucha más allá de la transparencia
El estado de Tabasco se ubica en el sureste mexicano, frente al...
Defining the borders of legitimate and illegitimate discourse
When criticizing Israeli policies, one is often reminded that...
Indigenous community media aid reconciliation in Canada
Born in 1948 in Barton Lake in northwestern Ontario, Bill was...
El paradójico desarrollo de la tecnología
Los Estados están jugando un papel decisivo ya sea...
On the Screen
At the 12th Golden Apricot International Film Festival held in...
Media Development 2015/3 pdfs
Media Development 2015/3
Media Development 2015/3 Editorial
Communication for Social Change (CSC) is a field shaped by a...
Institutionalising social mobilisation as a social change process
The emergence of new social mobilisations in developing...
Making agricultural research for development work in remote Vietnam
Agricultural research for development (AR4D) that uses...
Participatory video for citizen mobilisation in South Africa
In March 2015, in a shipping container that serves as part of a...
The CSC dilemma in development: A possible solution
Given the challenges of measuring outcomes in Communication for...
Co-creative processes in the Big Stories Small Towns film project
Big Stories Small Towns is a multi-platform process-driven...
Folk media and their use in HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns
This article examines the use of folk media in Irob district, in...
Media representation of Muslim youth in Australia
There is great contradiction between what a multicultural...
The good society and building a culture of hope
Worldwide, people are living in a culture of fear. They see the...
La tecnología ¿define la estructura de la sociedad?
El filósofo francés Jaques Ellul, en la...
On the screen
At Visions Réel 2015 – the 46th international film...
Media Development 2015/2 pdfs
Media Development 2015/2 pdfs
Media Development 2015/2 Editorial
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) fall due in 2015 and...
Putting a human rights perspective on the post-2015 agenda
By September 2015 the member states of the UN have to agree on...
Youth Voices on a Post-2015 World
The Department for International Development (DFID) in the...
Gender and peace after 2015
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have represented a...
Nepal needs better communications to respond to disaster
When earthquakes hit Kathmandu, the only thing everybody wants...
Myths of radicalization in Britain
The latest buzz word in the “war against terror” is leading us...
Comunicación mundial: ¿Adiós al espacio y el tiempo?
“Comunicación mundial significa: liberar el espacio para...
Changing religious landscapes and political communication in Latin America
Growing up in a middle-class Evangelical home in the United...
Mission today and the uninvited guest
Mission today must be seen in the context of the...
On the screen MD 2015/2
The WACC-SIGNIS Human Rights Award 2014 has gone to the film...
Media Development 2015/1 pdfs
Media Development 2015/1 pdfs
Media Development 2015/1 editorial
What’s in a name? In 1989, the ruling military junta changed the...
Media freedom in Burma/Myanmar
The media in Burma are freer now than at any point in the last...
Burma through the eyes of Reporters Without Borders
For 25 years, the international NGO Reporters Without Borders...
Burma and freedom of religion
Freedom of religion in Burma has become a controversial...
Tackling hate speech in Burma
Former political prisoner Nay Phone Latt, 34, is the secretary...
Revisiting Cambodia’s contemporary media landscape
A few months before the 2013 elections, many Cambodians began to...
Cambodia: a long way towards freedom of expression
Freedom of expression is supposedly guaranteed in Cambodia. Both...
Thai freedom of expression: Waiting for the dawn
The increase of political conflict in Thailand from late 2013 to...
Imagine a world without nuclear weapons
In February 1990, the same month that Nelson Mandela (known as...
On the screen MD 2015/1
At the 44th Kyiv International Film Festival (25 October to 2...
Media Development 2014/4 pdfs
Media Development 2014/4 Seeing and Hearing is Cool Hip hop and...
MD 2014/4 Editorial
Graffiti and public speaking have an ancient pedigree. In...
“Beats, Rhymes, and Life”: Hip hop’s unlikely movement
Michael W. Waters On August 11, 1973, a party in the recreation...
Rap, graffiti and social media in South Africa today
Itunu Bodunrin Hip-hop in South Africa has been on a roller...
Social media protest in Iran: Re-imagining the Iranian people
Samira Rajabi Not long ago, few media consumers could truly...
God wears Tom Ford: Hip hop’s revisioning of divine authority
Anthony B. Pinn The poetic quality of music and the...
Why global Internet governance must matter to social justice activists
Seán Ó Siochrú, Sally Burch, Bruce Girard,...
Voices of icons
Hans W. Florin Religious icons had no prominent place in my...
Soft power and the Chinese dream (中国梦)
Jan Servaes “The jury is still out on the Chinese dream. It is...
Religion in plain view
Manuela Kalsky In December 2008 the Study Centre for...
On the screen
Locarno (Switzerland) 2014 At the 67th Locarno International...
Media Development 2014/3 pdfs
Pacific Island peoples and communities are facing unprecedented...
Media Development 2014/3 editorial
There are some 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean....
Shooting the messenger, Pacific-style
Media freedom as an issue in the Pacific has been defined in far...
A united Pacific voice to ban nuclear weapons
2014 marks the 40th year of the Pacific Conference of...
What are the communications challenges facing Tonga today?
It is difficult to treat communication separately from the other...
Virtual grief
The advent of social media has altered the communication of...
“The Act of Killing”: truth, memory and reconciliation in Indonesia
The documentary film “The Act of Killing” reflects the ongoing...
Would you hire this person? Empowering voters in Peru
This article documents the genesis of an innovative voter...
Cuando la religión se pone del lado de la gente
Rolando Pérez, profesor del Departamento Académico...
Poder político, tecnología y medios de comunicación
La actual crisis mundial que está afectando a millones de...
Listening to the voices of those living in poverty and marginalization
The Participate initiative provides high quality evidence on the...
Bonding & Bridging
The following speech was given at the 18th European Television...
Ecumenical Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival 2014
A film about the imposition of a totalitarian form of Islam on a...
Media Development 2014/2 pdfs
Media Development 2014/2 Indigenous media and digital...
Digital self-development and Canadian First Peoples of the North
This article analyzes the sites of struggle through which First...
Creating an enabling environment for digital self-determination
At the contemporary historical moment, innovations in networked...
La apropiación indígena de la comunicación: De acompañantes a sujetos comunicacionales
“La rebelión la hicieron nuestros padres, ahora la...
Radios comunitarias e indígenas, legítimas pero “ilegales”
La comunicación comunitaria indígena es, en muchas...
La sociedad de la información: ¿Es también de los pueblos indígenas?
“Desde principios de la década de los noventa, numerosas...
Advancing global dialogue on the rights of Indigenous People
The youngest mechanism for Indigenous Peoples at the United...
Changing media landscapes in Latin America
In a recent interview, Denis de Moraes, Associate Professor at...
In search of enlightenment: Church or cinema?
The cinema and the Church have a lot in common – they are both...
Media Development 2014/1 pdfs
Media Development 2014/1 The Family in the Information Age 2014...
Media Development 2014/1 Editorial
It was in 1948, with the adoption of the Universal Declaration...
Technology rights of the world’s families
The family remains the basic societal unit of reproduction,...
A global perspective on children’s rights as media change
Throughout the world, children are using media and...
En torno a la comunicación en el seno de la vida cotidiana
En la plenitud de su vida intelectual, Jean Paul Sartre...
De la concientización a una política pública en educación medial-digital
El presente artículo busca presentar en forma somera algunos...
Online safety for families
In the 1990s there was no actual research concerning young...
Media in the Great Lakes Region foster social dialogue
Fostering dialogue in societies torn apart by ethnic conflicts...
Every child’s right to be heard
A resource guide on the rights of the child general comment...
A summary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)...
Media Development 2013/4 pdfs
Media Development 2013/4 Building alliances for gender and...
Media Development 2013/4 Editorial
It was in 1792 that the British writer, philosopher, and...
Media pluralism and gender: Not just a question of numbers
“Media pluralism is the key that unlocks the door of freedom of...
Return to Bangkok: Two decades of interventions on gender and media
Almost twenty years after the Women Empowering Communication...
Gender equality and communication in Africa
Media monitors at work in Senegal. Photo: FAMEDEV ...
Construyendo comunicación no sexista
Los y las periodistas tienen la posibilidad y la...
La insoportable gravedad del androcentrismo mediático
Cada cinco años desde el 1995, centenares de personas a...
Policy-making: Where are women’s voices?
At the end of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)...
Media monitoring is a catalyst for transformation
The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) has been a mechanism...
Media Development publishes: informed and critical opinions on a broad range of topics; relevant documents and materials; reports of events and conferences; a section on cinema; occasional book reviews.
Media Development seeks to keep abreast of developments in the field of mass, community and social media and to articulate common concerns in the search for equality, justice and human dignity in communication.
Media Development is available by subscription and is provided free to Personal and Corporate Members of WACC. For more information about becoming a Member of WACC please click here. For more information about subscribing to Media Development please click here.
WHO WE ARE
The World Association for Christian Communication is registered in Canada as a not-for-profit corporation (438311-7) and an incorporated charitable organisation (number 83970 9524 RR0001) with its offices at 308 Main Street, Toronto ON, M4C 4X7. WACC is also a UK Registered Charity (number 296073) and a Company registered in England and Wales (number 2082273) with its Registered Office at 16 Tavistock Crescent, London W11 1AP, United Kingdom.
