Journal issue feature: Frontlines

The latest issue of USAID's Frontlines is their Youth/Mobile Technology edition.  It includes articles on what's possible with mobile technology in the developing world, texting for conservation, mobile gaming, and m-money or, mobile money.

In Apps for Afghanistan, Kathleen McGowan observes how

"[the] explosion of mobile users has created a network that bridges the country’s formidable urban-rural divide while transcending gaps in physical infrastructure, low literacy rates and pervasive insecurity.The near-ubiquity of mobile phone coverage has allowed Afghanistan to join the vanguard of countries experimenting with innovative new uses for the mobile channel, using the networks to extend services and information cheaply to populations lacking access through other means. Among the most promising is mobile money—the ability to safely store and transfer “e-money” via SMS, avoiding the expense and danger associated with moving cash, while extending the reach of basic financial services from the 5 percent of the population with accounts in brick-and-mortar banks to the 65 percent of Afghans who use mobile phones...

The overwhelming response to an app design competition this year among Afghan university students illustrated just how compelling up-and-coming young Afghans find mobile money—more than 5,000 students across the country submitted ideas, many of which focused on how mobile money on how mobile money could improve the Afghan Government’s ability to provide basic services transparently and efficiently."

Frontlines is a publication of USAID, a United States foreign assistance program since 1961 that has been principal in extending assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms.

Introducing The Communication Initiative Network

The Communication Initiative Network (The CI) is an portal for the exchange of information between "the people and organizations engaged in or supporting communication as a fundamental strategy for economic and social development and change...This process is supported by web-based resources of summarized information and several electronic publications, as well as online research, review, and discussion platforms providing insight into communication for development experiences.

Currently, The CI Network process includes: The Communication Initiative: Global - in English, with a worldwide overview and focus; La Iniciativa de Comunicacion: Latin America - in Spanish, with a worldwide overview and focus on the Latin American experience and context; and, Soul Beat Africa - in English, with a focus on the African experience and context."

The site also includes a Policy Blogs section and Development Networks for such topics as Journalism in Crisis, Haiti, Communication and Climate Change, Polio Communication Consultation Group, and HIV/AIDS Strategy.

The Drum Beat, a weekly electronic magazine features new summarized information from the site.

The ASC community should be proud to know that The Annenberg School has become an associative member of "The CI." Here's hoping more academic institutions join us. Anyone interested in global communication, development communication or health communication beyond our shores should find something useful at this site.

Consumers International

Consumers International has been around since 1960 and describes itself as serving "as the only independent and authoritative global voice for consumers." It's useful for a more worldly perspective on consumer issues and has lots of media-related reports and projects on such topics as irresponsible drug promotion, junk food marketing, the mobile phone industry and communication about climate change as it relates to consumerism.

Check out these reports and briefings:
Left Wanting More: Food company Policies on Marketing to Children (March 2009)
New Media, same Old Tricks: A Survey of the Marketing of Food to Children on Food Company Websites (March 2009)
Drugs, doctors and Dinners: How Drug Companies Influence Health in the Developing World (October 2007)
Research Briefing: Promotion of Prescription Drugs in the Developing World (2009)

Centre for Communication Rights

To meet the increasing demand for materials and resources about the right to communication, The World Association of Christian Communication (WACC) has launched the Centre for Communication Rights (CCR). The site, situated on the WACC homepage--righthand side, is a great place to find resources on policy related to communication rights, including case studies, training manuals and practical handbooks and links to media observatories (organizations that monitor policy and practice) in Europe and Latin America (so far). There are also resource sections on: Building and Recognizing Communication Rights, Development, Democratization, Gender, Language and Culture, and Ethics of Communication. Anyone interested international communication in the areas of policy, human rights, or development should make a beeline to this site!

Media Sustainability Indexes from IREX

IREX currently publishes two indexes on the conditions for independent media to thrive in 38 countries across Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Since 2000 it has focused on Eurasian MSI but since 2006 it has taken on the Middle East and North Africa. In addition, an MSI for Africa is due out this year. The MSI is designed to analyze key elements of each country’s media system and highlight where intervention can be most effective in promoting sustainable and professional media systems.

MSI Europe & Eurasia 2006/07, the sixth MSI for this region, focuses on 21 countries.
MSI Middle East and North Africa (MENA) analyzes 18 countries in the region. Both are available in full online.

IREX (International Research and Exchange Board), is an international nonprofit organization that describes its mission as "providing leadership and innovative programs to improve the quality of education, strengthen independent media, and foster pluralistic civil society development."

Tooling around the site I also ran into this: The Internet in Russia: On The Eve of Great Changes, an IREX Internet project for Russia that chronicles the dramatic changes in the growth of the Internet in Russia from 1990-1999. This online history includes information collected from more than 200 sources and site addresses of leading commercial, educational, and noncommercial organizations. As explained at the IREX site, "Vast distances, compounded by the deteriorating infrastructure of existing mail, telephone, fax, and other traditional means of communication, make the Internet an ideal medium to overcome the historical isolation of Soviet scholars, students, and business people and increase communication among the emerging civil society."