Mapping Digital Media: India

Mapping Digital Media: India is the latest Open Society Foundation report examining "global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media." This 154-page report is part of a series covering 60 countries; each is evaluated in terms of how digital media  affect "core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs." Since September of 2012, reports on Croatia, Slovenia, China, Spain, Central Africa have been published and March 2013 has produced reports on Kenya, and Bulgaria, and now India. 

For a perspective on "digital switchover" country by country from broadcast analog systems, especially as it effects democracy and freedom of expression, you'll want to check in with these reports. 

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.

Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA)

The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) works to strengthen the support, raise the visibility, and improve the effectiveness of media assistance programs throughout the world. The Center approaches its mission by providing information, building networks, conducting research, and highlighting the indispensable role independent media play in the creation and development of sustainable democracies around the world.

CIMA's website qualifies it for this resource blog because it hosts free research reports and its own bibliographic database of international media assistance resources. it's useful to search such topics such as media and conflict, media and democracy, media development, new media, and sustainability by region.

Recent research reports include:

Media Codes of Ethics: The Difficulty of Defining Standards
Codes of Ethics incorporate best practices that may go beyond the laws of libel, defamation, and privacy. In the not-so-free world, these codes are not always the products of a self-regulating free press. They may represent a cultural and political compromise with a society or government that holds a more restrictive view of what journalists should and should not report.

News on the Go: How Mobile Devices Are Changing the World's Information Ecosystem
Mobile devices now reach the farthest corners of the world. By the end of 2011, about 5 billion mobile phones will be in service in a world with 7 billion people. The implications–for politics, for education, for economies, for civil society, and for news and information–are profound.

Matching the Market and the Model: The Business of Independent News Media explains how lack of management skills and inexperience in developing effective business models poses a significant risk to the sustainability of independent news media. It explores a variety of different business models for media in several countries around the world and examines what lessons can be learned from those experiences.

Media and the Law: An Overview of Legal Issues and Challenges examines the different kinds of laws that affect the media and explains how they are used in many countries to influence the operations of news outlets and the information they offer. It primarily focuses on restrictive laws and legal challenges faced by journalists in developing countries, although laws in developed countries dealing with issues such as libel and terrorism are also considered.