• Strengthen evidence-based policy making

Strengthen evidence-based policy making

There has been growing evidence in recent years about the significant role of media in determining governance and development outcomes in states often described as fragile, or thought to be experiencing fragility. This report presents the deliberations at a symposium on this theme. The report focuses on the state of development research relevant to the role of media in ‘fragile states’, and maps out the basis of a more robust research agenda.

The overall conclusion is that this is an under-researched area with distinct research challenges. Policy formulation and priority setting is difficult in relation to media because research provides little foundation to reach clear policy conclusions. The issue appears to be growing in relevance to governance and democracy agendas, but clear guidance for policy actors on how to respond, and how much priority to attach to the issue, is scant.

Other important conclusions include:

The research agenda

• There is a potentially substantial and increasingly relevant research agenda on media and communication, which could provide important policy insights into state fragility, state effectiveness and state citizen relationships. 
• Research on this agenda is starting from a low level, both in terms of content and capacity. 
•  Priority areas for research include looking at state transitions and patrimonial reflections on society, and issues of state-citizen relationships.

Locating the research

• Interdisciplinary research will be important, as will research which connects core development research disciplines with media practice and media research.
• As a start, there is an urgent need for more media studies research to be framed within research agendas that resonate with political science and ‘mainstream’ development research.
• Equally, political analysis and political science, governance, economics and other disciplines could usefully reassess whether such a research focus should constitute a more serious component of their own research agendas and how media studies could usefully contribute to their understanding.
• Practitioner organisations are important sources of current research insight and policy analysis and are an important part of the research mix.

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