Changing media landscapes in transitional countries – handbook on mapping media landscapes

The handbook Changing Media Landscapes in Transitional Countries – Handbook on Mapping Media Landscapes is to provide a brief introduction to how a basic mapping of the media landscape in transitional countries can be established so that for civil society, politicians, media owners and journalists can make informed decisions. The handbook was produced with the support of International Media Support.

Media landscapes in countries undergoing transition often change radically and just as often there is no solid knowledge about these changes. This means that the different stakeholders in the media and civil society navigate in unknown territories governed by unsubstantiated claims and rumours. This handbook provides advice and recommendations on how to establish a media mapping capacity in countries that recently have experienced political change.

The handbook is based on the authors’ varied experiences from consulting the implementation of media mappings in several transitional countries and it will focus on two of these projects: a. mapping the Mongolian media landscape initiated in 1999 ten years after the break down of Communism and b. the mapping of the Libyan media landscape initiated in 2012 one year after the Libyan revolution in 2011 and the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi.

Developing on the experiences from these two projects and subsequent reflections the authors investigate why the Mongolian project was a success and still operating and in turn why the Libyan was far less successful despite similar methodological approaches. On the basis of these experiences the authors provide a description of a number of general circumstances that the authors recommend should be taken into account before and during the process of setting up a media mapping capacity. The authors recommend always taking contextual issues in relation to the character of the transition, the timeframe after the initial transition, the political and social context, the institutional anchoring etc. into account when initiating a media-mapping project.