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misstatement of actual results to conform to donor expectations; perception that the donor doesn’t trust local partners given overly-detailed requirements, resulting in self-doubt.
Another critical issue involves the ideological bases of competing approaches. Without broad-based agreement on the sector’s indicators of success, we run the risk of advocating internationally unrepresentative standards, especially since the largest organizations which generate these indicators are based in the West. Christina Holtz-Bacha (2005) writes that "press freedom is understood differently in the various parts of the world… even established democracies do not interpret press freedom in exactly the same way" (p. 2). Citing Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press as an example of an indicator with Western and U.S. biases, HoltzBacha questions the argument that political party ownership (i.e. Scandinavia) and state support to media outlets (i.e. France) are necessarily opposed to press freedom. Another example of disagreement regarding the definition of press freedom is the U.S. preference for free market safeguards versus most Western European countries’ provision of state financing to public service broadcasters in support of diverse programming (ibid.). The dangers of "teaching to the test" and over representing particular ideological positions and their corresponding policy preferences underscore the importance of carefully deliberating sectoral priorities, conceptualizing indicators of success, and choosing appropriate research methods. P R O P O S E D I N T E G R AT I V E S O L U T I O N S
The M&E toolkit proposed earlier responds to Davis’ last recommendation by using sector-wide indicators to draw out conceptual priorities under which project-specific M&E initiatives can be subsumed. Certainly, these priorities require revisiting in forthcoming broad-based gatherings of the sector where feedback and input from both local and international representatives can be solicited. Assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of qualitative and quantitative research methods and taking account of the structure and content of media development interventions require increased collaboration among professionals from within the sector, social scientists and policy scholars, and other stakeholders with relevant expertise. There are many ways in which quantitative and qualitative research tools can be effectively organized and deployed. For a practical and accessible guide to various research approaches, see DFID’s Monitoring and Evaluating Information and Communication for Development (ICD) Programmes (Myers, Woods, & Odugbemi, 2005). The World Bank has also published literature that explores strengths and weaknesses of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-model methods of evaluation (e.g. Bamberger, 2000). The broad range of measures that can be included in the M&E toolkit can help rigorously assess media development initiatives, either individually or when used
MEDIA MATTERS SECTION 2: How Media Matters: Measuring its Impact
Alan Davis (2005) addresses these conceptualization and methodological concerns by offering the following five M&E principles: cultivating local ownership of the monitoring and evaluation process; ongoing grassroots participation in reformulation of indicators; using an appropriate mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods; taking stock of both structure and content of initiatives; and constructing a framework that accounts for linkages between project and sector-wide interventions.
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