The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative
After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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European Day of Monitoring - Europe

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In September 2003, Online/More Colour in the Media launched a pilot European Day of Monitoring. This Day was the first in a series of yearly international events in which volunteers from migrant and refugee organisations, in cooperation with academic researchers, monitor broadcast media output for one day. They evaluate the media's representation of racially and culturally diverse groups in order to develop follow-up reports and activities highlighting good and bad practices. Desired outcomes of the project include:
  • putting the issue of social and media representations of diversity on the public agenda and impacting dominant discourse
  • encouraging critical media behaviour among multicultural audiences and mobilising them to take action when necessary
  • guiding international and local organisations that foster consumer action and grassroots activism in undertaking regular media monitoring research
  • offering migrant and refugee organisations undertaking media monitoring projects an opportunity to collaborate, while also engendering publicity and support for their endeavours
  • providing transnational comparative data that is based on consistent methodology in an effort to exert pressure on media to change coverage practices and on governments to establish institutional frameworks of media conduct/practice
  • enabling participating minority NGOs to acquaint themselves with new ways to more efficiently deal with the media.
Communication Strategies
The Day of Monitoring has two tracks - research (monitoring) in cooperation with universities, and campaign (protest) as tool for empowerment. Specifically, refugee and migrant organisations work with academics to monitor the media based on mutually agreed-upon criteria. The events are designed to engage journalists, media executives, and government officials in dialogues with migrant, refugee, and ethnic minority groups. The hope is that national partners (who are still being identified as of this writing) will organise debates, presentations, and perhaps prizes to identify good and bad journalistic practice, to promote strategies for multicultural programming, and to recommended policy measures.

The results are published in cooperation with the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) and the European Network Against Racism (ENAR). In these materials, a connection is made between the media portrayal of minorities and the portrayal of their countries of origin.

Three transnational meetings of the partners in the project took place to prepare for this event, coupled with mini-seminars on monitoring methodologies, training national trainers, and mobilising partnerships, publicity, and resources. Minority NGOs with experience in involving migrant or refugee communities in actions to monitor or influence media coverage were asked to provide input on plans for the Day (see contact information below).
Development Issues
Media, Multiculturalism, Racism and Racial Diversity.
Key Points
Online/More Colour in the Media is a project of the Dutch organisation Mira Media, which has focussed on media and minorities since 1992. In 2001, Online/More Colour in the Media in the Media launched a network of migrant, refugee, and anti-racism organisations (Empowerment and Media Watch Network). Partners in this network are grassroots NGOs that work to gain access to the media and to achieve a representative reflection of their activities and target groups in the media. Through the network they exchange tools, working methods, and practical support. For instance, On Online/More Colour in the Media is developing a handbook for grassroots NGOs who (want to) work with the media to encourage and support other initiatives designed to influence policy and practices. The handbook will be interactively developed, conceived as a collectively authored, digital work-in-progress, with network organisations reacting and contributing online through the mailing list. New organisations are encouraged to use the handbook and provide input. Fifteen of them participated in a first workshop on 'Empowerment and Participation of Migrants and Refugees in the Media'. Other activities have included a handbook outlining successful strategies and examples of good practice and a September 2002 conference entitled "After 11 September: TV-News and transnational audiences."
Partners

EUMC, ENAR, Council of Europe.

Sources

Online/More Colour in the Media website.