AudiencScapes

A group of journalists is banding together to tackle corruption at all levels of Zimbabwean society. They are employing social media both to discourage Zimbabweans from engaging in corrupt behavior and to report it when they see it.

By Hannah Bowen, InterMedia Project Manager and Analyst30 March 2010The push for open government is not of course limited to Barack Obama’s White House or to the World Bank. As part of the AudienceScapes project, InterMedia has been conducting quantitative and qualitative research in Africa, to better understand how people gather, share and shape news and public interest information.

By Hannah Bowen, Africa Research Analyst, InterMediaIn a recent AudienceScapes qualitative study, policymakers in Ghana described a development policy information paradox: on the one hand, they are starving for critical data that should form “the basis for making informed judgment,” as one politician put it. On the other hand, however, they find that their agencies’ limited capacity to organize, prioritize, and make use of the information coming in already sometimes leaves them drowning.The lack of hard data, policymakers warned, leaves open the door for policymaking built on less solid foundations—nepotism, personal gain, or any manner of corruption.