Twenty years after the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom

“Is media in <strong>the</strong> business of
delivering eye balls to advertisers?”
This question comes from US media
analyst, Prof Phillip Meyer.
To understand where he’s coming
from, it needs to be noted that
<strong>the</strong> term “sustainability” is often
equated with financial viability.
But sustainability can refer to a
system that works effectively and
efficiently for <strong>the</strong> short, medium
and long terms, whilst financial
viability is only an aspect of this.
In media, key elements for
sustainability include appropriate
legislation, technology, audiences
and financial viability. All are
complementary elements and part of
<strong>the</strong> value chain of media businesses.
They form an integral part of <strong>the</strong>
system on which <strong>the</strong> business is
Section 2: Pluralism
Sustaining pluralism takes money....
and more
By Johanna Mavhungu
Johanna Mavhungu works as a media
researcher at <strong>the</strong> Sol Plaatje Institute
for Media Leadership (SPI) at Rhodes
University, where she has overseen
many studies into African media
issues that are available at http://
www.spiml.com/.
“So sustainability
is much more than
delivering audiences
to advertisers.”
operated. So sustainability is much
more than delivering audiences to
advertisers.
With this perspective, <strong>the</strong> Sol Plaatje
Institute for Media Leadership (SPI)
in 2006 embarked on a research
study into <strong>the</strong> community print
sector titled “Key Editorial and
Business Strategies”. The study
focussed on editorial and business
strategies used in community and
small independent newspapers. The
six case studies we looked at <strong>the</strong>n
inspired a fur<strong>the</strong>r study — this time
into five community radio stations
in South Africa. This study examined
research strategies that community
radio stations employ to understand
<strong>the</strong>ir listenership trends. Here
are some key findings from both
research studies:
• Community outreach is a necessity
not a luxury, both in
terms of developing society and
increasing a publication’s relevance
and visibility.
• Newspapers need training, monitoring
and mentoring in all aspects
of knowing how to start
up and run a newspaper from
strategising through to implementing
skills based tasks.
• Research should be conducted
for <strong>the</strong> following purposes
in community radio stations:
to ga<strong>the</strong>r ideas for daily programme
production, ongoing
content development, and review;
and to encourage community
participation combined
with survey research to measure
listenership.
Since <strong>the</strong>n, <strong>the</strong> SPI has carried out
fur<strong>the</strong>r research into <strong>the</strong> sustainability
of media with <strong>the</strong> International
Research and Exchanges Board
(IREX) titled “Africa Media Sustain-
Media in Africa - 2011 | 101