Afghanistan IKM Leipzig

The Afghanistan Special Collection is part of the programme on the Media System and Public Spheres of Afghanistan. The Centre for Development Communication (C4DC) at the Institute for Communication and Media Studies (IKM) at Leipzig University (Germany) has been running this programme since 2022. The Center engages in research, teaching, and knowledge transfer and aims to develop sound insights and practical approaches for a more equitable and sustainable society. This Special Collection is especially strong on the analysis of the Afghan media ecosystem, safety threats to journalists, and foreign media assistance. The collection is curated by Hazrat Bahar and Kefa Hamidi.

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The Media of Afghanistan: The Challenges of Transition
Deep Insights

David Page, Shirazuddin Siddiqi

London: BBC Media Action (2012), 27 pp.

"[...] Afghanistan is a fragile, fractured state and has one of the most fragile and fractured media, where almost anyone with sufficient funds and the opportunity to move quickly has been able to establish a media presence. This environment has enabled the flourishing of television, radio and other ... media established and owned by powerful political and religious leaders, or by those with allegiance to them. Some fear a future of increased ethnic, sectarian and factional strife being played out through the airwaves. Though there are some very successful commercial television channels, there is no independent and widely trusted national media capable of transcending or creating communication across the fracture points in Afghan society. Most media is either localised or seen as serving political, religious or other agendas. The future of the national broadcaster, RTA, still the only broadcaster with a truly national presence, is uncertain. While journalism as a whole has expanded greatly, investigative journalism remains limited. The sustainability of the newly established commercial media is widely questioned. With the total annual advertising market in the country estimated by some at little more than $20 million, there are real concerns that if donor support declines much of the media will wither or fall prey to factional, religious or extreme forces. There is no shortage of such forces. A number of media outlets already play upon ethnic and sectarian tensions. The Taliban, notorious when in power for shutting down media and banning video tape, have embraced the web and run one of the most effective media strategies in the country. In 2012, the mood music is one of compromise with the Taliban. Concern in the country is growing that new found media freedoms may be the price of that compromise. The role of donors in media support in Afghanistan is probably greater than in any other country at any other time. Such support is largely responsible for the development of a substantial media sector, but it faces criticism that it is poorly coordinated, short term and not informed by aid effectiveness principles; that it focuses too heavily on advancing the agendas of the donors; and that in some sectors it is distorting the media market in ways that create dependency and inhibit the development of genuinely sustainable Afghan media ventures." (Executive summary) more

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Picturing Afghanistan: The Photography of Foreign Conflict

Paul Verschueren

New York: Hampton Press (2012), xiii, 199 pp.

"Picturing Afghanistan is an in-depth account of the Euro-American visualization of the conflict in Afghanistan. Comparing images in public affairs, psychological warfare, journalism and the photobook, the author argues that there are no strong boundaries between photography in war and photography a ... more

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Designs, Devices and Development: Audience Research as Creative Resource in the Making of an Afghan Radio Drama

Andrew Skuse, Marie Gillespie

Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, volume 8, issue 1 (2011), pp. 132-153

"This essay analyses the role of audience research as a change agent in media development interventions in Afghanistan. It analyses how audience research in transnational contexts involves a complex set of intercultural negotiations and translations that contribute to the enduring relevance and sust ... ainability of the highly popular Afghan radio soap opera New Home, New Life. This is a ‘development drama’ that has been broadcast across Afghanistan since 1993. It is based on BBC Radio 4’s The Archers and produced by BBC Afghan Education Projects (BBC AEP). Audience research has been vital to forging a dynamic relationship between the creative teams who make the drama, the donors who pay for it, and the audiences who consume it. The article addresses three broad themes. First, we outline how data gathered in formative audience research, prior to the creation of the drama, provides the creative team with the dramatic raw material for the radio serial. The extensive qualitative data gathered by Afghan researchers in local milieux is translated so as to enable culturally diverse teams of writers and producers to ground the serial narratives in the lived experiences of its audiences, and to introduce multiple local perspectives on development issues. Second, we show how evaluative audience research, data gathered in the postproduction phase, plays a key role in providing critical audience interpretations of New Home, New Life’s dramatic themes. In so doing, it creates feedback loops that allow audiences to become active participants in the ongoing creation of the drama. The research designs and devices, developed over the last two decades to document the changing life-worlds of Afghan citizens-cum-audiences, are part of an ongoing set of transcultural encounters that contribute to strengthening the social realist appeal of the drama and to calibrating how far any given storyline can be pushed in terms of cultural propriety. Third, we examine how during periods of military conflict, when routine audience research becomes dangerous or impossible and audience feedback loops are disrupted, the writers and producers have to rely on their own personal and political experiences, often with unpredictable ideological consequences. We draw attention to the limitations and challenges of making dramas for development in highly charged politicised and postcolonial contexts. While, development dramas may be a cheap and effective way of dealing with certain informational needs, such as landmine awareness, they cannot redress social and structural inequalities or, as Western donors wish, eradicate opium cultivation." (Abstract) more

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Starting a Local Radio Station: A Manual for Afghanistan

Parisa Saadatmand-Zitouni (comp.)

Arcata, Calif; Washington, DC; Kabul: Internews; USAID; Pact (2011), 100 pp.

"This manual describes the process for starting a local radio station—the organization of community support and planning, equipment needs, programming strategies, business growth and sustainability and journalistic ethics and standards. This manual does not insist that you follow a set of rules to ... more

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Analyzing Taliban Taranas (chants): An Effective Afghan Propaganda Artifact

Thomas H. Johnson, Ahmad Waheed

Small Wars & Insurgencies, volume 22, issue 1 (2011), pp. 3-31

"This article describes and analyzes a little understood Afghan Taliban propaganda tool: chants or taranas. These melodic refrains effectively use historical narratives, symbology, and iconic portraits. The chants are engendered in emotions of sorrow, pride, desperation, hope, and complaints to mobi ... more

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Radio Sound and Social Realism: In the Terrain of Drama for Development Production

Andrew Skuse

International Communication Gazette, volume 73, issue 7 (2011), pp. 595-609

"This article explores the use of sound in the context of two BBC World Service development-focused social realist radio drama productions in Afghanistan (New Home, New Life) and Nepal (Sweet Tales of the Sarangi). It examines the various ‘sound strategies' employed to enhance the realist aspirati ... more

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Afghanistan: Media and Telecoms Landscape Guide

infoasaid (2011), 72 pp.

"The Afghan media have flourished since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001. Under Taliban rule, television was banned and there was only one government-controlled radio station. Today Afghanistan boasts over 75 TV stations, 175 radio station and hundreds of newspapers and magazines. However, ... more

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Drama for Development: Cultural Translation and Social Change
Deep Insights

Andrew Skuse, Marie Gillespie, Gerry Power (eds.)

Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage (2011), xxiii, 324 pp.

"By assessing edutainment as a space of cultural translation, Drama for Development advances an often neglected perspective in this topics' research. It focuses on what happens when various goals, worldviews and needs from donors, producers and the audiences come together in the production and meani ... more

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Media and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan

Sheldon Himelfarb

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace (USIP) (2010), 5 pp.

"Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the Afghan media sector has experienced dramatic growth in all areas: television, radio, print, internet, mobile phones. As such, the sector holds tremendous potential for making significant contributions to peacebuilding in the country. However, the media sec ... more

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The War in Afghanistan and Peace Journalism in Practice

Rune Ottosen

Media, War & Conflict, volume 3, issue 3 (2010), pp. 261-278

"This article argues that Johan Galtung’s theory on peace journalism can serve as a fruitful supplement to theory-building in the field of war and peace journalism, and critically reviews the scholarly debate on peace journalism. By using examples from Norwegian media coverage of the war in Afghan ... more

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Afghanistan Media Assessment: Opportunities and Challenges for Peacebuilding

Eran Fraenkel, Emrys Shoemaker, Sheldon Himelfarb

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace (USIP) (2010), 40 pp.

"[...] International donor support for Afghanistan's media has had two primary goals. The short-term goal has been to counteract the effects of insurgent communications in order to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. The long-term goal has been to create a free and independent media secto ... r that will continue to function after donor support has ended. Although millions of dollars have been invested in the development of the Afghan media sector and the growth of private media since 2001 is considered one of Afghanistan's greatest success stories, neither of these donor goals is being met. Donor support for Afghan media has led to the growth of radio and television outlets that are almost entirely dependent on foreign funding - direct and indirect. Recent strategic communications policies have neither diminished nor adequately countered the presence of extremist voices in Afghanistan. Despite some examples to the contrary, Taliban communications continue to affect the lives of ordinary Afghans, whereas many communications by and from Western sources do not. Neither short- nor mid-term analysis of the Afghan economy - ranked the third poorest in the world by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) - foresees the growth of a market able to sustain Afghanistan's domestic media sector without foreign financing. The limited impact of Western communications endeavors, in conjunction with the predicted continued weakness of the Afghan economy, reveals an urgent need for a dramatic shift in the media strategies and goals pursued by the United States and its allies. First and foremost, donors should invest primarily in the Afghan media's production and dissemination of socially constructive contents rather than in building media institutions or infrastructure that the Afghan economy cannot support. For these contents to be received as authentic and credible, they must reflect the vulnerabilities and priorities that Afghans themselves have identified as vital. Donors should make a multiyear funding commitment to the media in Afghanistan. Support should be allocated to both terrestrial and wireless media through a transparent and competitive process developed jointly by donors and Afghan media experts. Aggressively supporting the dissemination of socially constructive contents through new outlets will permit access to both geographic and demographic segments of the population not adequately served by current media outlets." (Summary, page 3) more

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Can You Help me Now? Mobile Phones and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan

Sheldon Himelfarb, Cecilia Paradi-Guilford

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace (USIP) (2010), 15 pp.

"A decade ago, mobile phone usage in Afghanistan was almost nonexistent; now there are 13 million subscriptions for a total of 29 million citizens, and the annual growth rate of subscription is estimated at 53 percent. A number of factors have fueled this dramatic increase, including the sheer popul ... more

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Afghanistan, War and the Media: Deadlines and Frontlines

Richard Lance Keeble, John Mair (eds.)

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk: Arima Publishing (2010), x, 295 pp.

"This book explores the journalism coming out of the Afghan war from the frontline and from the greater comfort of the library. It is an unusual hybrid: the testimony of some of the best frontline correspondents of our era, much of it placed in appropriate historical contexts, alongside detailed aca ... demic analysis – and much more. It ranges from the poppy fields of Helmand province to New York via the Iraq War and the modern rebirth of “embedding”. It mixes action, reflection and analysis and focuses on some of under-reported groups such as women and the humanitarian effort in Afghanistan. It has its origin in a conference in Coventry in March 2010 put on as part of the university’s Coventry Conversations series (with financial support from the Pro Vice-Chancellor and the Dean of Business) in conjunction with the BBC College of Journalism and journalism.co.uk (the website forum for digitally active journalists). All of that conference can be seen and heard on bbc.co.uk/journalism and Coventry.ac.uk/itunesu. Many of the contributors to this book took part in that conference though some extra pieces have been specially commissioned. The war in Afghanistan will soon be coming up to its tenth anniversary. Operation Enduring Freedom started on 7 October 2001 as a response to the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. Freedom in Afghanistan has far from endured in that decade. There are today 100,000-plus US troops, 10,000-plus British troops and 17,000 from ISAF allies – including Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Canada. US intelligence admit that there are now fewer than 100 al-Qaeda (the reason for invading in the first place) fighters left in the country and that the Taliban could fight on for ever. British Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons on 14 June 2010 after his return from his first official visit to Afghanistan that it was only the presence of the ISAF troops that kept al-Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan in numbers. The West is fighting a phantom and desperately searching for an exit strategy. The trouble is they will leave behind an Afghan government scarred by illegitimacy, corruption and more. The Killing Fields will continue for a while yet. Journalism has escaped comparatively lightly – just nine Western journalists killed in Afghanistan since 2001. Like all big stories, this war has attracted the cream of British journalistic talent especially the broadcast reporters. TV awards have been won on the field of battle by the new Brahmins – the war corrs parachuted in and out of Helmand. The idea for the conference and for the book took hold when I judged the Royal Television Society News Programme of the Year Awards for 2009. All entries featured front line action from their stars. Many of them have contributed to this book." (Pages 3-4) more

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Afghan Media in 2010: Synthesis Report

Eric Davin, Philibert de Mercey, Carlotta Tincati, Kinga Komorowska, Arezo Malakooti, Sébastien Duhaut

Altai Consulting; USAID (2010), 178 pp.

"In 2004-2005, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Transition Initiatives commissioned Altai Consulting to conduct the first comprehensive media evaluation of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, looking at the impact of the Afghan media on opinions and behav ... iors three years after the beginning of the country’s reconstruction. The evaluation found, among other things: that Afghans were avid and sophisticated media users and that cultural barriers to media use were less significant than previously expected; that the radio played a predominant role throughout the country; and that media are instrumental in social progress and education. However, since publication of that report1, Afghanistan’s media sector has seen important changes. To inform future assistance from the international community to the Afghan media, it was deemed necessary to assess the current state of the Afghan media – by reflecting a full and accurate audience profile, to determine program preferences, to measure the impact of the Afghan media on local opinions and behaviors and to gauge Afghan expectations in terms of programming and messaging. A large-scale research project was thus planned and conducted from March to August 2010. This research included a deep probe into the media sector and the public’s behaviors and expectations. The methodology used to achieved this included a combination of: literature review; direct observations; key informant interviews with most relevant actors involved in the media sector; 6,648 close-ended interviews in more than 900 towns and villages of 106 districts, covering all 34 provinces of the country; an audience survey on more than 1,500 individuals run daily for a week; about 200 qualitative, open-ended interviews; and 10 community case studies. Such an effort guarantees that results presented here are fairly representative of the Afghan population at large. This document provides a comprehensive synthesis of data collected during the survey. A database of media actors, 16 priority district reports, 10 case study reports, a complete description of the methodology and the original datasets from the main quantitative research and the audience research are publicly available, allowing anyone interested to access more focused information as needed." (Introduction, page 8) more

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Media development in Afghanistan

Massoumeh Torfeh

Media Development (WACC), issue 1 (2009), pp. 39-44

"The international community entered Afghanistan in December 2001 to oust the Taliban. It promised reconstruction, development and democratisation. At the time, the trauma of 25 years of war had left civil society in Afghanistan shattered and the media had become mere tools in the hands of the dicta ... more

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SkillCity Master Trainers Manual on Investigative Journalism with a Focus on Accountability and Transparency in Afghanistan

Wali Zahid

Kabul: Saba Media Organisation (2009), 143 pp.

"This guide, compiled with the most updated sources at the time of going to press in early 2009, will take you step by step towards becoming an effective investigative journalist, gaining and practicing the necessary skills and thus gaining the self-confidence required to do a job that is both effec ... more

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The Impact of the BBC World Service Trust's Programme Afghan Woman's Hour: Results from a National Survey in Afghanistan

Andy Bhanot, Emily LeRoux-Rutledge

Safia Haleem (ed.)

Kabul: BBC World Service Trust (2009), 68 pp.

"1. Overall awareness of Afghan Woman’s Hour (AWH) in Afghanistan was found to be high; 50% of all those who had listened to the radio in the previous month were aware of AWH. Awareness was higher in the South Western region at 64% compared with the lowest level of awareness at 23% in the Hazarjat ... more

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Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words?

Kabul; Brussels: International Crisis Group (2008), 47 pp.

"This report examines the Taliban’s evolving propaganda strategy and its role in shaping perceptions of legitimacy and strength during the Afghan conflict. It argues that the Taliban developed a sophisticated, multi-platform communications apparatus that exploited Afghan nationalism, local grievan ... more

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Democracy or Polyarchy? US-Funded Media Developments in Afghanistan and Iraq Post 9/11

Michael J. Barker

Media, Culture & Society, volume 30, issue 1 (2008), pp. 109-130

"This paper has demonstrated that the benefits for the general Afghan and Iraqi public derived from the ‘promotion of independent media’ by institutions like the NED are questionable, especially for parties interested in encouraging more deliberative or participatory forms of democracy. Instead, ... more

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Media and Conflict: Afghanistan as a Relative Success Story

Yll Bajraktari, Christina Parajon

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace (USIP) (2008), 8 pp.

"The development of media in post-Taliban Afghanistan has been relatively successful (compared with both the Taliban regime and other countries subject to international intervention) in establishing free and responsible expression despite the lack of electricity, harsh terrain, absence of viable med ... more

The Media of Afghanistan: The Challenges of Transition Deep Insights

Drama for Development: Cultural Translation and Social Change Deep Insights

The Media of Afghanistan: The Challenges of Transition
Deep Insights

Drama for Development: Cultural Translation and Social Change
Deep Insights