The African Media Barometer (AMB)
The African Media Barometer (AMB) is an in-depth and comprehensive
description and measurement system for national media environments on the
African continent. Unlike other press surveys or media indices the AMB is a selfassessment exercise based on home-grown criteria derived from African Protocols
and Declarations like the “Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in
Africa” (2002) by the “African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights”. The
instrument was jointly developed by fesmedia Africa, the Media Project of the
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in Africa, and the Media Institute of Southern
Africa (MISA) in 2004.
The African Media Barometer is an analytical exercise to measure the media
situation in a given country which at the same time serves as a practical lobbying
tool for media reform. Its results are presented to the public of the respective
country to push for an improvement of the media situation using the AU
Declaration and other African standards as benchmarks. The recommendations
of the AMB-reports are then integrated into the work of the 19 country offices of
the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in sub-Saharan Africa and into the advocacy
efforts of other local media organizations like the Media Institute of Southern
Africa.
Methodology and Scoring System
Every two to three years a panel of 10-12 experts, consisting of at least five media
practitioners and five representatives from civil society, meets to assess the media
situation in their own country. For 1 1/2 days they discuss the national media
environment according to 45 predetermined indicators. The discussion and scoring
is moderated by an independent consultant who also edits the AMB-report.
After the discussion of one indicator panel members allocate their individual scores
to that respective indicator in an anonymous vote according to the following scale:
1

Country does not meet indicator

2

Country meets only a few aspects of indicator

3

Country meets some aspects of indicator

4

Country meets most aspects of indicator

5

Country meets all aspects of the indicator

The sum of all individual indicator scores will be divided by the number of panel
members to determine the average score for each indicator. These average indicator

2

AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER BOTSWANA 2011

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