Grounds for Development: Media Development Practice and Theory in Post-Conflict Afghanistan

Abstract

As I am opening the discussion on ‘perspectives from the developing world’, I thought I would begin by observing that there is a growing awareness and criticism that media theory is primarily developed from US and UK-based contexts. The applicability of theory with such a narrow empirical base in the wider world is often in question. At the moment, media practitioners in the developing world often draw their intellectual base from US/UK-based theory. Further, in situations of post-conflict reconstruction, as has been the case in Kosovo, Serbia, and Afghanistan, the development of media systems in developing countries is based on models from the Western world. So today I’d like to explore areas of gap - or phrased more positively, under explored potential – that could bridge Western-centric media theory/practice, and theory/practice in what I might call the larger world.