The Media Map Project, a research collaboration between international NGO Internews and The World Bank Institute, has made 25 data sets on media and development worldwide open to the public. All the data featured on the site is available for free download.
The data sets collectively touch on every country in the world, making up to 30 years' worth of information available to the public for download and analysis.
With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Media Map Project aims to better understand the relationship between media development and outcomes in governance and economic development.
Visualisations on the site allow users to interact with and test the data in different ways, including Map the Numbers, Chart the numbers, and Graph the Numbers.
Map the Numbers shows how country-by-country scores change over time for indices like the “voice and accountability” score from the World Bank Governance Indicators, number of Internet users per 100 people, and donor spending on communications.
The Chart the Numbers function allows users to see trends within data, such as correlations between a country's engagement with ICTs and its economic prosperity.
Finally, Graph the Numbers shows data sets of measurements unavailable elsewhere, such as the Cash for News Coverage and Bribe Payers Indices. These one-time studies provide a comprehensive resource for researchers interested in understanding influence in the media.
Data analyst Sanjukta Roy, for example, used the data on the site to produce a study showing that a healthy media sector positively impacts on political stability in the sub-Saharan Africa region.
Those behind Media Map say such platforms can, in the long-term, contribute significantly to a free and open media, by highlighting the economic and developmental consequences of a restrictive information environment.
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck says the Media Map Project is an enormously valuable and powerful initiative.
“We tend to 'know' intuitively that there is a relationship between a variety of indicators, like transparency, connectivity, media freedom, and diversity and education. However, being able to map it, and map comparisons between countries, enables us to highlight the extent to which poor economic performance by a country is often a symptom of poor policy and misrule,” he explains.
“By connecting the dots, this kind of service enables us to call leaders to account far more effectively.”
Goldstuck adds that new and increasingly dominant forms of media, such as online and social media, represent different aspects of the information spectrum, but are hard to define.
“By quantifying them, along with other media, we can assess the relationship between these various channels. It also provides a more granular insight into the implications of high or low ICT indicators.”
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