KENYA MEDIA PREDICTIONS REPORT LAUNCHED
Report by Aga Khan University’s Media Innovation Centre analyses the country’s dynamic media landscape
Wednesday, March 3, 2020, Nairobi: The Aga Khan University Media Innovation Center (MiC) has launched The 2020 Kenyan Media Predictions report.
MiC Director, Ms Njoki Chege, said the report seeks to forecast what the future holds for media, which has experienced an ever changing climate thanks to technology.
“The environment in which the media is working in has changed tremendously over the years, so has the business environment and professional obligations for journalists. News consumption has changed and will continue to do so,” said Njoki. “This report therefore builds upon a deep introspection of 2019 while combining decades of journalistic experience to produce distilled predictions for this year.”
Ms Njoki highlighted one prediction where there will be more focus on Artificial Intelligence and evidence-based journalism to understand audiences.
“We predict that technology will continue to accelerate media evolution and the legacy media will focus more on evidence-based journalism supported by data. Artificial Intelligence (AI), audience metrics and analytics will shift from monitoring the journalist to understanding the audience,” noted Njoki. “With this evolution, the content creators who recognise this vortex and authentically seek to segment, understand and measure their audiences will be in a position to shape conversations and set the agenda for their communities.”
Aga Khan University Vice Provost and Interim Dean, Graduate School of Media and Communications, Dr Alex Awiti, noted the importance of having such predictions coming from industry experts drawn from the different disciplines to provide a holistic approach on media and the way forward.
“Over the years we have seen a great rift in legendary media with technology causing unimaginable disruption for media. It therefore needed a consolidation of effort to understand how to go about this disruption, take advantage of it and grow our media industry rather than lose it,” added Dr Alex Awiti. “We hope this report will reach the various key players in media and help shape the future conversations around media innovation and media digitization for East Africa.”
The report highlight the views of 34 thought leaders on the key challenges and opportunities in Kenya’s media industry, building upon a deep introspection of 2019 while combining decades of journalistic experience to produce distilled predictions for this year.
You can access the full report here.
For media queries:
Caleb Kimanzi
Communications Officer,
Media Innovation Centre
Aga Khan University
Mobile: +254 780 993 137
Email: caleb.kimanzi[at]aku.edu
About AKU
The Aga Khan University empowers the people of the developing world with the knowledge and skills to realize their highest goals. We provide a transformative education that prepares our graduates for local and global leadership. We generate solutions to problems that affect millions of people through pioneering research. We strive to achieve world-class excellence, inspiring individuals and institutions to meet the highest standards. Because everyone deserves the opportunity to fulfil their potential, we serve the disadvantaged and work where the need is greatest. Together with our partners, AKU builds bridges across borders and boundaries of all kinds, recognizing that humanity’s diversity is one of its greatest assets. www.aku.edu
About the Media Innovation Centre
The new AKU-GSMC Media Innovation Center brings together great innovative minds and media professionals from East Africa who are leading change in their spheres of influence with the aim of supporting, training and incubating their big ideas into economically viable realities. Funded by KfW as part of the Futures Project, the Innovation Centre aims to foster innovation and entrepreneurship to enhance media viability through a combination of research, training, mentorship, coaching, incubation/acceleration services and knowledge sharing. The Innovation Centre will be based in Nairobi, to provide space, time and support for concrete leading-edge innovation projects that strengthen Media Viability across the region.
That’s why I think today is such a great space for us to sit back and reflect on the questions that could help us shape the kind of journalism that we want to see in our local and global community.
The report specifically analysed eight major variables which include: newsroom structure and resources, media ownership and business models, organisational capacity, innovation culture, journalism culture, financial trends and results, content quality and COVID-19.
Three media startups have graduated from the Innovators-in-Residence program when they pitched their ideas in a ‘demo day’ at the Media Challenge Initiative Hub in Uganda
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Other than the grant, we saw it best to provide a vast set of trainings that will equip the founders with the necessary knowledge and skills to run their business.
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Held on September 26th, Professor Bitange Ndemo gave an insightful and eye opening talk on: “The nexus of technology, media and storytelling in the age of digital disruption and economic uncertainty”
The Aga Khan University (AKU) Media Innovation Center has announced a Ksh 6 million grant in support of three winning ideas across East Africa.
Corruption, Climate change, identity politics, the missed big stories and the coverage of societal issues at personal levels dominated the media diet in the year 2019.
The Aga Khan University (AKU) Media Innovation Center hosted interested media practitioners and individuals for a 3 day IP in Media and Journalism boot camp.
