Toolkits, Newsletter, Indexes, guides, tools, & courses

Knowledge Bridge – digital audience development (MDIF)

The Knowledge Bridge provides resources to help news executives in emerging markets develop digital products, generate digital revenues and make informed decisions about their digital business.

Most of the guides, outlines and slideshows are taken from training materials created for Media Development Investment Fund consultancies, and have already been shown to be effective learning tools for news organisations in transitional countries. Others have been specially created to provide actionable insight into critical digital issues or step-by-step how-to guides

GIP Digital Watch newsletter

The Geneva Digital Watch newsletter is a monthly newsletter, published by the Geneva Internet Platform and DiploFoundation, as part of the GIP Digital Watch initiative, that means to be a one-stop shop for updates and developments in the Internet governance and policy ecosystem. It includes a round-up of developments for each month, interviews with prominent Internet governance experts, features and articles on various digital policy areas, and a just-for-fun section. The newsletter complements the GIP Digital Watch observatory and the monthly GIP briefings on Internet governance. Sign up for the monthly newsletter here

World Economic Forum Strategic Intelligence (resource center)

Explore and monitor the issues and forces driving transformational change across economies, industries, and global issues

Transparency Report Tracking Tool (Open Technology Institute)

Today, transparency reporting on issues such as government requests for user data is considered an industry-wide best practice for technology and telecommunications companies. Over the past few years, internet platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube have also begun publishing transparency reports that outline how they are enforcing their own content policies and rules. This reporting has been expanded to include a number of metrics and categories of content that are unique to these types of platforms. However, although companies have made some positive strides toward providing transparency and accountability around their content moderation practices, there is still significant room for improvement. Through our Transparency Reporting Toolkit on Content Takedowns and the Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation, which we drafted as part of a coalition dedicated to freedom of expression online, we have put forth a number of recommendations on how internet platforms can improve their transparency reporting on content moderation. The charts below outline what metrics and categories of content Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube are reporting on in their transparency reports related to content rules enforcement. These charts intend to depict the breadth of categories and metrics that companies are reporting on, how these reports have evolved over time, and also enable comparison between the companies’ reports. In addition, these charts can be used to identify fundamental gaps in reporting.

Poynter’s News University (link)

They ar ehere offered 100+ interactive journalism courses and the possibility to join their international community of 150,000+ professionals, educators and students.

Membership Puzzle Project (Studio 20/De Correspondent)

The Membership Puzzle Project seeks to offer useful resources for journalism organization staff, freelancers, and consultants as they create new membership programs and/or revamp existing offerings. We’re especially eager to show examples that demonstrate meaningful two-way knowledge exchange between news sites and their members. We’re showcasing sites whose interactions with members benefit organizational sustainability and make for better journalism. These tools are works in progress, and we hope that you will provide additional examples and feedback throughout the course of our research.

Media Viability Indicators (DW Akademie)

What stops a country's media sector from producing high quality journalism and being sustainable? DW Akademie offers media practitioners, activists, and scholars a new framework to assess media viability.

Media Sustainability Index (IREX)

IREX's Media Sustainability Index (MSI) provides in-depth analyses of the conditions for independent media in 80 countries across the world. The MSI will be replaced by the Vibrant Information Barometer (VIBE) in 2021.

Since the Europe and Eurasia MSI was first conceived in 2000, in cooperation with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the MSI has evolved into an important benchmark study to assess how media systems change over time and across borders.

IREX added a study for the Middle East and North Africa in 2005, and in 2007 launched the Africa MSI. In 2017, IREX and the Sri Lanka Development Journalists Forum conducted the Sri Lanka MSI.

Media Sustainability Barometer (Innovation Research Group with GFMD – full report)

Those concerned with the sustainability of the news media worldwide recognise that if this issue is to managed, it needs to be measured and monitored. While several frameworks for media viability indicators have been proposed over the past three years, calls for their implementation have not been answered – until now.

Drawing on proposals by UNESCO and Deutsche Welle Akademie, the Innovation Research Group (IRG) has worked with the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) and to create a broad-based, quantitative tool to measure, monitor, map and model the forces shaping media sustainability globally.

Journalism Now online interactive courses (Thomson Foundation)

Level up your skill set and give yourself an original edge. Our free Journalism Now online interactive courses are designed and led by industry experts with most courses also supporting your Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

Global Disinformation Index (GDI)

The internet has given people access to new tools and platforms to build communities – and new capabilities to speak truth to power.

Yet these same spaces are being abused to spread division, fear and mistrust – and sow the seeds of disinformation.

It is time to disrupt, defund and down-rank disinformation sites.

The Global Disinformation Index provides advertisers, ad tech companies and platforms with trusted, non-partisan and independent ratings to assess a site’s disinformation risks.

Gather: An Engaged Journalism Collaborative (Knight Foundation)

Useful space to see case studies and resources on journalism and media.

Digital Economy Enabling Environment Guide: Key Areas of Dialogue for Business and Policymakers (CIPE)

This Guide aims to explain the complex legal and regulatory aspects of the digital economy for all stakeholders, regardless of their technical knowledge or policy experience.

Corporate Accountability Index (Ranking Digital Rights)

The 2019 Ranking Digital Rights Corporate Accountability Index evaluated 24 of the world’s most powerful internet, mobile, and telecommunications companies on their disclosed commitments and policies affecting freedom of expression and privacy of internet users across the world.