We have received 45 applications from all over the world. The competition was tight insofar as there were more projects that we deemed to be worthy of funding than we were able to fund. For this reason, the selection of this year’s research project underwent several rounds of assessment within the Media Studies Commission, until we were able to narrow down our selection to the two finalists.
One of the two finalists was the project Echoes of Change: Unveiling the Climate Crisis through Historical Narratives in Nigerian Television Archives of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). Led by principal investigator Dr. Peter Ugondo (Taraba State University) with co-researcher Dr. Patience Ngunan Achakpa-Ikyo (Benue State University), the project studies decades-worth of archival footage on environmental reporting, environmental public education campaigns and other climate-related events at the Nigerian Television Authority, the oldest state broadcaster in Nigeria. The aim is to trace back the evolution of environmental discourse in Nigerian television history so as to understand how this has been impacting public attitudes and governmental policies. The project combines archival research with content analysis and promises to enhance archival findings with expert interviews to be carried out with climate change communication experts, environmental journalists and Nigerian media historians.
There are several strengths of the project which were praised by the Media Studies Commission during the selection process. Through its focus on Nigerian television archives, the project intervenes into and contributes a Global South perspective on an otherwise predominantly Eurocentric discourse on broadcast archives and climate change. We particularly appreciated the potential of the project to turn the gaze back onto the West when it comes to the climate crisis. In that sense, we valued the glocal perspective that the project brings, examining climate change at the intersection between global discourses and local responses. The expert interviews in the project can enrich the knowledge potential of television archival footage at the Nigerian Television Authority, enhancing its potential use in policy and education as well as in fostering public engagement and international collaborations on matters related to climate change. The expertise of the two researchers involved in the project is unique, as they bring together both specialised academic expertise and insider knowledge of the archives at the Nigerian Television Authority. In their letter supporting the access of the researchers to their archives, the Nigerian Television Authority attested that the project enhances the understanding of Nigerian Media history, promotes their archives and showcases its content, while having the potential to inform policy decisions and media strategies.
Another finalist for this year’s Media Studies Grant was the project Revisiting Archival Narratives: The Influence of Women News Anchors on Gender Discourse in the Genesis of Pakistani Television by Dr. Rabia Noor (Beaconhouse National University). The project sheds light on the pivotal role women news anchors played in early Pakistani news production. Dr. Noor’s project joins feminist approaches to television history which seeks to revisit and render visible the oftentimes obscured or marginalised position that women have been relegated to in television history. While the Media Studies Commission funded other research projects in previous years that zoomed in on feminist approaches to television history, the previously commissioned research was situated within Western contexts, such as the UK and Australia. Feminism, however, is intersectional and in order to understand women’s roles in television histories through an intersectional and transnational lens, more research is needed on feminist television histories coming from the Global South. Such histories can help bring renewed perspectives on how women’s roles in television histories have been intertwined with issues of race, ethnicity, class, oppression or social-economic status. Dr. Noor’s project makes a much-needed contribution to feminist approaches to television histories coming from the Global South.
Among the strengths of Dr. Noor’s project that were praised by the Media Studies Commission are not only the promise to fill in historical gaps, but also the ability to show how archival footage and research about women in television history can inform present-day conversations about gender equity in the media. Dr. Noor’s project shows how broadcast archives have the potential to (re-)write women’s narratives in the media and in television history, drawing attention to the blind spots that exist in the archives and the need to preserve historical narratives that would otherwise remain untold. Her project examines historical footage and documents at Pakistan Television Corporation, which will be analysed by means of a semiotic approach to discourse analysis. Notable for the project is the ambition to enhance archival findings with interviews to be carried out with early women news anchors in Pakistani Television, contributing thus to collecting primary sources in the form of oral testimonies that have urgency in terms of safeguarding and preservation. Dr. Noor is in the unique position to carry out this research project, as she relies on both her academic experience and expertise, as well as on her background as a broadcast journalist.
In the Media Studies Commission, we are very eager to learn more about the research findings that the awarded grantees will be sharing with the FIAT/IFTA community. The two projects and their findings will be presented at the World Conference in Rome, on Thursday 30th October at 10am CET. The written results of the two projects will be made available on the FIAT/IFTA website in the late fall.
We congratulate this year’s Media Studies Grant finalists and we wish them productive and inspiring research.
