ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what effects the new orthodoxy for international development had upon media landscapes in the poorest parts of the world. It argues that the new policies and approaches either directly caused, or else created the general conditions for, a vast expansion not only in media ownership but also in media infrastructures – including broadcasting, Information and Communications Technologies, and telecommunications infrastructures – across the developing world. It is tempting to see the advent of the Washington Consensus as heralding the beginning of 'the globalization of media'. Structural-adjustment programmes' emphasis upon policies that required states to dissolve their former media monopolies, and to allow for all manner of additional broadcasters to enter their national media markets, also galvanized a renewed interest in wider notions of media development. Of the many thousands of new radio and television stations that were established throughout the developing world following structural-adjustment, a large proportion could be characterized as community, or 'grassroots', in nature.
