Afghan Media in 2010

In 2004-2005, USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives contracted Altai Consulting for the first comprehensive media evaluation ever conducted in Afghanistan. The aim was to examine the Afghan Media’s impact on opinions and behaviors after three years of media sector reconstruction efforts. Since the publication of that report, substantive changes have been observed in the Afghan media sector. In order to inform future international community and commercial investments the study endeavored to create a comprehensive picture of Afghan media, its users, their preferences and expectations, and measure its impact on public opinion and behavior.

Research conducted from March to August 2010 combined quantitative and qualitative methodologies including: a literature review; direct observations; key informant interviews; 6,648 close-ended interviews in 107 districts, covering all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces; a daily week-long audience survey of over 1,500 individuals; approximately 200 qualitative, open-ended interviews; and ten community case studies. This effort guarantees that findings reported here are reasonably representative of the overall Afghan population.

The full synthesis report, as well as a database of media actors, 16 priority district reports, ten case-study reports, a complete description of the methodology, the original datasets from the main quantitative research, and the audience research, are publicly available on this webpage and thus allow anyone interested to extract information on more focused areas, as the need arises.

For reference, access the 2005 reports here.