Dr. Gerry Power, newly appointed managing director of InterMedia in London, was recently awarded the International Communication Association’s (ICA) “Communication Research as a Collaborative Practice” award at the organization’s 2010 conference in Singapore. The award, which recognizes outstanding collaborative techniques to address emerging problems in media and communication, highlighted Dr. Power’s work as Director of Research and Learning at the BBC World Service Trust, the position he held before joining InterMedia.

Gerry comes to InterMedia from the BBC World Service Trust, where he has been serving as Director of Research and Learning for the past five years, working across radio, television, internet and mobile platforms. He is credited with building up the Trust’s knowledge management practice, making research a fundamental strategic part of all communication for development projects and for establishing a highly motivated award-winning global network of researchers that spans 14 countries.

InterMedia was contracted by the Evaluation Division in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State to complete a five-year evaluation of an innovative high school student exchange program—the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program—established in the aftermath of September 11. Since 2003, more than 3,480 students from 25 countries with significant Muslim populations—Afghanistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan, Palestine, Malaysia and Yemen among the best-represented—have taken part in the program, which provides scholarships for secondary school students 15-17. Students spend up to a full academic year in towns and cities throughout the United States to attend high school, engage in activities to learn about American society and values, acquire leadership skills, and to share their customs and culture with Americans.

Peter Goldstein, director of online communications at InterMedia, recently travelled to Austria to introduce participants in the Salzburg Global Seminar to the AudienceScapes project, a treasure trove of media, communication and demographic data and analysis that will be a vital resource for the international development community.
The first segment of the project, an in-depth interview report of how policy makers and influencers in Ghana access and disseminate policy-relevant information, is due for release in the next several weeks. 

Several new team members will lend their expertise to InterMedia’s latest initiative: a qualitative and quantitative research program, supported initially by a $1.29 million two-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aimed at improving development project success rates through more effective communication to the general public, as well as to policymakers, in the developing world. 

InterMedia today announced a new program, aimed at improving development project success rates through more effective communication to the general public, as well as to policymakers, in the developing world.   
The program, supported initially by a $1.29 million two-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is made up of a pair of closely-linked initiatives:

• InterMedia will launch a quantitative and qualitative research program in Africa to fill knowledge gaps in how people gather, share and shape news and information, particularly as they relate to development.
• InterMedia will launch an interactive website “AudienceScapes” to disseminate data and analysis from the Africa research program as well as research on communication, media use and information sharing covering several other developing regions.

InterMedia’s 2008 national surveys in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, show vast differences in perceptions of media freedom, satisfaction with the information provided by the media, and the amount of media choice and access, not only from country to country, but also between different demographic groups within each country.

Domestic politics appear to be a root cause of fluctuating levels of support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) over the past 12 months among the populations of the Balkans—Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia. Montenegro saw a significant drop in support for NATO membership in the past year (following a large increase after independence in 2006); support in Serbia has remained fairly steady. Bosnia—where internal tensions are at their highest levels in years, putting the country squarely back on the international agenda—saw a significant increase in support for membership between 2007 and 2008.

InterMedia today released a new report that takes a closer look at shifting perceptions of NATO membership among the populations of 12 countries of the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. All the countries are potential NATO members. The report also analyzes NATO’s recent efforts to reach out to broader publics, many of whom are too young to recall NATO’s pivotal role in the Cold War.