The Norhed programme and the project described in this chapter were designed before the UN SDGs were adopted in 2015. Nevertheless, the programme is founded on the same principles of sustainability and echoes the SDGs on many levels. Our project also took national devel-opment plans as well as the research agendas of the respective academic institutions into consideration. Given this focus, the impact with respect to trained students and the knowledge created through research will be felt for the foreseeable future. For instance, the Norhed project provided multimedia equipment to the three Southern partner institu-tions that became central in the training of journalists and communication specialists. This enables them to deploy the new media technologies as well as the vast array of online platforms.
Underlying the research collaboration that brought together Northern and Southern researchers, and across the graduate cohorts of doctoral and master’s students was a model that ensured horizontal and vertical academic growth within the project. Joint publications between Northern and Southern partners featured works of faculty staff but also of graduate students. Further, collaboration between Northern and Southern researchers ensured internationalisation and de-Westernisa-tion of knowledge and epistemologies, as discussed above.
There are numerous examples in our network of the project’s mutual benefits and of knowledge travelling in many directions, not at all only from the North to the South, as old-fashioned knowledge transmission theories and modernisation paradigms would predict. In the course of
workshopping our Norhed group’s first joint anthology (Orgeret and Tayeebwa 2016), it became clear to several of the Norwegian colleagues how much there was to be learned from partners in the South, particu-larly in the aftermath of the Oslo and Utøya terror attack of 2011, when discussing the role of journalists and trauma, crisis journalism and the safety of journalists (Frey 2016). The strength of multiple perspectives is also time and again reflected within our network – in scholarly dis-cussions about the role of journalism in transformative development, democratic and economic governance, for instance. We have seen how many of the universal global journalistic ideals are both challenged and acquire new relevance when applied in a local context – in the true spirit of ‘glocalisation’.
Yet, it is important to also remember that younger generations learn better from each other and experiential learning is one of the best means of doing so. While the Norhed project model was very successful in promoting North–South collaborations in research and teaching, as well as the movement of Southern graduate students to the North, the project afforded hardly any movement of Northern students to the global South to allow for intercultural experiential learning. It is such exchanges within younger generations that will break cultural barriers and bring about what Unesco refers to as the search for a ‘new human-ism’ based on ‘interculturalism as an adherence to a set of common values, potentially fed by each cultural expression’ (2013: 61).
Nevertheless, the Norhed project certainly achieved its overarching goal of ‘bridging gaps and building futures’ between North and South, and South and South through the training of a new generation of jour-nalists who are equipped with skills and competences that respond to the demands of the current (dis)information age. The project has created opportunities for new theoretical considerations questioning Western-centric media values (Tayeebwa 2016, 2017) while simultaneously reflecting on the relevance of the sacrosanct norms of the profession (Reese and Cohen 2000; Rich 2009). It is our hope that we will see more North–South student exchange included in future projects, to continue the building of knowledge exchanges and to continue strengthening journalism education in ways that undermine threats against the free-dom of expression and academic freefree-dom core to our democracies.
About the authors and the project
William Tayeebwa is a lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Communication at Makerere University, Uganda
Kristin Skare Orgeret is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
Project title: Bridging Gaps, Building Futures: Strengthening Media in Post-conflict Societies through Education and Research
Partner institutions: Makerere University (Uganda), College of Journalism and Mass Communication (Nepal), University of Juba (South Sudan) and Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway)
Notes
1 Alternative journalism can refer to a more participatory mode of journalistic practice, to the subject matter being covered or to the positions of its producers outside of dominant media channels.
2 For further information on the Sustainable Development Goals, see https://sustain-abledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300.
3 These papers are listed in the appendix to this chapter.
4 See Skjerdal (2012) for an overview.
Appendix
Papers presented at the 4th Annual Conference on the Safety of Journalists, Oslo Metropolitan University, 5–6 November 2018
Idås T and Orgeret KS (2018) #Metoo and the chilling effect of unwanted sexual attention on journalists
Koirala S (2018) Why self-censorship? Nepali journalists and freedom of expression Nakiwala AS (2018) Perceptions of risks and mitigation mechanisms among Ugandan
fe-male journalists working in contexts of political demonstrations
Namasinga F (2018) Journalists’ safety in the age of social media: The case of Uganda Walulya G (2018) Defending the watchdog: How journalist organisations foster safety and
security of media workers
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