Fourth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

Private telecommunications companies in Cameroon have dominated the advertisement sector since arrival at the beginning of the twenty-first century, yet the relationship between the media and these groups of advertisers have received little attention from modern day media researchers. Furthermore, investigations around media in Cameroon largely focused on issues of press freedom, regulation, without much interests on sustainability, despite the fact that almost every media research pointed at financial stability as a major weakling the Cameroonian media must tackle if it wants to be free, independent and practice quality journalism. Two factors could explain why research interests titled to different angles. Firstly, data scarcity makes research a nightmare for researchers in Cameroon and many private and public institutions practice data shutdown-no sharing of company information to researchers. Secondly, traditionally, research institutions have not put enough effort to investigate media economics in the country. As a consequence, very few media and communication training programmes teach media management and economics. This research sets out to discover how the different advertising budgets foreign telecommunications companies put into media affects press liberty, sustainability and quality journalism. It nuances insight information obtained through professional experience at a foreign telecommunications company, research developed around media economics and facts gathered from the media environment to create arguments and analyse facts. It objectively advances arguments to foster knowledge about the media in the country.