In the Dominican Republic freedom of expression, press freedom and other related media issues are protected by different laws. There are many traditional and new media outlets for such a small country (and a Small Island Development State) but ownership of media is highly concentrated within a few privileged politic and economic powerful groups. This limits the diversity of media content and confines the views and topics covered by media to private interests. In 2010, the former Dominican President, Leonel Fernández, formed a national commission that prepared 5 law projects to reform or create media legislation. The related approval process is currently on-going.

The Colegio Dominicano de Periodistas (College of Dominican Journalists- CDP by its acronym in Spanish) considers it a priority to promote best journalism practices in a free, independent and pluralistic media environment, essential to advocate democracy and ethics. Media should encourage transparency and dialogue, demand accountability and empower citizens providing the information to engage them in their own development processes. The College is promoting and supporting the establishment of a Code of Communication.

In this context, this project will conduct an assessment of media development in the Dominican Republic based on UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators (MDIs) and using the Gender-Sensitive Indicators for Media (GSIM). The results will serve as an important tool for guiding the efforts of national actors working in the area of media development and legislation, including lawyers and policy makers. Such a study will provide an up-to-date state of arts of national media landscape and a comprehensive analysis of the current media situation including gender issues, which is not available now. It will allow areas for improvement to be clearly identified as well as the right direction to take for correcting the course of current and further reforms.