In the UK iMedia has worked with the Foreign and Commonwealth Officeon using a range of media to facilitate international engagement on Afghanistan’s future. iMedia also advises local government on community-based communication to counter ethnic extremism. In addition, iMedia conducts workshops on media and peace-building, most recently in Belfast for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

iMedia clients include UK government departments, bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, and non-governmental organisations.

iMedia is currently applying these principles to community cohesion work with local government in the town of Barnsley, south Yorkshire, UK, and to researching and designing communications strategies that counter extremism and promote development in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

iMedia responds rapidly and flexibly to client needs by fielding a wide range of skills and expertise through its contacts with media and communications professionals around the world.

Further reading: Pakistan Case Study / Barnsley Case Study

Training also includes one-off sessions aimed at influencing policy and decision-makers. In early 2010 iMedia directors facilitated a workshop on media, conflict and stabilisation for visiting members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, as part of a conference on Fragile States, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In Barnsley iMedia trained local elected members in communications skills including crisis and rebuttal skills, as well as blogging skills.

Gordon Adam facilitates an annual module on media and conflict for the Masters course in Communications for Development at Malmo University, Sweden. He also lectures on media, conflict and health at the London School for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and at King’s College London.

• Communication Audits: Working for the UK Department for International Development (DFID), we were asked initially to carry out a scoping study on the shape of the media in Pakistan, with particular emphasis on new media.
• Communication Strategy Design: We used this information and other material gathered in-country to design a communications strategy, emphasising how communications projects could be used to further development goals.
• Strengthening Civil Society Communications: iMedia supported Pakistani civil society organisations working to counter the views of extremists and campaign for peace. We supported existing community organisations in developing a plan for a campaign for peace. This expanded into helping the newly-formed Aman Ittehad organisation to develop and refine their communication strategy. This work was supported by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
• Analysing Extremist Propaganda: iMedia was commissioned by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to identify and analyse the ways in which radical Islamists use new media to propagate their messages.

• Councillors: We have also helped to train elected Members and community Leaders to deal with competing sources of communications, correcting false information and exposing myths, to maintain trust and confidence in the community. This includes media management and direct engagement with those perpetrating myths. Councillors have been given the skills and knowhow to conduct ‘crisis communications’, use social media and develop blogs.
• Local Strategy Partnership: iMedia believes that public perception of local authorities improves when different parts of local government coordinate their communication, and that coordination can also bring efficiency savings. We have been helping the different elements of the Local Strategic Partnership refine and develop a communications strategy that is joined up and effective.
• Community Pride. iMedia knows that radical groups exploit communities who feel insecure. We helped Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council design a tailor-made community pride campaign called ‘Portrait Barnsley’ -  a mass participation event held on 24 September 2010. Barnsley citizens were encouraged to take group photographic portraits on that specific day and submit them to a central website — using SMS, MMS and direct uploads. On the day itself a massive screen in the town centre projected the photographs as they were received and a music event provided a focus. In total, more than 2,000 people submitted photographs on the day and demand was so great that the website (see below) was kept open for the weekend to allow people to send in their pictures.  The event is intended to become a community festival of distinct and shared identity.