The Mediae

The Mediae Company is an organisation dedicated to improving the livelihoods of large audiences in Africa through the development of educative, entertaining and effective media. We empower millions of people by supplying vital knowledge and information in forms that can be widely accessed and understood. Our work covers a variety of different medias, including television and radio production, print, social media, research, lecturing, seminars and communication consultancy. We work alongside local writers, actors, researchers, NGOs, government institutions and international donors to develop media productions, communication strategies and training inputs that are top quality, appropriate, relevant and sustainable. Print and SMS facilities accompany all programmes, allowing key messages to be summarised on leaflets and SMS systems set up to manage questions and requests for information. During every programme, audiences are invited to text-message from their mobiles if they would like a leaflet detailing more information on the key issues covered, or if they wish to interact with the show on other issues. Using SMS and social media within all our productions has proved highly popular and with the rising use of and access to the Internet, social media such as Facebook and YouTube are proving invaluable extensions to this two-way relationship with audiences. Our current TV shows Shamba Shape UP (agricultural based reality show), Makutano Junction (drama) and Know Zone (children's curriculum based show) reach over 5 million respectively (and as much as 10 million per week as with our most popular show Shamba Shape UP) each week. All the show's have a strong online presence, in the form of Facebook, Twitter and our digital platform, the Africa Knowledge Zone, where clips from productions will be grouped by theme to provide an e-learning resource for audiences.