Mr Qunum is head of the publications section at the Center of Economic and Social Studies for West Africa in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.

In his book, "Listening, or the Forgotten Communication" ("L’Ecoute ou la Communication Oublie"), he says: "The journalistic communication tends to become impoverished because of a system which consists of sending messages to the public until it becomes a flood."

He says the media tends to provide this information regardless of the public’s ability to assimilate it.

"This tendency to unilateralism puts the communicator in a dominant position, which distorts the exchange and the dialogue which are the foundations of the communication," Mr Qunum says.

As Mr Qunum explains, there is a real "diktat of urgency and competition where everything seems essential." When all the news, sometimes pointless, sometimes more important, is put side by side, it leads the public to incomprehension of the world. "The results are severe in terms of the decline of audience, temporary or on the long term," he says.

Instead, the media should "listen" to their audience, "to adjust, re-size, fit an article or a broadcast" according to the public’s expectations."To give the reader a good reason for remaining loyal to its newspaper, the minimum is to recognize its concerns."

A good way of involving the public in a dialogue with media is to emphasise columns such as "debates", "readers’ corner", etc. "It is important to mix the voice of the public with official voices in a spirit of national debate," Mr Qunum says.

"Today, the internet offers media additional possibilities to create bridges of dialogue and communication with their public. But beyond the virtual, there are physical contacts, specially through ’open house days’ or the regular organization of competition," Mr Qunum says.

For more information, contact rap21@wan.asso.fr