How Sundiata Post is Changing the Way African Media Engages with Global Research

For many years, people have judged African media by how well they report news, inform citizens, hold officials accountable, and shape public discussions. These roles are very important for journalism. But can a media group do more? Can it also create systems for research, theory development, and knowledge preservation?

At Sundiata Post, we think it can.

The future of African media will rely not just on how well news groups report the news but also on what they add to understanding the forces that shape African societies. Journalism can raise important questions, create insights, and provide a base for detailed research. With the right structures, some knowledge from journalism can be developed, recorded, and stored for future use.

This belief drives a major new step for Sundiata Post: the creation of two special research repositories on global platforms. The Sundiata Post Dataverse is on Harvard Dataverse, and Sundiata Post Elements is a scholarly community on Zenodo, hosted by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Managed by the Sundiata Post Knowledge Lab (SPKL), these repositories offer support for keeping research data safe and sharing scholarly work. They expand Sundiata Post’s reach beyond just news into research documentation, idea development, and sharing knowledge.

This ambition is part of our main goal: From News to Enduring Knowledge.

News is about what is happening now, but the questions it brings up often last longer than the news itself.

Why does insecurity continue even with many government efforts? How do armed groups gain control over areas? What happens when the official power of a state is different from what its citizens experience? Why do institutions that seem to work on paper sometimes fail to provide safety, justice, and services?

These questions are not just for newsrooms. They also need investigation, political analysis, and public policy discussion.

African media groups face these questions every day. They report on conflicts, check institutions, review official statements, and observe changes in society. But the knowledge gathered from years of reporting is not always organized into datasets, analytical frameworks, and scholarly outputs that can be accessed after individual stories fade away.

This brings an opportunity. What if patterns seen in journalism could create research questions, lead to thorough investigations, and produce analytical frameworks that other scholars could study and improve?

The goal is not to turn every newsroom into a university or every journalist into a researcher. Journalism and academic research have different aims and standards. Instead, the chance lies in connecting them. This way, journalism’s insights can help research, and research can deepen public understanding.

Sundiata Post is crafting one way to achieve this.

Research data and scholarly publications are linked but serve different functions. One keeps the proof that supports studies; the other shares the ideas, methods, and findings from scholarly work. Our two repositories show this difference.

The Sundiata Post Dataverse is on Harvard Dataverse.

Harvard Dataverse is a research data repository from Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS). It provides a way to store, document, cite, and share research data.

The Sundiata Post Dataverse aims to keep datasets, empirical materials, indicators, methodologies, and technical documents about governance, insecurity, state capacity, territorial control, and sovereignty in Africa and the Global South.

This function goes beyond just storage. Well-documented research materials can help other researchers see how an argument was made, evaluate its limits, do further analysis, and come up with new questions. Keeping methodology with data also makes research easier to check and build on.

In areas where evidence is scattered and public debate changes quickly, a lasting research record can greatly add to shared knowledge.

Sundiata Post Elements can be accessed through its Zenodo community.

Zenodo is a multidisciplinary research repository by CERN and developed in connection with the OpenAIRE research infrastructure.

Focusing on Media, Security, and Sovereignty in Africa and the Global South, Sundiata Post Elements offers a place to share working papers, conceptual frameworks, research reports, and other scholarly and policy-related outputs.

While the Dataverse repository focuses on research data and documentation, Elements focuses on sharing and spreading ideas.

Data alone does not explain what evidence means. Research also needs concepts, analytical methods, and interpretations. Scholarly outputs provide a way to display these elements so that researchers, journalists, and policymakers can engage with them.

Together, the repositories create ways to keep evidence safe and share the knowledge built from it.

The repositories are part of a larger effort by the Sundiata Post Knowledge Lab. SPKL serves as a base for research, security analysis, policy-related inquiries, and developing analytical frameworks.

This work is based on a simple idea: journalism can highlight questions that need in-depth investigation, while research can help determine if seen patterns are unique events or signs of deeper issues.

At Sundiata Post, this ambition shows in three developing analytical frameworks.

The Insecurity Triad looks at insecurity through three linked parts: Money, Land, and Mind. Money looks at the economic reasons and extraction systems that support insecurity, including kidnapping and ransom schemes. Land studies territorial control, banditry, and the ties between armed actions and production. Mind looks at the ideological and psychological aspects of terrorism and organized violence.

The Trinity of Sovereignty Decay (TSD) examines how a state’s formal existence connects to its ability to exercise real authority. Its analysis moves through Protection, Compliance, Territorial Credibility, Institutional Function, and Sovereign Reality. It tries to explain how a state can keep formal institutions and international recognition while losing the practical exercise of sovereignty.

The Decoupling Sovereignty Index (DSI) develops this inquiry in a more quantitative way. It looks at the gap between formal sovereignty and the real situations of authority, protection, and control. Its current framework includes 19 indicators across the Money, Land, and Mind dimensions, rated on a scale from 0 to 10.

These frameworks are developing intellectual contributions that should be open to critical review. Their value relies on clear ideas, transparent methods, solid evidence, and their ability to hold up under scrutiny.

The repositories offer a means to keep and share related research materials and methodological documents. They can help make analytical development a more organized institutional activity.

African media groups face a quickly changing information landscape. Digital platforms have increased the speed and reach of publishing, while shifts in audience behavior and online distribution have challenged traditional business models. News organizations must always rethink how they create public value and keep their operations going.

One response is to compete for immediate attention. Another is to consider the unique institutional assets that can be built over time.

Journalism is still fundamental. Public trust, editorial independence, professional skills, and investigative ability are vital. But media groups can also look for new ways to turn their experience and intellectual work into lasting public resources.

A well-documented investigation can guide future research. A dataset can back new analysis. A conceptual framework can spark debate across fields. A research report can influence policy discussions.

The larger opportunity is to make sure that a media organization’s impact does not end when an article is published or a news cycle ends.

This is not a one-size-fits-all approach for every newsroom. Different groups have different missions, resources, and capacities. Nor should the drive for research outputs take away from journalism’s main duties. The point is that African media institutions can grow their contributions while keeping their journalistic identity.

Sundiata Post is following this path by building research and scholarly infrastructure alongside its journalism.

Choosing to use established global platforms is important. Knowledge production relies not just on creating ideas but also on the systems through which research is documented, stored, discovered, cited, and circulated.

Using Harvard Dataverse and Zenodo allows Sundiata Post to build on existing research infrastructure rather than creating everything from scratch. It also opens doors for its outputs to be found in larger scholarly communities.

These platforms do not automatically validate every item submitted. Access to the repository is not a replacement for peer review, independent checking, or sound methodology. Research quality remains the job of its authors and the relevant review processes.

Still, solid deposits, clear metadata, and persistent identifiers can enhance how research is accessed, cited, and revisited.

For African researchers, the challenge is not just to make their work visible worldwide. It is also to help shape the questions, develop concepts, and provide evidence that inform global knowledge.

African societies should not just be used as examples for theories made elsewhere. African researchers and institutions must also share original frameworks and methods based on African realities that are relevant to wider discussions.

Sundiata Post’s repositories aim to support this wider involvement.

No institution can build a strong knowledge infrastructure alone.

Sundiata Post invites scholars, universities, research institutes, newsrooms, international organizations, and development agencies that work on Nigeria, Africa, and the Global South to seek opportunities for partnership.

We welcome research datasets, working papers, conceptual frameworks, methodologies, research reports, and other scholarly or policy-related materials, especially those focused on Media, Security, and Sovereignty.

Contributions should be well-documented and meet the necessary deposit rules, intellectual property rights, ethical standards, and access guidelines. Sensitive information must be managed carefully.

We also welcome partnerships for collaborative research, methodological development, research documentation, and knowledge sharing.

Our goal is not just to gather publications and datasets. It is to encourage a body of work that is discoverable, well-documented, and open to informed review, and that can support further investigation, policy engagement, and global collaboration.

The long-term value of this project will depend on the quality of research it draws, the reliability of its documentation, and the strength of the partnerships it builds.

Since it started in 2015, Sundiata Post has focused on journalism as its foundation. The creation of the Knowledge Lab and its presence on international repositories strengthens that foundation rather than replacing it.

This initiative promotes a wider view of media institutional success. Alongside quality reporting, public trust, editorial independence, and audience reach, a media group can think about whether it keeps evidence, creates original ideas, and makes its intellectual outputs accessible for future inquiry.

These goals can work together when pursued with clarity and proper standards.

For African media, the chance is to look beyond the news cycle while remembering journalism’s democratic duties. The continent needs strong newsrooms and independent investigative journalism. It can also gain from media organizations that hold research, build analytical frameworks, and contribute original ideas to global scholarship and policy discussions.

Sundiata Post is moving in that direction with its two repositories and the efforts of the Sundiata Post Knowledge Lab.

The real impact of this work will depend on the quality of research it supports, the collaborations it attracts, and how useful the knowledge it helps keep and share is. But the basic idea is clear: an African media organization can do more than just report news and join public discussions. It can also help create the systems to keep evidence, develop ideas, and make knowledge available for future generations.