In January 2008, Kenya suffered some of the worst violence in history.
More than 1,000 people were killed and as many as 500,000 displaced.
Many factors have been held responsible for the violence including the famously free and vigorous Kenyan media.
Local language vernacular radio stations were especially blamed for fanning the flames of violence.
But research undertaken by the BBC World Service Trust challenges such conclusions. Co-author Jamal Abdi states:
"Real abuses did occur, but the negative role of certain local language media during the crisis is the product of a chaotic regulatory policy and a lack of training, especially of talk show hosts. But many local stations also played a role in calming tensions. Kenya's poorest people have often lacked 'voice' and channels to share their views and exchange information have been few and far between. These new vernacular radio stations have provided such a platform."
Across a continent where media is in general neither strong enough nor independent enough to fulfil its role as the fourth estate, Kenya's recent election crisis offers a valuable case study in the role of a burgeoning, if sometime chaotic, media.
Media liberalisation, mobile phones, SMS texts and blogs are fundamentally changing how people access and share information for better and for worse.
"Media and communication patterns are changing with astonishing speed in countries like Kenya", says James Deane, Head of Policy at BBC World Service Trust, and the co-author of the new Policy Briefing, "The implications of those changes for fragile democracies are profound, but not well understood, not least by development agencies", he says.
The report argues that media and communication factors are an increasing factor in both potentially calming and fuelling conflict.
Research carried out for the report included 20 in-depth interviews with senior media and other figures in Kenya.
Nearly all of them argued that the media - including large mainstream media organisations - needed to learn important lessons from the crisis and that they were determined to do so.
The Policy Briefing looks at the role of vernacular local language media, mainstream media, government media, community media and the role of blogs and SMS messages.
It concludes that a free and plural media will be critical to enabling the most important public debate in the country's history.
"Much of the abuses in the media were preventable with better training and support, better media monitoring and a more coherent regulatory and policy framework", says Abdi.
"The country's famously vibrant media is likely to be critical in healing Kenya's damaged democracy in the months and years ahead."