Community Radio 2.0 - Reinventing Participation, Empowerment and Community in Converging Public Spheres (original) (raw)
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Social Media And Community Radio Journalism In South Africa
Using a qualitative approach, this article explores South African community radio stations’ uses of the internet, particularly the online social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter. Specifically, it explores the extent to which these sites are used in news production, and whether there is an increase in organization on the basis of network sociality instead of identity politics or communal social relations. Focusing on three community radio stations in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban (South Africa’s three largest cities), the article draws on anthropological methods of participant observation and qualitative interviews. The study argues that while the potential exists, in this case access to and the use of social media does not necessarily facilitate the formation of counterpublics or result in collective political action and networked activism. However, the technologies have impacted on the daily routines of community radio journalists who increasingly rely on the internet as a source of news; and in turn, their use of social media has led to greater access and participation for those audiences which are already online.
Regenerative voice: community radio’s amplification of communication for social change
2017
This PhD research asks the question: to what extent, and in what ways, does community radio contribute to communication for social change? Community radio remains a unique communication platform under digital capitalism, arguably capable of expanding the project of media democratisation. Yet there is a lack of in-depth analysis of community radio experience, and a dearth of understanding of its functionality as an actively transformative tool for greater equity in society. This project combines the theoretical positions of critical Political Economy of Communication and a citizen's media perspective in order to interrogate community radio's democratic and regenerative potential. Significant not-for-profit community radio sectors exist in Australia and Timor-Leste, and using a case study approach two stations are examined-3CR in Melbourne and RCL in Lospalos-applying multiple research methods. The project reveals community radio's amplification of media participation, communication rights, counter-hegemony, media power, communicative democracy and a regenerative voice. iii Declaration This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma to any university. To the best of my knowledge and understanding, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made within the thesis itself. Short excerpts from Chapters 2 and 3 in this thesis also appear in Fox, J.
This article analyses the role of new media technologies in transforming radio practices in South Africa in terms of institutional cultures and audience engagement. With emphasis on the Internet and mobile phones, the paper focuses on three radio stations -Safm, Talk Radio 702, and Bush Radio. Drawing on theories of public spheres and theories of publics, the paper argues that ICTs have expanded communicative radio spaces and transformed the nature of audience engagement. Through these expanded spaces, radio stations increasingly view their listeners as publics rather than merely audiences, meaning that listeners now produce, circulate and share information in ways that allow them to organise themselves into a public around radio texts. While the argument in this paper has acknowledged the positive role of ICTs in expanding discursive spaces and transforming radio publics, realities of the digital divide in South Africa are not ignored.
Rethinking the ‘community’ function of community radio online
The social, cultural and political significance of community media lies in its community development function (van Vuuren 2006), constructing and strengthening community identities through participation in the organisation, production and distribution of content (Meadows et al 2007). Traditionally, these have been primarily communal functions, based on the collective action of communities of interest or locality. However, as increasingly affordable and accessible digital technologies transform media production and distribution, radio making and listening practices are becoming more individualised and dispersed. Developing over almost half a century, the Australian community broadcasting sector has always been a space of change, disruption and innovation. Currently, stations are redefining their services to reflect the changing ways in which radio is made, distributed and listened to in the digital age (Dubber 2014), developing online reach through website live stream, listen again, and social media platforms. Through autoethnographic reflections on the production of a small sub-metro weekly alternative music program over an eight-year period, this paper discusses the changing ways in which broadcasters are engaging with audiences and considers the implications for how we understand the 'community' function of community radio online.
The Internet and mobile phones are changing the face of radio across the world. Their appropriation by private, public and community radio is transforming radio as a medium thus making it, at least in principle, more accessible through multiple platforms such as webcasting and mobile streaming. In most cases, these technological transformations have had some profound ramifications on radio‘s institutional cultures and practices especially with regards to the way radio produces and disseminates its content and interacts with audiences. Digitization and convergence are not merely blurring the boundaries between radio and other media, but have a direct impact on journalistic practices in terms of the gathering, manufacturing, and subsequent presentation of content to audiences. Audiences themselves are seen as becoming increasingly more actively involved in radio content production and dissemination through online platforms like Websites, Facebook, Twitter, chat forums, podcasts and indeed mobile facilities like SMS (texting) and voice calls. Theoretically, convergence has therefore empowered ordinary people to tell their stories themselves through radio. Scholars have variously referred to this new experience as ̳citizen journalism‘, ̳participatory journalism‘, ̳citizen-generated media‘, ̳we media‘, ̳grassroots media‘, ̳self service media‘ to emphasize the notions of inclusion and participatory communication that are often associated with digital media (See Atton, 2003, Gillmor, 2006; Kolodzy, 2006, Allan, 2010). In most cases, however, the celebration of the emancipatory power of these so-called ̳technologies of freedom‘ (Morriset, 2004), is often empirically informed by the socio-economic and technological contexts of the industrialized North, especially Europe and North America. Yet the appropriation of convergence and digitization by the media and their audiences can hardly be said to be unidirectional and always predictable across the world. Hence, this study is a contribution to the global debate on how new ICTs are influencing radio‘s institutional cultures and practices within the context of the Southern African region. It focuses on radio convergence in four countries in the region namely Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, and Malawi. While these countries certainly offer variegated social and technological experiences that have varying imprints on the appropriation and uses of mobile phones and the Internet by radio institutions, they also share certain similarities which have helped the study to generate some analytical observations on trends and patterns in radio production, dissemination, consumption and the emerging audience participatory cultures. The study is broadly institutional and focuses mainly on radio organisations‘ uptake of the new ICTs in the production and dissemination of news and current affairs programmes. However, it also interrogates how the digitisation of this institution is influencing participation by citizens in radio programmes on the one hand, and issues of governance and public concern, on the other hand. As such the concerns of the research are three fold and can be summed up as follows: To examine how the selected public, private and community radio stations in the 4 countries use the Internet and mobile phones to enhance audience participation in news and current affairs programming. To evaluate how these uses are promoting bottom-up and democratic participatory cultures occasioned by convergent radio through Web 2.0, SMS, Voice calls, E-mail, etc. To discuss how participatory cultures on radio create a potential for civic engagement on development and governance issues. Philosophically, the debate on the benefits of the new ICTs to the media and society alike is by no means a simple one. It has generally been characterized by two seemingly radical and incommensurable schools of thought. On the one hand, is what has been variously referred to as techno-euphorists or technological determinists. Their views on the relationship between digital media and the society are characterized by eulogistic accounts of what new ICTs can do for individuals, institutions, and society. The advent of the new media of the Internet and mobile phones has re-ignited this optimism where the information society and its concomitant innovations in communications are blindly celebrated as the panacea to all human development challenges. In Africa,thenewwaveoftechnological ̳hype‘and ̳utopianbliss‘1 bouncedbackinthe1990swiththe spread of the Internet and mobile phones across the continent. We heard the hollow and apocalyptic claims of the end of the mass media and the mass audience just as we heard the optimistic and ethereal accounts of citizen empowerment virtual public spheres and network societies that are characterized by seamless spaces of participation and free expression for the citizen. Technological determinists continue to advance a commonsensical and utopian view of the neutral to ICTs and their universal and linear effects everywhere. In doing so, they have often overlook critical questions of the social, political, economic and organizational contexts of technologies use. These questions are considered fundamentally important in this study as they shape how the radio institutions and their audiences are likely to use digital media and harness other benefits that are occasioned by digitization and media convergence. Hence, by way of a literature review, this study begins by giving a comprehensive overview of the socio-economic, political and technological regimes that constitute the contexts of the uptake of the Internet and mobile phones by radio and its audiences. Five critical structural points that inform the uptake of ICTs by radio stations and their audiences are highlighted and consist of the following: Constitutional and legal environments, Political and economic environments, Radio and ICTs ownership and funding, and the regulation of broadcasting. For example, the use and relevance of convergent radio therefore largely depended on how widespread the new ICTs as ̳technologies of freedom‘ are used by audiences. Questions of the availability and affordability of these new technologies are important in understanding public participation levels in convergent radio, especially the question of who participates and the kinds of discourses that emerge from that participation. There is always a financial cost tied to the access of these new ICTs and the services they provide. For example, although the Internet and mobile network prices in the region are slowly coming down as a result of the combined effects of regulatory intervention and competition between service providers, they have been and continue to be for the most part, very high and prohibitive to the ordinary person. For example, until recently in Zimbabwe, Econet Wireless 1 For further details of Technological determinism in Africa, see Mudhai, (2009: 1). 14 tended to abuse its market dominance in mobile broadband charging as much as US$98 a gigabyte.2 In South Africa, mobile phone operators charges remained in the top 5 highest in the world charging R1. 29c per minute. When the South African government proposed a 60c per minute through ICASA, they refused and pegged their price at 89c per minute instead (Business day, 2010). Theoretically, the questions of corporate dominance in new ICTs are embedded with a Critical Political Economy (CPE) critique of new media technologies. A very radical Marxian strand of theory is made of technological pessimists or techno-essentialists who argue that digital media in their convergent and divergent form are always in service of corporate profit maximization, domination and power. They argue that technologies, including new ICTs, represent and advance the interests of the powerful in society and claims about their potential for promoting human freedoms and civic engagement are nothing but just an illusion or mirage.3 In researching convergence and radio in Southern Africa, this project clearly took a middle of the ground critique by emphasizing the social character of technologies. We argue that digital media do not have a ̳singular essence...and can be reconstructed to play different roles in different social systems‘ (Feenberg, 1999: 7). They can empower or disempower citizens depending on the social context. For example, the foregoing examples on Zimbabwe serve to demonstrate how cost of digital media services can be inimical to sustained participation by audiences in radio programmes and public affairs. Indeed, this means that the claims of the impact of the Internet and mobile phones on radio‘s institutional cultures, practices, and the participation by audiences have to be subjected to specific social and organizational contexts within which such technologies are used. Following Slevin (2000, 155, therefore, ̳any meaningful analysis of the impact of the Internet... [and mobile phones] on society must be fundamentally cultural‘.
Community Radio: An Emerging Platform for Awareness and Empowerment
South Asian Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2022
Community radio plays an important role in the communication of a certain community and is a form of public-service broadcasting. It upholds the principles of participatory communication. The present study was conduct to know about the role of Radio Dhadkan, a community radio, in sensitizing and empowering the Sahariya tribe of Shivpuri district in Madhya Pradesh of India. Here mainly secondary sources of data have been used. There are some development gaps in meeting the needs of Sahariyas and other marginalized communities living in villages and urban slums of Shivpuri district. To fill these gaps, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in association with Sambhav Social Service Organization, has set up a community radio station – Radio Dhadkan. The present study reveals that Radio Dhadkan has been successful in promoting collective action through radio programs and has been instrumental in creating awareness and empowering the target communities. It has shown an extraordinary dynamism due to its diverse endeavors. It has really helped in connecting, entertaining and educating the Sahariyas in a way that was not possible through any other medium. It has also provided opportunity for employment generation and community capacity building. Thus, the Radio Dhadkan approach has potential applicability in achieving developmental goals. Keywords: Radio Dhadkan, Community Radio, Participatory Communication, Awareness, Empowerment.
Community Access and Participation in Community Radio Broadcast: Case of Radio Gaakii, Ghana
This paper draws on the theory of participatory development communication to understand the nature and philosophy of community participation in development processes. It explored the symbiotic relationship between Carpentier (2011) and Arnstein's (1969) theses on participation to propose four major indicators in evaluating the levels of community participation in Radio Gaakii's broadcast. The paper also investigates the frequency of community members' participation in the stations broadcast and ascertained the levels of satisfaction (or otherwise) of their participation in the radio broadcast. The study was based on cross sectional survey design. Multistage sampling was used in the sampling processes and 150 respondents across five listening communities were recruited for the purposes of data collection and analysis. The study found out that community participation in Radio Gaakii's broadcast is limited to the radio programme listening stage and community members mostly participate through the use of mobile phones during specific programme phone-in segments of the broadcast. The study recommends establishing Radio Gaakii Listening Clubs to facilitate community's participation in management, governance, programming and financing decisions to give true meaning to participation, create a sense of community ownership and ultimately, ensure sustainability of the Station.
2006
and Technology (Zimbabwe) at a time when the country was experiencing a huge politico-economic melt-down. In that regard I am grateful to all my colleagues at my home Department, Journalism and Media Studies, particularly to Stanford Matenda, Cleopas Muneri, and Hayes Mabweazara. The Vice-Chancellor Professor Lindela Ndlovu and his Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Reeds deserve special mention. Their unceasing support and continuous nudging on my progress deserves special mention too. I would like to profusely acknowledge the support of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation that made this Study possible. This Study is a Contribution to the Foundation's Mission in Support of the Development of Healthy and Sustainable Rural Communities in Southern Africa. A special thanks goes to my supervisor Professor Keyan G. Tomaselli for the assistance he provided ranging from the coining of the proposal to refining the thesis. Professors Ruth Teer-Tomaselli, Douglas Kellner and Eli Skogerbø deserve special mention for the sterling support they provided. I would like to thank all my colleagues and staff in Culture, Communication and Media Studies for the good times and academic stresses we have shared. In particular, I wish to express my gratitude to Professor J.P. Wade, Eduardo da Veiga, Abraham Mulwo, John Kunda, Abdi Seid and of-course Kamini Moodley for allowing me to invade her office at a time when she wanted to concentrate on her work. I also wish to profusely express my gratitude to Arnold Shepperson, whose expert advice created an indelible mark never to be forgotten. The deepest shock and sadness on his untimely death in 2006, was to me the greatest loss and form of robbery by death. To my wife, Nothando, I wish to thank her for having been there for me, by bearing the pain of operating like a single mother when my mind, heart and body would have been stolen by my quest for knowledge. To my two lovely children, Mondli and Siphiwe, I say, "all is well only when Daddy is able to provide", and this was the cause for my all-night disappearances. Hold me to it. My parents deserve a special thank you: Siphiwe Sethekele, Johannes Ben Mgqwetha and William Bheki Moyo (uWillie). A big thank you goes to: Graduate Nkosana Moyo, Loveness and Lungile Mhlanga. Most significantly I would like to thank the !Xû and Khwe communities of Platfontein-Kimberley, Northern Cape for accepting me into their community. I particularly wish
This chapter focuses on community media, critically reflecting on the changing understandings of the concept over time, with particular reference to community radio. Also referred to as citizen's media by theorists such as Clemencia Rodríguez, or as radical media by John Downing, its key tenets have been access, participation and self-management. The term community media is used in this chapter, to refer to small-scale media initiatives, largely run by community-based organizations or local groups, which attempt to provide programming which differs from that broadcast by mainstream commercial media. Definitions of alternative media are not always fixed or universally accepted (Elghul-Bebawi 2009), precisely because of the wide range of existing formats and technologies. Community media projects range could range from print initiatives such as magazines or newspapers, to audio projects such as radio stations, or initiatives that make use of new media technologies and the Internet.
Community broadcasting is known as the third tier of broadcasting, occupying the space between commercial and state broadcasters. In Kenya, this sector has been active only since 2004. Despite its recognised value in other contexts across the globe, community broadcasting is still struggling to find footing in the Kenyan media landscape, and there is a paucity of research on how this sector actually operates – its structures, content and audiences. This work therefore explores the roles and relevance of community radio in the vibrant Kenyan media landscape. Using a complementary mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, three community radio stations with different social contexts, funding and management structures were investigated. The research focused on the ideas and actors behind community radio, its funding and management structures, content, content production processes, listenership patterns and participation practices. Brought to light was that this sector navigates legislation and funding challenges, and juggles between global and local ideals about community broadcasting, most distinct of which are democracy and development. The local, the national and the global inform the ideas under which Kenyan community broadcasting operates, and these ideas are interpreted differently in each context. Communities interact with each of the stations based on their particular local contexts. Not only do they listen to community broadcasters according to specific daily rhythms, but they also mobilise themselves into social formations – most often fan groups and clubs – as a way of collective participation in the life of the station. Contrary to much radio audience research, this work shows that listenership is a distinct activity and participation in and through the media is not only an individual endeavour, but a collective undertaking drawing on pre-existent social solidarities. Community radio content addresses its listeners as different kinds of communities and publics at specific times of the day, and they respond accordingly. As well, there is content transformation across diverse media platforms, which may be a step towards new genres. Despite working within different and hybrid journalistic cultures, the producers play similar roles to their communities across the three contexts including mediation, mobilisation, space-creation, information and entertainment. Of these roles, mobilisation is a strength of community radio. The research reveals the intertwined nature of state, media and audience relationships, and argues for the fact that there are no homogenous audiences even at a micro-level, and that the affective and democratic functions of media participation are intricately linked to each other.