Community Radio: The New Tree of Speech

In this paper the author argues that radio has emerged, among all information and communication technologies, as the media best placed to bridge the digital divide and meet the information needs of education and social development in Africa. He argues that there are many constraints that hinder access to information through various media such as telephones, television and internet and contribute to the "digital divide", including costs for building infrastructure, cost of consumption and purchase by the individual consumer, and the form of content. He states that the one electronic medium that can truly minimise the constraints on access to information which are today characterised by the digital divide is radio.

According to the author, radio is ideal for many reasons. Radio is a technology with low production costs, with low infrastructure costs and with marginal costs of distribution close to zero. It does not exclude those who are unable to read or write and it is ideally suited to conveying content in vernacular languages. In sub-Saharan Africa there is one radio receiver for every five people, or roughly one per household. In contrast there is roughly one telephone line for every 50 potential users and, according to UNESCO estimates, there are only 100,000 dial-up Internet accounts outside of South Africa. (Jensen, 1999).

The paper demonstrates how radio can act as a gateway to the Internet. According to the paper, a typical population of 100,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa, outside South Africa, has on average 20,000 radio receivers, or one per household, but only 2,000 telephone lines and just 14 dial-up Internet access accounts. Most access to the Internet is concentrated in urban centres and is generally in the workplace rather than in the home. Costs of access and poor connectivity mean that most Internet use is for e-mail and not for web browsing, on-line learning, e-commerce, or other bandwidth intensive applications. In contrast, a community of 100,000 people can easily be served by a single community radio station, broadcasting on either FM or AM, depending on the population density and the terrain. With a single Internet connection the radio station can act as a gateway to the wealth of information and resources available on the Internet. The radio station adds value to the information from the internet by interpreting it into a local context, by broadcasting it in vernacular languages, and by providing a platform for feedback through local discussion and networks of local correspondents. As an interface with the Internet, radio is not merely a one way medium.

The paper also comments on the convergence of media, computing and telecommunications to bring opportunities to develop a new generation of community media centres in which the resources of a telecentre are combined with creative production facilities such as radio studios, digital still and video cameras, scanners and media production software. Alongside access to the Internet and other telecommunications systems the centre can have local transmission facilities for community radio broadcasting. Community media centres take a different approach to access and learner support when compared to the traditional telecentre. By shifting the technology focus from productivity tools to creativity tools, learning becomes less dependent on literacy and keyboard skills. Sound, music and speech can be recorded, edited and produced using software tools with an intuitive user interface. Computers become devices for achieving creative production goals rather than tools for business and public administration. The Internet becomes a source of peer group support and access to material for creative content. The modern community radio station using new technologies and having access to the Internet may be a stand alone facility, it may be the focal point for the development of a community media centre or it may be a radical addition to a traditional telecentre.

The paper provides the following recomendations to improve the prospects of community radio in its role of bridging the digital divide.

• Greater awareness is needed of the educational and development potential of community radio among policy makers, regulators, NGOs and CSOs.
• Legislative reform should take account of the specific characteristics of community radio and provide for its support within the policy and regulatory framework.
• Assistance is needed to enable existing community radio stations to adapt to new digital production technologies and to increase their access to the Internet.
• Strategic links should be encouraged between community radio and telecentre development as well as other opportunities to cluster community media resources.
• On-line and technology-based learning centres should incorporate creative production facilities and access to local radio distribution as well as the Internet.
• Support for community radio development should be provided through intermediary bodies at national and regional level including training, guidance and mentoring.

The author concludes that community radio has a unique role to play in bridging the digital divide. As an interface with the Internet it can connect people into a global dialogue while providing the means to place that in a local context. For the community radio participant it can provide access to information technologies as tools for creative communication in which traditional barriers of literacy and of perception are, if not removed, at least significantly reduced.