Wednesday, January 18, 2006

-P. Kharel, Chairman, National News Agency (RSS), Nepal

Community broadcasting is a concept relevant to social cohesion, development for conviviality and national integration. Community radio is public service broadcasting. It functions in a very democratic and decentralized manner. Owned and managed by organizations serving a given community, it serves a defined geographical area of a village or groups of villages or town(s). A community radio, besides educating and entertaining people, connects people with people through participatory or circular communication, connects organizations with communities, and finally, connects people with government and public service agencies.

There is also a school of thought that described community or public interest broadcasting as an "Equal Opportunity Broadcasting," which is essential not only for effective democratization of a public resource (the airwaves) but also in the context of a plural society with a multiplicity of languages, cultures and ethnic groups.

Javed Jabbar, of the Citizens' Media Commission of Pakistan (Voices of the People, 2004) says: "While being critical of continued State ownership and government-control of electronic media, it is equally necessary to acknowledge that such officially controlled media have served the public interest in several major respects. The propagandistic content of State-owned electronic media is a separate and distinct part of their operations. Other parts of their content and functions have projected themes and material through news, commentary, drama, grass-roots based programmes featuring the people's own voices, folk music, humor and entertainment: a large number of relevant and significant needs of low-income and middle-income people have been articulated and reflected on a consistent basis by PTV (Pakistan Television)."

FM stations have certain advantage over AM station. FM stations operate on a higher frequency than that of AM, which reduces channel noise. Since their signals are much clearer than those of AM stations, FM stations are generally more popular, especially among music listeners.

Radio has many advantages over many other media. The cost is low and it can reach a wide area. Even when it serves only a specific community within a limited range and area, it can enjoy a strong presence and loyal following among listeners. For it meets the community's varied interests, exploring various possibilities for reviewing and refining programme contents. If operated professionally and independently keeping the listeners' interest at the core, a community radio station has a vast potential for bringing about rapid social change.

Content Objectives

Since the objective of any medium is to communicate, the focus should be on making target audience understand what is being disseminated. This is true as much in the case of radio service as is with any other medium. Although style and rendering are important factors in making a programme interesting, a radio practitioner should never lose sight of making the intended message easy-to-understood. In this regard, the target listeners should be identified and the objectives of the content being broadcast made clear. An oversight or negligence will render the very purpose of airing the programme in question far less useful or even worse than what is actually aimed at.

Radio has the power and potential of drawing people closely. Although radio is a mass medium, it communicates with individuals. This is why its utility stands strong even today when television has made a great and powerful entry. Television might have expanded and attracted promoters and viewers extensively but it has not been able to replace radio even in industrialized nations where TV penetration is over 98 per cent of the households. Radio listening hours continue to be high because radio sets are portable and people can listen to them in the kitchen or while driving cars. Research has shown that an average individual in an industrialized country listens to the radio for several hours a day.

Observations note that people tune in to the radio first for the news or music. Most people consider radio their major source of news. In developing countries, this is even higher. In countries where broadcasting is dominated by the private sector whose owners stake high commercial interests, the public searches for alternative radio formats for a different range of programmes. An example is the US and its National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting System. Latin America offers a good example of running community-based radio stations as an alternative to private broadcasting enterprise.

The SAARC Sub-regional Meeting on Legal, Financial and Administrative Aspects of Public Service Broadcasting held in 2000 in Colombo recommended that "the authorities should be requested to promote community broadcasting, (by) ensuring that frequencies are provided to such broadcasters and through the fair and impartial provision of funding to them."

In May 2004, Nigeria's civil society members, senior broadcasters and state legislators discussed various aspects of a community radio at a seminar organised by the Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA), the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC-Africa) and the Institute for Media and Society (IMS). At the end of the deliberations, they issued a communiqué which emphasizes that community radio will help promote democracy; provide an important feedback channel through which views and interests of the grassroots can be brought to the attention of the government; and enhance the participation of the grassroots in the democratic process.

As Javed Jabbar, a Pakistani media analyst, notes: "While obviously priority will be placed on local developmental needs and issues concerning governance, education, health, employment and similar issues, there was the view that community electronic media should not be partisan or reflective of a particular viewpoint as that would run the risk of polarising the community at the local level and deepening differences, instead of reducing them."

The Citizens' Commission of Pakistan (Voices of the People, 2004) has listed a four-tier media system, which are as follows:

a) Public sector media serving especially, if not exclusively, the public interest, and which may remain or be state-owned

b) Commercial media operated by the private sector, primarily for commercial profit but also required to serve the public interest wherever possible

c) Educational sector media, or campus media, which could be based in university campuses and serve both students and academia as well as neighbouring communities

d) Community-based media, which are specific to a particular part of an urban or a rural area, operated on a non-profit basis exclusively in the local public interest

Recognition & Accountability

Community broadcasting is autonomous and generally serves as a highly localised undertaking that has "neither a commercial motivation nor the backing of state authorities as principals." Media scholars stress by linking the idea of public broadcasting to the notion of citizenship, it is necessary to delink "it from both the political authority of the state and the economic arbitrage of the market." The approach and attitude towards community broadcasting should be based on democratic principles and recognise broadcasting as a means of social and cultural development. This calls for comprehensive, clear-cut public policy objectives. The state authorities and the public should recognise independent functioning of broadcasting organisations. Broadcasters should also meet the requirement pertaining to accountability mechanisms in tune with their responsibility towards society.

Victor Gunewardena, a Sri Lankan media consultant, has stressed, "the government owned broadcasting stations are a public resource and are, therefore, obliged to optimize their usefulness for the public benefit. The private stations also have an obligation to the public, to a lesser degree, to devote airtime to address important issues that concern the community and the nation. The right of freedom and expression carries with it corresponding obligations to public interest, irrespective of public or private ownership. But the nature and degree of obligations arc greater for public sector media. The best option is to get public to pay for quality public service. It is better than seeking sponsors, advertising or state subsidies."

The mechanism for issuing radio licenses should be transparent and in tune with the need for meeting the needs and demands of a democratic society. Being a public property, airwaves must be used for public good. However, one of the main requisites for rendering public good is by ensuring that there is no government monopoly over this public resource. Liberalization of broadcasting should not be limited to commercial use of airwaves. Access to the airwaves should not be made difficult by creating a plethora of hurdles.

To M.J.R. David, a lecturer of journalism, University of Colombo : "The myth in PSB is that the public is seen as a faceless mass; it is always someone else, somewhere else. This and other notions surrounding PSB should be questioned."

David cites three types of broadcasting:

1. State broadcasting, also called the "tom-tom beaters" broadcasting: While the practitioners sometimes engage in good broadcasting, they always know what their limits are.

Commercial broadcasting: As the name implies, these broadcasters seek to maximize profits for their owners and shareholders.

3.Community broadcasting: This is the one category that seeks to serve the needs and interests of the ordinary public.

Excerpts taken from P. Kahrel's freshly published book ( with FES support) on Sounds Radio Broadcasting-editor.