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Community Radio: Strengthening democracy and governance through development of the media in Mozambique
Organisation: UNESCO, UNDP
Country/Region: Mozambique, International
Type: Guides and Manuals
A community radio is a unique local force for development. It has the fantastic capacity of a mass medium, facilitating that a few people can communicate effectively with many. Once the installation is carried out, and the radio is really on air, the producers can very easily be in instantaneous touch with the listeners – with the community. Any important news can immediately be carried into to the radio receivers of the community.
Besides from these general traits, true for any kind of radio: public national or local radio, commercial radio or special interest radio (religious for instance), the community radio has the rare and special condition of belonging to a very limited group of people: not a country, not a province, but a smaller community, where the basic conditions for life and its challenges are more or less the same.
Within such a community many things are common – but even more things are different for the people living there. We therefore talk about “the communities within the community. Because even though the bad road access to our town and district, the weak services of the hospital, the good or bad quality of the soil are shared conditions, they affect us different. We all make up part both of the bigger, overall community, but also of many smaller, specific interest communities. These are decided by age, level of education, experience, what you do for a living, where you live, your religion, your family situation etc.etc.
This is why UNESCO in Mozambique has chosen to organize the work of the community radio it supports in “editorial groups”. These are groups of community programme producers, who produce programmes around one of the many special interests of the community, identified in the initial audience research.