Breaking the silence: community radio, women, and empowerment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Rimmer
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
Social Action ◽  
White Male ◽  
Feminist Pedagogy ◽  
Community Radio ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Cultural Spaces ◽  
Culture Of Silence ◽  
A Site ◽  
Development Methods

Abstract The article argues that community development work, in the form of feminist pedagogy and community radio, can engage more women in technological roles, aid women’s confidence and mental health and possibly, improve diversity in mainstream media. In UK media, corporations are heavily criticized for their under and misrepresentation of women and, in general, their inability to engage with excluded groups. The BBC’s strategic aim is to improve inclusion and diversity by 2020. The article asserts the value of community development methods in efforts to address this. It explores concepts of voice poverty and empowerment through analysis of the narratives of twelve female community radio volunteers in Northern England. Using Freire’s (1972) notion of ‘culture of silence’ and against the backdrop of gender inequality, the article clarifies the nature of community radio and employs a variety of literatures to understand how a feminist pedagogy (hooks, 1994) and an intersectional approach (Crenshaw, 1989) might be useful in media. It builds from Stuart Hall’s contention that media and cultural spaces can be powerful sites of social action. Analysis of participant accounts indicates that community radio is a site of diverse identities, laughter, dialogue, raised consciousness, and conflict. This confronts not only the orthodoxy of young white, male-dominated media but also challenges romantic notions of community harmony and happiness by recognizing inherent tensions within prevailing conceptions of womanhood and within and between communities. The article foregrounds evidence from the majority world, where community radio is well documented as giving voice to invisiblized women, and concludes with an argument for further exploration of this highly symbolic dimension of empowerment, whereby women overcome technological fears and break their silence by broadcasting diverse voices. The project challenges UK commercial and public broadcasters to learn from the global south that community radio is an effective method of development with potential to enrich the mainstream media world.

‘Personal’ troubles and public spaces: the community as a site of care and social action

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-623
Author(s):  
Mags Crean
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Community Level ◽  
Class Inequality ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Community Activists ◽  
Social Class Inequality ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Affective Relations

Abstract The crisis in community development in Ireland has been discussed by community workers, academics and equality experts. This article contributes to this analysis with empirical research encompassing the voice of people living with inequality, including a number of community activists. The research shows how affective relations take precedence in women’s discussions about social class inequality and activism at a community level. Yet, this everyday concern with the affective is not given a legitimate status in academic and political discourse about community development. It is argued that this depoliticization of affective relations is part of the crisis in community development when it fails to incorporate a political analysis of what matters most to people at a community level.

scholarly journals Aligning Action Research and Restorative Justice: Highlighting Epistemological Tensions

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-29
Author(s):  
Brunilda Pali
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Conflicts ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Local Participation ◽  
Culture Of Silence ◽  
A Site

The epistemology of participatory action research sets a high agenda for pursuing and engendering change oriented towards social justice. This article is based on a participatory action research project, anchored both in the principles of restorative justice and action research. The project aimed at mobilizing local participation, knowledge and resources and creating restorative dialogue and encounters in handling social conflicts in intercultural settings in four different countries. Restorative justice and action research are highly compatible in terms of some of their core principles, but the project revealed important tensions that this article will reflect upon. Zooming into a town in Hungary – one of the four action research sites – the article addresses these tensions by focusing on two central themes. The first theme, encountering the silence and micropolitics, relates to the challenges created in the site, due to our encounter with its micropolitics and the existing ‘culture of silence’ about social conflicts. How should researchers enter a site, how far should they stir the depths of conflicts and disturb the silence and status quo in order to unearth injustices, multiply narratives, and stage different perspectives? The second theme, rethinking conflict participation, relates to the tension created between a more naïve idea of participation and a more antagonistic one. In restorative justice, it is often assumed that if everybody were included and participated in restorative processes, staging their different perspectives, then consensus could be reached. But considering the possibility that different views cannot be reconciled, and power relations cannot be suspended, we need to rethink the meaning of conflict participation in restorative praxis. 

scholarly journals STRUGGLING TO BREATHE: THE THORNY ROAD THAT SRI LANKAN COMMUNITY RADIO TRAVELLED THROUGH

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 291-297
Author(s):  
Ankuran Dutta ◽  
K.G.L.A.N.S. Jayawardhana
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Mass Medium ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
State Control ◽  
Community Radio ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Radio Broadcasting ◽  
The World ◽  
Permanent Staff

Radio is considered as the most widespread electronic mass medium in the world and a unique means of reaching the world‟s poorest communities. However, as far as community radio (CR) is concerned, it addresses issues relevant to the public interest of a particular geographic group or community. It is the foremost medium that gives the marginalised a voice, when their voices are suppressed by the haves and the mainstream mass media which is also under the control of haves. The community radio in Sri Lanka has a four decade old history; yet, the country stands the risk of having this pioneering experience with CR locked away as a memory, as, of now, there is no community radio in true sense available in Sri Lanka. This paper has attempted to find out the reasons behind the failure of community radio broadcasting in Sri Lanka. Using semi-structured indepth interviews, eight leading community radio activists, advocates and researchers in Sri Lanka were interviewed. The causes identified for the failure of CR in Sri Lanka are state control over CR stations, an inexistent legal framework for community radio, inadequate funding, and human resources, misconceptions of responsible government authorities‟, the lack of knowledge about the true sense and relevance of community radio, the appointment of permanent staff from Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation than giving more priority to the volunteers from the same community, competition with mainstream media, and less dedication to community radio.

Communicating Democracy through Participatory Radio in Nigeria

2020 ◽  
pp. 642-657
Author(s):  
Murtada Busair Ahmad ◽  
Kamaldin Abdulsalam Babatunde
Keyword(s):  
Information Content ◽  
Community Radio ◽  
Community Media ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Share Information ◽  
Developing Society

Community media remains the only key tool that can facilitate grassroot citizens' participation in nurturing and sustaining true democracy through creating and using information content that is driven by the needs of the communities for themselves and by themselves. By so doing, the citizens partake in determining their future through developing the community and educating their people in a manner and language that they can understand. Moreover, community media enables people from different socio-cultural backgrounds within a community, to share information and exchange ideas in a positive and productive manner. This dialogue among communities can be enriched by understanding how development issues affect them; discovering what others think in other communities; and seeing what other communities have achieved. In this light, participatory radio serves as a means of developing the grassroots emancipation that will enable them to articulate their needs in alignment with the cultural and social impulses of the communities they represent through means of technology, that is, community radio. The role of community radio is heightened by the realization that traditional or orthodox practice of the commercial/mainstream media has failed in achieving some of its basic and expected functions to the society such as serving as a true watchdog of the society, especially in a fledgling democratic system. Thus, this paper undertakes a case for sustainability of community radio in a developing society with a focus on both sides of the equation (production and distribution).

A Quiet Revolution: Australian Community Broadcasting Audiences Speak Out

2008 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Meadows ◽  
Susan Forde ◽  
Jacqui Ewart ◽  
Kerrie Foxwell
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Audience Research ◽  
Community Radio ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Quiet Revolution ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Australian Community

Around four million listeners in an average week tune into community radio stations around Australia, primarily to hear local news and information — evidence of a failure by mainstream media to meet their diverse needs. This discussion draws from the first qualitative study of the Australian community broadcasting sector to explore the role being played by community radio and television from the perspectives of their audiences. The authors argue that community broadcasting at the level of the local is playing a crucial role in the democratic process by fostering citizen participation in public life. This suggests a critique of mainstream media approaches and the central place of audience research in understanding the nature of the empowering relationships and processes involved. The authors argue that the nature of community broadcasting aligns it more closely with the complex ‘local talk’ narratives at the community level, which play a crucial role in creating public consciousness. They suggest that this quiet revolution has highlighted the nature of the audience–producer relationship as a defining characteristic of community media.

Accented radio: Articulations of British Caribbean experience and identity in UK community radio

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Moylan
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
Community Radio ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
British Caribbean ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
Radio Programme

This article explores how UK community radio can facilitate and produce alternative articulations of identity and experience, which, in turn, negotiate and challenge normative discursive framings of race which otherwise dominate UK mainstream media. In particular, this article examines ways in which The TalkBack Show on Nottingham community station Kemet FM produces articulations of British Caribbean identity and argues that community radio’s remit of inclusivity enables transcultural production in the form of ‘accented radio’. Accented modes of production are shaped in radio, by conditions of displacement and marginalization and responses to these experiences. An accented radio programme thus functions at the local level – speaking not only to the community whose members produce it but also to other local (and marginalized) communities – and simultaneously articulates a wider, transnational perspective. This article examines radio content from The TalkBack Show with reference to accented production practices.

The role of community radios in information dissemination to rural women in South Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeleine C. Fombad ◽  
Glenrose Veli Jiyane
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Rural Development ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Information Dissemination ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Community Radio ◽  
Radio Stations

Rural women in South Africa are important role players in community development; to withhold information from them is to hold back the potential for rural development. However, obstacles such as poverty, illiteracy, fear, poor access to public agencies, and lack of knowledge about the right to information and how or where to ask for it has deprived women of access to information. Since post-apartheid South Africa, government has made progress toward empowering women. Community radio is the only accessible and readily affordable medium within the rural community and can play a significant role in rural development of women. This article adopts the case study research approach through the use of document analysis and interviews to investigate the role of two community radio stations in selected areas of the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa with regard to rural development and the dissemination of information to women listeners. It also suggests ways by which these radios may be used to enhance access to information by rural women in South Africa. The findings reveal that although community radio stations are recognised as support systems for information dissemination in rural communities, their role in information dissemination and the community development of women has not been fully explored. This article suggests ways in which the services of community radios may be enhanced by the provision of information to women for rural development.

scholarly journals The Challenges of Using a Feminist Pedagogical Approach

10.5130/aag.b ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 17-25
Author(s):  
Sharon M. Meagher
Keyword(s):  
Adult Students ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Feminist Pedagogy ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Gender Culture ◽  
Future Goals ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Paolo Freire ◽  
Culture And Development

The introduction of a pathbreaking new master’s degree in Gender, Culture, and Development required a pedagogy to match its program contents. Since the aim of the program was to cultivate the next generation of leaders with the knowledge, vision, and skills to not only implement the UN Millennium Development Goals but to set the future goals and agenda, students needed to experience an educational setting that was empowering. As such, we introduced feminist pedagogy into the first seminar, defining feminist pedagogy as the ‘extent to which a community of learners is empowered to act responsibly toward one another and the subject matter and to apply that learning to social action’ (Shrewsbury, 1997, pp. 166–173). But how do we introduce feminist pedagogy in a large class where many students had previously been subjected to the passive, rote memorization teaching utilized in most educational systems in which adult students would have participated, especially given the popularity of what Paolo Freire would call the ‘banking method of education’ in colonial regimes? We responded to that challenge by being as transparent as possible in our teaching, and by modelling feminist pedagogy in all that we did.

scholarly journals Rekindling the flame of community through compassion – a call for leadership toward compassionate community

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaughan Milner
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Capital Theory ◽  
Support Networks ◽  
Capital Theory ◽  
Common Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

This article explores the perspective that we live in communion with one another and that social justice and interdependence stem from compassion. One aspect of compassion is the notion of interdependence and being passionately moved by others and for others. Embracing community development and social capital theory engages practitioners with compassion in social action. Social isolation, social exclusion and the fragmentation of community social support networks are hidden challenges to social justice. More sustained attention can be paid to the ways social workers could and should link people to others who will remain in the clients’ lives long after the professionals have moved on. The argument is advanced that it is critical for more action in the rekindling of community and the linking of people to others – compassion reflects the grace of relationships that comes from authentic connection between people. The social justice challenge laid out is to promote social inclusion and interdependence and nurture the common life through engaging with those around our clients and us.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document