October 18, 2007

ARNIC Research Presentation: Community Radio in Africa
Annenberg Room 207, 1 p.m.

The Annenberg Research Network on International Communication presents a discussion with Bill Siemering, president, Developing Radio Partners. Siemering is a public radio pioneer who developed NPR's All Things Considered and has been working to develop community radio in Africa since 1993.

From Siemering: "From the first community radio stations started by miners in Bolivia and Colombia in 1947, the intention was to give a voice to people that empowered them to talk among themselves and to share information of value to their families and their work. They were serving both a community of interest and a geographic community. These are threads that have been woven into community radio ever since. At the same time, community radio is as diverse as the communities it serves and therefore there is no simple definition that can capture it all. Radio serving nomadic herders in the Mongolian Gobi desert will be very different from one serving a densely populated peri-urban township in South Africa. When I first introduced the idea of community radio in Mongolia in 1998 at a workshop, the translator said, "We don’t have a word for 'community' as you are using it." Nonetheless, last year many who were in this workshop formed a Rural Community Radio Association."



Watch the video  

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