[grc] Radio: The Original Social Media - Women & Radio

Sun Nov 19 10:41:56 PST 2017

Received this from the Women's UN Report Network.  Aside from the nice plug
for WINGS, it has a cool article about World Radio Day and the high
importance of broadcast radio for people's lives.

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Subject: [SPAM] [WUNRN] Radio: The Original Social Media - Women & Radio
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http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/02/radio-the-original-social-media/

Radio: The Original Social Media

By Lyndal Rowlands <http://www.ipsnews.net/author/lyndal-rowlands/>

Each year on February 13, World Radio Day, the UN brings attention to the
humble wireless, which was invented back in 1895, more than 100 years
before the World Wide Web was created in 1990.

[image:
http://www.ipsnews.net/Library/2017/02/18758332819_ec35b6faf8_z-629x420.jpg]

*Radio Bundelkhand, based in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh,
has about 250,000 listeners, of whom 99 percent are farmers. Credit: Stella
Paul/IPS*

*UNITED NATIONS, Feb 13 2017 (IPS) *- With less than half the world’s
population online, radio continues to be world’s most widely accessible
source of news and information.

For many of the 5 billion people who have access to a radio – it is also a
form of social media – with talk radio giving people a chance to
participate live on-air.

Martin Scott, Lecturer in Media and International Development at the
University of East Anglia told IPS that this social aspect of radio is
often over-looked.

“You can have ongoing live discussion on (the radio),” says Scott. “In a
newspaper that’s far more difficult, it’s easier to be participatory on
radio.”

Scott says that there are many advantages to having live discussions on the
air.

“If you want the decision making to be transparent, if you want multiple
perspectives to be taken account of, if you want the disadvantaged to be
actively helped, engaged in the process, then participatory communication
is vital to achieving those things and radio is a medium that often but not
always lends itself to doing those things,” he said.

In fact, some 75 percent of households in developing countries have access
to a radio compared to just 40 percent, which have access to the internet,
according to figures from the UN’s International Telecommunications Union
and UNESCO.

As Scott points out radio’s are cheap and have no ongoing running costs,
unlike the internet. But there’s more reason why radio is more widely
accessible than the internet, especially for people who are disadvantaged.
Radio can be broadcast in many different dialects, it is a source of
information for the one billion people worldwide who are illiterate, as
well as for people who are visually impaired. It can also reach people
living in remote areas where even mobile internet is not yet available.

The sharp rise in mobile phone ownership in developing countries has not
only led more people to get online, it has also resulted in more people
having access to radios, since mobile phones sold in developing countries
often come with in-built radios.

Meanwhile, as Scott points out, the world wide web does not necessarily
signal the death of radio, as many people now listen to radio shows and
podcasts online.

[image: Using the Airwaves for Empowerment of Quechua Women in Bolivia.
Credit: Jenny Cartagena/IPS]
<http://www.ipsnews.net/Library/2017/02/8225503938_1420c3f2ca_z.jpg>

*Using the Airwaves for Empowerment of Quechua Women in Bolivia. Credit:
Jenny Cartagena/IPS*

And while the internet has led to a significant expansion in who can
publish and share news – Scott noted that it shouldn’t necessarily be
presumed that the internet is more widely accessible than radio.

Not everybody has the time, literacy, mobile phones or electricity needed
to be on Twitter he said, whereas a radio can simply be powered with
batteries or even wound-up by hand.

However ensuring that both radio and the internet remain open to as many
people as possible means that it is also important to pay attention to how
these mediums are governed, says Scott.

“Facebook.org protests on the streets in India and Egypt rightly or wrongly
illustrate that governance of new technologies is crucial,” said Scott,
referring to protests over a plan to bring affordable internet to
developing countries based on access to only a limited number of websites.
The plan has been described as a “walled garden” and is considered to go
against the principles of the founders of the world wide web, who wished
for it to remain open.

Historically the number of radio channels has often been restricted by the
frequencies and licenses available to go with them. However, while digital
radio offers the opportunity to expand the number of radio stations, Scott
also cautions that the transition from am/fm to digital should be carefully
managed.

Radio NZ recently reported
<http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/323443/> that
thousands of people living in the Solomon Islands lost access to radio at
the end of January when the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
switched off its AM signal, in favour of FM and online services.

Ruth Liloqula, told Radio NZ that after a recent earthquake some people
living in remote parts of the Solomon Islands only knew that there was no
tsunami because they heard it on ABC radio.

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-- 
Frieda Werden, Series Producer
WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service www.wings.org
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