Notes
Log-in here to post and comment on the site.
Skylight Social Media
Producing and Distributing Socially Relevant Media
the enduring role of radio
by Paco on June 01, 2008
In all the explorations of new media tools for outreach, let’s not overlook the role of radio and its enduring potential for interactive engagement with audiences, as we saw while filming for The Reckoning in Bunia in the Ituri region of eastern DRC. While there we met…
the dynamic Richard Pituwa, who runs Canal Revelation, a radio station that has become a crucial forum for talking about justice through “Interactive Radio for Justice”, a program he produces with the irrepressible human rights activist Wanda Hall. Bunia has no newspapers, and electricity is so sporadic that TV is not a strong medium, but radios run on batteries and are ubiquitous, so radio is far and away the dominant source of information in the region. People call in all day long on their cellphones, and we filmed a fascinating program they hosted with ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo
Related Discussions
Comments
The reach of radio in places like central Africa and Latin America is greater even than cellphones - it’s important to develop local radio partners.
And as far as US audiences go, we want to make mini radio stories and post them to the Public Radio Exchange (http://www.prx.org/) so that they are available for public radio programmers from stations around the US to use in their programming.
– Paco (06/11 at 11-Jun 18:25 -05:00)
and with totalitarian regimes able to cut off internet access at will it is good to have a nice hidden radio station blasting the news. interesting that in the US local station abandon the production of high quality content in favor of running national programming (at least most small NPR stations). Thank goodness for PRX as an exchange platform. Thanks to Pacifica too 
– draxtor (06/11 at 11-Jun 19:12 -05:00)
Page 1 of 1 pages of comments
Paco, i think you are right on! Radio is a powerful medium and has new-found relevance in a world where visuals seem to dominate everything (including virtual worlds). radio has an immediacy and intimacy, that cannot be replicated in other media i think. and it makes you use your imagination more. let’s save public radio in this country too!!!!
– draxtor (06/07 at 7-Jun 21:47 -05:00)