COMMUNITY RADIO IN AFRICA - Case Study: Tanzania
MRUTU, ERNEST (2008)
2008
Tiedotusoppi - Journalism and Mass Communication
Yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta - Faculty of Social Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2008-11-19
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:uta-1-19443
https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:uta-1-19443
Tiivistelmä
This study explores the place and role of community radios in Africa, basing on the Tanzanian experience. The study started in 2004 with documentary readings and continued to 2007 with gathering of 92 interviews with varied audiences that included workers and volunteers in five community radios in different parts of Tanzania.
The focus is on the degree to which community radio has gone in raising and stepping up public awareness on the need to eradicate mass poverty, illiteracy and diseases, the main endemic problems the country has grappled with since independence in 1961. This is especially so in the rural areas and among the urban poor.
The study proved beyond reasonable doubt that community radio has played a crucial role in enhancing popular awareness on the major obstacles to the country’s social, cultural, economic, political and overall development. However, it must be admitted that there is no way community radio can claim to have succeeded in leading to comprehensive enough changes in the residents of the geographical areas it has targeted, including in such initiatives as the war on HIV/AIDS. Similar efforts have been made previously by the much more powerful government-owned Radio Tanzania Dar es Salaam supported by a number of other radio and television station but without substantially solving the problems.
This said, community radio has played a commendable role in the Iramba, Orkonorei, Sengerema, Mlimani and Kilosa geographical areas and merits maximum assistance so that it continues with its crusade of helping make life in communities in Tanzania more meaningful.
Community radios in Africa have presented themselves as efficient media capable of serving the rural communities where they are based by touching on their occupational needs. This is chiefly in agriculture, animal husbandry and fishing for residents of areas along the coast, in lake zones and near rivers, from where they have been waging the war against poverty, illiteracy, diseases and other social and economic ills.
So far, Zambia, Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania are the only countries in Africa known to have enacted laws through their legislatures to allow community radios to operate. Community radio in Africa has been of immense benefit to the society by bringing people and communities together partly through religious events as well as by resolving land and other communities, creating job opportunities, promoting education, health and democracy, as well as helping the government in combating corruption and other forms of crime. However, most of these community radios have been facing crippling financial constraints that have seen most limp on only thanks to support from local and foreign donors and volunteers too committed to the cause to seek greener pastures elsewhere.
The focus is on the degree to which community radio has gone in raising and stepping up public awareness on the need to eradicate mass poverty, illiteracy and diseases, the main endemic problems the country has grappled with since independence in 1961. This is especially so in the rural areas and among the urban poor.
The study proved beyond reasonable doubt that community radio has played a crucial role in enhancing popular awareness on the major obstacles to the country’s social, cultural, economic, political and overall development. However, it must be admitted that there is no way community radio can claim to have succeeded in leading to comprehensive enough changes in the residents of the geographical areas it has targeted, including in such initiatives as the war on HIV/AIDS. Similar efforts have been made previously by the much more powerful government-owned Radio Tanzania Dar es Salaam supported by a number of other radio and television station but without substantially solving the problems.
This said, community radio has played a commendable role in the Iramba, Orkonorei, Sengerema, Mlimani and Kilosa geographical areas and merits maximum assistance so that it continues with its crusade of helping make life in communities in Tanzania more meaningful.
Community radios in Africa have presented themselves as efficient media capable of serving the rural communities where they are based by touching on their occupational needs. This is chiefly in agriculture, animal husbandry and fishing for residents of areas along the coast, in lake zones and near rivers, from where they have been waging the war against poverty, illiteracy, diseases and other social and economic ills.
So far, Zambia, Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania are the only countries in Africa known to have enacted laws through their legislatures to allow community radios to operate. Community radio in Africa has been of immense benefit to the society by bringing people and communities together partly through religious events as well as by resolving land and other communities, creating job opportunities, promoting education, health and democracy, as well as helping the government in combating corruption and other forms of crime. However, most of these community radios have been facing crippling financial constraints that have seen most limp on only thanks to support from local and foreign donors and volunteers too committed to the cause to seek greener pastures elsewhere.