[HCDX] Fwd: Community Radio Narrows the Digital Divide

[Don Moore <mooredxer@xxxxxxxxx>]

Here's a rather interesting article from the DEVMEDIA
mailing list. It has some background on Latin American
broadcasting.

---------------------------------

Title: COMMUNICATION: Community Radio Narrows the
 Digital Divide

By Claude Robinson

TAMPA, United States, Sep 28 (IPS) - One day, not so  long
ago, a
Bolivian peasant farmer encountered some pests  nibbling
away at
his crops, thus threatening his livelihood. While such
threats are part of the risks of farming,
 this case was unusual in that the farmer, like others in
the region,  had never seen
this particular critter before and didn't know how to  get
rid of it.

So he turned to Radio Yungas, a rural station in  Bolivia
which had earned a reputation for answering listeners' 
questions. Radio Yungas, which used to rely on the 15
year-old
 encyclopaedia in the town library as the source for all
kinds of  information, turned to the Internet, sending out
a plea for help to   a specialised electronic list.

Six hours later they had an answer from a Swede, a  leading
worm expert, who identified the worm and explained how  to 
deal with it. The answer was broadcast to the entire
community, not only  helping that particular farmer with
the question, but others in the  area who were similarly
bugged.

The story was retold in a report presented here  Thursday
to the closing session of the 31st annual conference of the
 International Institute for Communication (IIC) held Sep.
25-28 in
 this southern US city which is rapidly developing as a key
element in  Florida's high
technology corridor.

Reporting to the conference, Bruce Girard said the  story
illustrated how independent, public-service and 
community-based radio and television stations in Latin
America and the  Caribbean
were using the Internet to address the digital divide  and
multiplying the effectiveness of limited Internet  access
in the region.

Girard, who heads a Dutch-based communications agency,  was
the
main organiser of a pre-conference here, Sep. 23-24,  of 20
independent radio producers and communications  scholars
from 14
Latin America and Caribbean countries to share  experience
on and
insight into how to use internet technology to promote 
democracy
and development.

The pre-conference was sponsored by 
Frederich-Ebert-Stiftung, a German development NGO.

Regional scholars were concerned about issues like the 
growing
concentration of media ownership, threats to  indigenous
languages,
pluralism, democracy and development, according to  Joan
Belfon of the
Vocational Training Development Institute of Jamaica  who
also reported
to the IIC meeting Thursday.

Both the pre-conference and the IIC meeting over the  past
week
identified the need to bridge the digital gap between 
developed
and developing regions.

Internet connections was one clear indicator of the  gap.
For
example, in Latin America only Uruguay can boast a 10 
percent
Internet connection rate. In Bolivia, Ecuador, El 
Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Paraguay less than  one
percent
of the population has such access.

In the Caribbean many of the English-speaking islands  have
between five
and 10 percent of their population online. However,  Cuba,
Dominican
Republic, Guyana and Haiti all have less than one  percent
of their
residents hooked up.

Despite the low levels of Internet access, it was  pointed
out that the
impact could be greatly increased through techniques  like
'digital
multiplication', the building of networks to share 
information and
gateways to process information.

Multiplication takes place, for instance, when a  single
telecentre with
a few computers can multiply the number of people 
connected by a factor
of 20 or more, giving access to hundreds of people  with
only a dozen
computers. Telecentres was an area of Internet growth  in
the region.

Similarly, a radio station with tens of thousands of 
listeners
that makes active use of the Internet can greatly  multiply
the
impact of its Internet connection.

The success of Agencia Informativa P£lsar, which links 
hundreds of
community radio stations throughout Latin America, was  one
of the first
and most important examples of using the Internet to 
network. P£lsar
began in 1996 by sending a daily regional news  bulletin to
48 radio stations via the Internet.

The first bulletins were text only, but written in  radio
style. Now P£lsar offers a number of different services, 
including audio clips in MP3 format to more than 2,000
subscribers in
 more than 50 countries worldwide. This technique enables
small  independent stations
to get access to information, through the Internet, 
without filtering it through trans-national news agencies
or commercial  media organisations.

Radio stations also use the Internet to help  communities
organise around global issues. One prominent example was
the  lead-up to the recent Beijing Plus 5 conference in
which women in
 Latin America and the Caribbean were able to co-ordinate
their input to
 the conference using radio stations connected through
Feminist
 International Endeavour, FIRE, to the Internet.

Maria Suarez, founder/director of the Costa Rica-based
 FIRE, said that since its creation in 1991, the network
has been
 giving voice to ''the struggles of the women's movement to
influence
 the public agenda ... in their own voices without brackets
or  censorship''.

UNESCO has also been active in establishing 12  community
radio
stations over the past six years, including five in  the
English-
speaking islands, four in Haiti and one each in Suriname
and Cuba.

Jocelyne Josiah, UNESCO Regional Adviser, said
 community stations ''are being increasingly recognised as
the most
 dynamic mass medium in the struggle for empowerment of
remote and
 marginalised communities''.

The use of community radio to protect local languages
 was cited as one success story. For example, Quechua, the
most
 important indigenous language in Latin America, is spoken
by some 10
 million people in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, and yet is
virtually absent
 from television and the Internet.

However, here are 180 radio stations in Peru alone
 with regular programming in Quechua, Girard said.

Girard cited the trend toward greater concentration of
 media ownership in the hands of a few multi-media
companies
 with holdings in radio, television, print and Internet as
a
 threat to public information.

''These companies are buying up local radio stations
 and connecting them to nation-wide satellite networks with
 centrally- produced programming. The result is that a
resident of
 Cajamarca in the Central Andean region of Peru, finds it
easier
 to get information about weather and traffic in Lima, than
 about issues and events taking place in Cajamarca.''

Under the theme, 'Communication by Design: Exploring
 the Digital Future', the IIC conference brought together
more than
 200 communications scholars, policy-makers and industry
 leaders from 42 countries.

According to IIC president, Matti Packalen of Finland,  a
major
concern was the issue ''global governance of  cyberspace''
as
developments in technology meant that the old rules  for
regulating
communications, broadcasting, and the flow of  information
and capital
were largely irrelevant.

While the debate on governance is not likely to end  soon,
activists like Maria Suarez believe the development 
community must take
advantage of the opportunities of the new  technologies.
And commercial
interests should not frustrate the dreams of the 
powerless: ''The logic
of the market should not clash with the logic of human 
rights.''

------------------------------------

=====
Don Moore     mooredxer@xxxxxxxxx
Radio: http://www.swl.net/patepluma   
Family History: http://members.xoom.com/patepluma
General: http://members.tripod.com/donmoore

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