Community Participation and its Effectiveness in The Creation of Programming/Content by Community Radios in Kongu Region

Dr.S.Nandakumar; G.Sridharraj

Volume : IV, Issue : VIII, August - 2014

Community Participation and its Effectiveness in The Creation of Programming/Content by Community Radios in Kongu Region

Dr. S. Nandakumar, G. Sridharraj

Abstract :

Radio is one of the easily accessible mass media by all sections of the people particularly the grass roots. The medium has wide reach both simultaneously and instantaneously. The operational technology is also very easy to handle even by laymen without much training requirement. The concept of radio evolved as community Radio (CR) and Campus Community Radio recently. Community radio is both a process and product. Community radio is "Voice for Voiceless" (Mary Myers, 2011) "by the people and of the people" run by and for the community providing opportunity to and representation from different socio, economic, and cultural backgrounds. K.C. Siva Balan & Selvin Jebaraj Norman, 2012, point out that ‘The modern concept of development gives emphasis not only to human and social but also economic development. Empowering the grassroots and their capacity building are major concerns in the process of development. CR acts as civic voice of the local communities with their active participatory communication. Programming pattern and content in Public/community owned radio stations can play a vital role in empowering marginalised poor people, accelerating their growth and enhancing their problem solving capacity and increase their stakes in accountability to expedite development process. This study attempts to analyse the programming pattern campus community radio, community participation in its content creation and development particularly in the western districts of Tamil Nadu (Kongu region). Seven community radio stations in three districts (Coimbatore, Erode, and Namakkal) have been taken for the study. Qualitative observational method, Focus group discussions and in–depth interview were employed to collect data. This is expected to throw open some interesting findings on functionality ofcampus Community radios, participation and effectiveness of programmes made by and for the local communities.