KWMR PROPOSAL
Created By: boatsie
Last Modified: 07/16/06
Summary: Overview:
As traditional models of media and communication lose their relevance, autonomy and connection to the real life issues, community media has the opportunity to directly impact, improve and ignite its citizens to develop an integrated informed and sustainable community.
Models relative to addressing the global digital divide via Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), once seemingly relevant only in developing countries, today provide powerful examples of the expanding role of community radio in addressing the core survival, economic, cultural and educational needs of rural populations worldwide.
From Ghana and Bangladesh to Colorado and Canada, the local airwaves are utilized to provide neighborhoods with reliable ndependent news, (local, regional, national and international), educational opportunities, and access to the process and work of local government. Small stations are establishing collaborations to share content and forge connectivity with other independent forums.
KWMR Community Radio, through expanding its website and fine-tuning its programming, can provide West Marin neighborhood groups and individuals with a vital grounding point for access to and involvement in community.
An examination of the history of community radio and a review of current practice in local and international models provides ideas for the expansion of KWMRs role in West Marin. (NOTE: SCROLL DOWN TO TEXT ENTRIES BEFORE VISITING LINKS.)People's Agenda First: Community radio, literacy, equality: Bangladesh
An exerpt from Roundtable conference on Community Radio in Bangladesh, Dhaka, 15 March 2006
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Community radio is an alternative media is the counter balance to profit-motive corporate media. What community media emphasizes is to facilitating empowerment of people with their active participation in the process not as passive consumers/listeners. Because it has specific objectives to promote peopleagenda first, local knowledge, cultures, human rights and social justice, environmental issues and community problems as well as the issues related to development. Without people's involvement with the process i.e. in planning, managing, designing, marketing and ownership pattern, efforts will all be vain, the practices of governance and democracy will only be rhetoric, not will be in practice.
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Community radio for social development can promote participatory relationship with the social sector and business sector that result for promoting public participation and governance.Community radio can be used to protest against crime and human rights violation, any oppression, and also to promote human rights situation, the practice of democracy and promoting governance system through transparent and accountable relation building among citizens and above all in the society to a great extent.
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...offer concrete means for public participation and for depending cultural diversity. The content includes political and economic news that facilitates community dialogue and involvement, community and personal messages (marriage, union-meetings, lost donkeys, musical greetings, educational programs for development (health, environment, gender), information programs, and culturally relevant entertainment.
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Through access to the production and consumption of relevant communications, these media form a collective platform for community empowerment.
The context of Bangladesh demands CR which helps to promote literacy, human rights, transparency and accountability of respective community, service delivery mechanism of local government, educational, cultural and social activities etc.
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Besides, through this means the villages will be interconnected. Besides, there would be huge varieties of subjects like reproductive health, agriculture, disaster mitigation, local market, local trade, local cultures etc can be addressed properly through local radio. It can enhance the social harmony among the communities, it can exercise creativity, cultural diversity, including the disadvantaged, disable and ethnic communities as a closest medium for the people to speak out their views that are left out from all the development processes so far.
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There are importance to human equalities in every aspects and facilitate the role of expression and access to the information to disadvantaged group, coastal people, ethnic groups, rural women, poor communities etc and to uphold the social, economic and cultural aspects and political will of people. Community radio helps balance the existing inequalities. They provide the means for cultural expression, community discussion, and debate. They supply news and information and facilitate political engagement. Radio is the most wide spread electronic communications device in the world and community radio is a practical and cost effective means for reaching and connecting the worlds poorest communities.
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To achieve social, economic cultural and political goals, it helps as a means to achieve communities that opens a wider space to practice rights, justice, participation and democracy.
Community radio can play vital role providing awareness, education, and exchange of information to different communities. For free flow of information and promoting peoples right there must be broadcasting policies and the concerned authority will come forward and take necessary steps
Swapan Mahmud is the Executive Director of VOICE
AMARC US MEMBERSHIP
Berkeley KPFA / Pacifica Radio
Beverly Hills
Boulder
Grassroots Radio Coalition (KGNU)
Compton
RCH2000
Escondido Kspaz Productions KSPAZ Radio
Madison WORT FM
Miami Beach Miami Independent Media Center
New Orleans WWOZ FM90.7
QUINCY
BGBN
Santa Barbara KCSB-FM
Link: Case Study: Santa Barbara KCSB
Summary: We regularly collaborate with the Pacifica national network of progressive radio stations, and are working in a pioneering role with other community radio stations in the US and worldwide to produce joint programming.News & Public Affairs Department
As a non-commercial, community radio station, KCSB provides listeners with alternative coverage of news from the Santa Barbara region as well as wider issues impacting the local community. We uncover news stories not reported (or distorted) by the mainstream, commercial news media, focusing on such issues as the affordable housing crisis, threats to the natural environment, and citizen groups working to improve the community. Please explore our modest web site, and use the two links pages to dig deeper into issues from the local to the international.
Proposals
The following ideas suggest ways in which KWMR can expand through its website and on air resources. Examples of other community radio stations are provided below.
- collaborate with other community progressive radio stations to produce joint programming
- join national and international community radio and media organizations
- provide access to local government, local organizations, local data and history resources
- Establish links to reliable news sources (national, international) including online newspapers, news services, blogs)
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produce community news
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Expand calendar to include local, regional, national and international events (cultural, political environmental, educational, etc.)
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train/mentor community members in news reporting, ham radio operating, website, blog, wiki maintenance and design
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provide working space (wiki) for community members and groups
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produce/collaborate in providing life-long learning, remedial and career-based educational opportunities to audience, drawing upon expertise of local population and providing access to relevant distance learning opportunities
Expanded:
- A place for local organizations to post minutes, working papers, etc. and engage in virtual chat and meetings.
- Community bulletin board: ride shares, resource shares, etc.
- A forum for community members to engage in discussions and create new threads of discussion
- A network of local blogs (possibly a wiki environment)
- A virtual museum of regional history
- A local census
- Education
- Online and/or hybrid learning environment offering relevant courses taught by local experts in such areas as sustainability, languages, ecology, ham radio operating, alternative energy, global warming, alternative medicine, spirituality, science, etc. (connection with Michael Rafferty & Faultline Institute)
- Recruitment of guest speakers to teach mini-courses Lifelong learning and peer teaching
OVERVIEW
As traditional models of media and communication lose their relevance, autonomy and connection to the real life issues, community media has the opportunity to directly impact, improve and ignite its citizens to develop an integrated informed and sustainable community.
Models relative to addressing the global digital divide via Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), once seemingly relevant only in developing countries, today provide powerful examples of the expanding role of community radio in addressing the core survival, economic, cultural and educational needs of rural populations worldwide.
From Ghana and Bangladesh to Colorado and Canada, the local airwaves are utilized to provide neighborhoods with reliable and independent news, (local, regional, national and international), educational opportunities, and access to the process and work of local government. Small stations are establishing collaborations to share content and forge connectivity with other independent forums.
KWMR Community Radio, through expanding its website and fine-tuning its programming, can provide West Marin neighborhood groups and individuals with a vital grounding point for access to and involvement in community.
Models relative to addressing the global digital divide via Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), once seemingly relevant only in developing countries, today provide powerful examples of the expanding role of community radio in addressing the core survival, economic, cultural and educational needs of rural populations worldwide.
From Ghana and Bangladesh to Colorado and Canada, the local airwaves are utilized to provide neighborhoods with reliable and independent news, (local, regional, national and international), educational opportunities, and access to the process and work of local government. Small stations are establishing collaborations to share content and forge connectivity with other independent forums.
KWMR Community Radio, through expanding its website and fine-tuning its programming, can provide West Marin neighborhood groups and individuals with a vital grounding point for access to and involvement in community.
An examination of the history of community radio and a review of current practice in local and international models provides ideas for the expansion of KWMRs role in West Marin.
Link: Moodle: Open Source Course Management for Online Learning
Summary: Free software to develop and host online courses.
Link: Stinson Beach Tribe
Summary: an example of Community Bulletin Board and community building area created in 2/06.
Link: WHAT IS WIKI?
Summary: software that allows contributions to be edited
Link: Case Study: Boulder KGNU
Summary: Provides calendar of events both on and off air, sponsors workshops; broadcasts from BBC News Hour and links to external news sources; links to government information, information on community organizations, external calendars; provides a space for members to post and work on content in a wiki environment; links to external resources in which station is directly involved.
Link: The Grassroots Radio Movement in the US
Summary: History and current status of independent radio in US
Link: Role of Community Radio: India
Summary: Community radio as a tool to promote e-learning. Provides historical information on BBC radio teaching Languages and Canada's Radio Farm Forums use of broadcasting to create 'blended' learning environments in the 1940s.
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From: http://kcsb.org/
Link: WORLD ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY RADIO BROADCASTERS
Summary: AMARC is an international non-governmental organization serving the community radio movement, with almost 3 000 members and associates in 110 countries.
Its goal is to support and contribute to the development of community and participatory radio along the principals of solidarity and international cooperation.
All continents are represented on AMARCâs international Board
Grassroots Radio Conference 2001
Summary: Grassroots Radio Coalition: most recent conference June 2006.
From: http://www.kgnu.org/grassroots/prpistatement.htmlBackground: Farm Radio Forum Canada
Farm Radio Forum, 1941-65, was a national rural listening-discussion group project sponsored by the Canadian Association for Adult Education, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and CBC. Up to 27 000 persons met in neighbourhood groups Monday nights, November through March, using half-hour radio broadcasts, printed background material and pretested questions as aids to discussion of social and economic problems.
Farm Forum provided an antidote to the hard times of the 1930s economic depression, and meeting and discussing new ideas in neighbours' homes helped restore rural confidence, often leading to positive group action in the community. Farm Forum innovations included a regional report-back system, whereby group conclusions were collected centrally and broadcast regularly across Canada, occasionally being sent to appropriate governments. In addition, discussion - leading to self-help - resulted in diverse community "action projects" such as co-operatives, new forums and folk schools. Farm and community leaders claimed that the give-and-take of these discussions provided useful training for later public life. In 1952, UNESCO commissioned research into Farm Forum techniques. Its report was published in 1954, and consequently India, Ghana and France began using Canadian Farm Forum models in their programs.
Farm Forum provided an antidote to the hard times of the 1930s economic depression, and meeting and discussing new ideas in neighbours' homes helped restore rural confidence, often leading to positive group action in the community. Farm Forum innovations included a regional report-back system, whereby group conclusions were collected centrally and broadcast regularly across Canada, occasionally being sent to appropriate governments. In addition, discussion - leading to self-help - resulted in diverse community "action projects" such as co-operatives, new forums and folk schools. Farm and community leaders claimed that the give-and-take of these discussions provided useful training for later public life. In 1952, UNESCO commissioned research into Farm Forum techniques. Its report was published in 1954, and consequently India, Ghana and France began using Canadian Farm Forum models in their programs.
