"Only a handful of the estimated 150 FM radio stations in Mali could properly be called ‘community’ stations, with administrative structures to ensure representative listener participation in decision-making. However, due to regulations and scarce funding sources, virtually all stations depend o
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n their audiences for direct financial support in return for mediated listener-to-listener communications. This article, based on over a year and a half of fieldwork in the southern Malian city of Koutiala, outlines the system of social and technical interdependence that links stations and their listeners in Mali. FM radio depends fundamentally on systems of transportation, and, to a lesser degree, other communication technologies like telephones. Social interdependence is emphasized in the speech of announcers, through an insistence on Islam as a common religion and fictive joking relationships. Referencing the operational structures of the stations in the city, including one community station, I show that a socio-technical system has developed in which local FM blurs standard understandings of ‘community’ media." (Abstract)
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"This publication contains a collection of scripts and selected radio episodes that have been produced and distributed by ABC Ulwazi in Southern Africa. The scripts focus on social and health issues, and recognize that local communities are the key drivers of their own development. Each of the progr
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ammes, only partially presented, were produced with the systematic participation of community members and with a conscious effort to ensure easy adaptation of the original English versions to local languages. They attempt to demonstrate formats that combine information and education approaches to engage the public audience in critical development issues. The scripts of the three programmes included here promote poverty eradication, gender equality, and the prevention of HIV/AIDS. Each programme was produced to influence social change for economic growth and stability." (Introduction)
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"This groundbreaking study of community media, first published in 2005, combines original research with comparative and theoretical analysis in an engaging and accessible style. Kevin Howley explores the different ways in which local communities come to make use of various technologies such as radio
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, television, print and computer networks for purposes of community communication and considers the ways these technologies shape, and are shaped by, the everyday lived experience of local populations. He also addresses broader theoretical and philosophical issues surrounding the relationship between communication and community, media systems and the public sphere. Case studies illustrate the pivotal role community media play in promoting cultural production and communicative democracy within and between local communities." (Publisher description)
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"El artículo presenta los resultados de un estudio diagnóstico de las radios mineras sindicales de Bolivia: Radio Nacional de Huanuni (Huanuni-Oruro), Radio Vanguardia (Colquiri-La Paz) y Radio 16 de Marzo (Bolívar-Oruro) que actualmente son las únicas emisoras existentes de las más de veinte q
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ue llegaron a funcionar en el país entre la década del sesenta y setenta. Las radios mineras en Bolivia, pioneras en lo que se conoce como comunicación alternativa, popular, democrática o participativa, se debaten hoy en un trance de sobrevivencia por factores económicos, sociales, técnicos y profesionales." (Resumen)
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"This book is the first one in English about the famous community radio stations operated in Bolivia by the miners’ trade unions. Since about 1950, there has been a network of more than twenty radios all locally funded and operated. This book focuses on the most heroic period of their existence du
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ring the twenty-five years from about 1960 to 1985. This unique experience of local media is described through the voices of Latin American communication researchers and political activists. The chapters are selected and translated by Alan O’Connor who published the first scholarly article in English on the Bolivian miners’ radios. This book also gives readers an introduction to the methods and concerns of Latin American communication researchers. This work includes overview written by Bolivian communication researchers who first brought the miners’ radios to the attention of researchers on participatory media. These pioneering articles struggle to fit the unruly miners’ radios into the concepts of debates about global communications. They stress what is unique about the Bolivian experience and the successes, problems and lack of resources of the radio stations. The book also includes moving testimonies by participants in the radio stations. An historic transcript from a live broadcast shows how the radios connect up during times of political crisis in an attempt to organize resistance to a military coup. With the decline of the Bolivian mining industry since 1985 many of the radio stations no longer exist. The book documents attempts to rescue at least some of the stations and continue their work into the present." (Publisher description)
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"Al socializar las ponencias y conclusiones de nuestro II Congreso Latinoamericano de Comunicación: "Comunicación Solidaria en la Sociedad de la Información", queremos contribuir al debate y a la búsqueda de respuestas a los nuevos desafíos que hoy vive la humanidad. Esperamos que en las univer
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sidades, gremios de profesionales, medios de comunicación, iglesias y en general en todas las instancias de la sociedad civil este debate continúe y seamos capaces también de alentar, apoyar y promover la apropiación de las nuevas tecnologías al servicio de nuestra gente, de nuestros pueblos, de nuestras culturas." (Prólogo, página 7)
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