"Talkback radio programs (TBP) were established to educate the Cambodian public on governance issues and provide a channel through which they could communicate with authorities directly. Programs were broadcast in 4 provinces: Battambang, Kampong Cham, Siem Reap, and Kampot. This impact briefing rev
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eals the progress made by the radio program towards building political accountability and political participation. TBP listeners displayed consistently better knowledge and understanding of governance than non-listeners. Radio staff also reported strong governance competencies. Crucially, TBP led directly to 122 promises being met or partially met by local authorities." (https://www.abc.net.au/abc-international-development)
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"The study has concluded that there exists a positive relationship between vernacular radio programming content and participation of community in issues of governance. Therefore, it is recommended that vernacular radio stations should give more attention to the content of these programs. Priority sh
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ould be given to issues that are raised by the audience for they are pertinent to them. This will result in more public participation in matters of county governance in Kenya." (Conclusion)
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"Funded by DFID, under the Global Grant project, BBC Media Action produced three seasons of the weekly TV and radio programme Sema Kenya (Kenya Speaks). Sema Kenya featured a moderated discussion between a live panel of officials and an audience of ‘ordinary’ Kenyans and was designed to enable i
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ndividuals, communities and governments to be better informed and more engaged in tackling governance challenges. Alongside this, BBC Media Action delivered a mentoring programme, initially with six local radio stations, and later with the national broadcaster Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), which has the largest footprint in the country. Through this work, BBC Media Action aimed to strengthen the capacity of Kenya’s media sector to produce governance programming that supported and mainstreamed the overall objectives of the project at both the local and national level. [...] Sema Kenya contributed to people being more informed about and engaged in politics. Audiences were more knowledgeable about politics, discussed it more with friends and family, felt more confident in their ability to influence political processes and participated more in governance related activities (particularly at the community level) – all factors that support bottom-up accountability. Audiences themselves linked Sema Kenya with these outcomes. This finding was validated by analysis confirming a significant positive relationship between watching or listening to Sema Kenya and consistently higher knowledge, discussion and confidence to engage in politics, even when taking into account other factors that might influence these outcomes (such as education, age and interest in politics). While Sema Kenya’s audience was more likely to participate in politics, qualitative research respondents rarely attributed their actions directly to what they had heard on Sema Kenya. This reflects findings from advanced quantitative analysis (structural equation modelling) that suggests the link between Sema Kenya and increased political participation is indirect and mediated by political knowledge, discussion and self-efficacy. Supported by an extensive network of broadcast partners that stretched across all 47 counties in Kenya, the discussion programme reached an estimated 12.7 million people over three seasons, with a peak audience of 5.7 million in 2013 – the year of the general election. The show also maintained a loyal audience throughout all three seasons, with around half of all those reached annually tuning in for at least every second episode." (Executive summary, pages 6-7)
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"The exponential diffusion of mobile phones in Africa and their ability to interact with other media have created new avenues for individuals to interface with power. These forms of engagement, however, have primarily been interpreted through the lenses of the ‘liberation technology’ agenda, whi
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ch privileges the relationship between citizens and the state, neglecting the variety of actors and networks that intervene in shaping governance processes, alongside or in competition with the state. Through an ethnography of two local radio stations in Kenya, this article offers a more realistic picture of mobile–radio interactions and their repercussions on governance. The findings illustrate that (1) while these interactive spaces are open to all listeners with access to a phone, they are in practice inhabited by small cohorts of recurrent characters often connected to existing power structures; (2) even in places where basic services are offered by actors other than the state, including non-governmental organizations and criminal networks, the state continues to represent the imagined figure to which listeners address most of their demands; (3) in contrast to the expectations that authorities will act on claims and grievances made public through the media, other factors, including ethnicity, intervene in facilitating or preventing action." (Abstract)
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"Assumptions about the role of call-in programmes as open spaces for pubic engagement and accountability often fail to account for the influence of existing power structures and multiple publics engaging in these programmes for a variety of reasons. Furthermore, the history of call-in programmes rev
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eals that the nature of the medium itself can restrict participation in ways that have not been considered in the literature on media and development in Africa. As this article has argued, radio call-in shows are dynamic spaces where journalists, audiences and public authorities contribute to shaping the public debate, negotiate and renegotiate their roles, and assert and transform the networks of power that link them together. While these spaces have been hailed by academics, NGOs and donors as tools to promote institutional accountability and democratic participation, our analysis shows that they do not simply offer a new platform for citizens to speak up; they also offer a way for existing power structures to reproduce themselves in new forms. This analysis has demonstrated that motivations for calling in are diverse and reflect the multiple actors who call in, many of whom are not seeking to hold authority to account but rather to build their own reputation and social capital. These radio call-in programmes can take on different forms and be influenced by different structural, political and social factors. They are also invested with different degrees of politicisation by the audience." (Conclusion, page 1521-1522)
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"This report focuses on the role of factual debate and discussion programming, defined for the purposes of this review as “dialogic formats”, on political participation, knowledge and efficacy [...] The review of the existing evidence base is followed by an in-depth look at the relationship betw
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een exposure to one of BBC Media Action’s own debate programme formats and political participation. Factual debate and discussion programme formats have been implemented in a number of countries in which BBC Media Action has worked in recent years. This paper presents data from Nepal, where the political debate programme Sajha Sawal (Common Questions) has been broadcast nationally on radio and television for more than five years. The analysis provides evidence that exposure to a debate programme on the radio – which fulfils a mediated deliberation function – is positively associated with both latent and manifest forms of political participation. While it is not inferred that there is a causal relationship between the media output and political outcomes, the evidence presented goes some way to adding to the body of evidence of the impact dialogic programme formats have on interpersonal political discussion and more manifest types of participation in a developing country context, even when controlling for demographic factors and other personal characteristics." (Executive summary)
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"This report documents the results of a two-month field research evaluation in Niger and Chad on the media component of the Peace Through Development (PDEV) program funded by USAID under the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP). Equal Access, a non-governmental organization (NGO) speci
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alizing in development communications, implements the media component of the PDEV project and works in collaboration with the Academy for Educational Development (AED) to 1) improve local governance in target communities; 2) empower at-risk youth to become active participants in their communities and the economy; and 3) render superfluous ideologies that promote violence. The major activity of the PDEV media component is the production of four radio programs (two in Niger and two in Chad), which are broadcast by a network of PDEV radio partners in each country. The radio programs are supplemented by community-level activities including the organization of listening clubs, the training of community reporters and ongoing training and material support offered to radio station partners in both Chad and Niger." (Executive summary)
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