Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 10:30:05 +0200
From: "Bruce Girard" <bgirard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Radio and the Internet

I wrote this article for the December 99 issue of Voices, a Bangalore,
India journal on communication and development.  There were another
five articles in the special section on broadcasting and the
Internet.  I am trying to get them to make them available on the web.
Alternatively, you can get the journal from Voices at:

165, First Floor, 9th Cross
1st Stage, Indiranagar
Bangalore - 560 038
India
Email: voices@xxxxxxxx

The draft Action Plan of the Global Knowledge Partnership,
<http://www.globalknowledge.org> a group that includes international
organisations such as the World Bank, national development
organisations like Canada's IDRC, and NGOs, highlights radio as a
priority for bringing knowledge to developing countries.

Unfortunately, the vision that is articulated there is one of radio
as "an effective outreach to discuss and create a demand for the
Internet."  I don't think the objective is to create unfulfillable
demand for access to the Internet in remote areas of developing
countries, but to respond to the need/demand for information and
communication.

The projects mentioned in this article aren't marketing tools for the
Internet, they are ways of quickly and efficiently getting relevant
information from the Internet to the communities that need it, without
waiting for someone to string the wires, deliver the computers, and
launch the satellites that will enable the planet's 6 billion to gain
access.

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

Radio Broadcasting and the Internet:
Converging for development and democracy (1)

Bruce Girard (2)
bgirard@xxxxxxxxxxxx

________________________________

While the benefits offered by the Internet are many, its dependence on
a telecom infrastructure means that they are only available to a few.
Radio is much more pervasive, accessible and affordable.  Blending the
two could be an ideal way of ensuring that the benefits accruing from
the Internet have wider reach.
_______________________________________

More than eighty years after the world's first station was founded,
radio is still the most pervasive, accessible, affordable, and
flexible mass medium available, especially in the developing world.

Low production and distribution costs have made it possible for
radio to focus on local issues, to interpret the world from local
perspectives, and to speak in local languages (3).  In Latin America,
for example, while most radio is produced locally or nationally, only
30% of television programming comes from the region; with 62% produced
in the United States (4).  Quechua, a language spoken by some 10
million people in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, is all but absent from
the region's television screens, but in Peru alone an estimated 180
radio stations regularly offer programmes in the language.

Radio also has a developed infrastructure that must be the envy of
any developing country telecom operator.  In Sri Lanka, one person
in 500 has access to the Internet, but virtually everyone has access
to a radio.  Bolivia had fewer than five telephone lines per hundred
people in 1996, but more than 57 radio receivers per hundred.  With per
capita GNPs of $800 and $970 respectively, we should not expect that
the North American model of individual access to telecommunications
will enable a substantial percentage of Bolivians or Sri Lankans to
gain access to the global knowledge infrastructure in the near future.

Radio has a special importance for rural and marginalised urban
communities.  In addition to being the only accessible mass medium,
it also fulfils a role as a "community telephone" with several hours
a day reserved for broadcasting personal messages, birth and death
announcements, invitations to parties, ordering food and supplies
from the store in the next village, calling for emergency medical
assistance and even for receiving personal medical advice from
the local doctor.  In many rural areas radio is the only source of
information about market prices for crops, and thus the only defence
against speculators.  It is used in agricultural extension programmes,
is a vehicle for both formal and informal education, and plays an
important role in the preservation of local language and culture.

While in some parts of the world we take radio for granted, seeing
it as little more than an accessory for an automobile, in others
it fulfils a variety of roles: it is the only mass medium that
most people have access to; it is a "personal" communication medium
fulfilling the function of a community telephone; and it is a school,
the community's first point of contact with the global knowledge
infrastructure.

The medium offers tremendous potential to promote development and
democracy and while many stations have squandered this potential, the
contribution that has been made is significant.  Relevant, interesting
and interactive radio enables neglected communities to be heard and to
participate in the democratic process.  And having a say in decisions
that shape their lives ultimately improves their living standards.

TELECOMMUNICATION AND PARTICIPATION

Probably the three most important characteristics contributing to
radio's strength as a medium for development are its pervasiveness,
its local nature and its ability to involve communities in an
interactive communication process.

The Internet is also characterised by its interactivity, and,
technically, its potential in this area is far greater than radio's.
However, if, as many believe, better access to information, education,
and knowledge would be the best stimulant for development, the
Internet's primary development potential is as a point of access
to the global knowledge infrastructure.  The danger, now widely
recognised, is that access to this infrastructure continues to require
a telecom infrastructure that is inaccessible to the poor with the
result that the development is increasingly a slower process in the
places where it is most needed.

The excluded far outnumber the connected and even while the Internet
is bringing about profound changes to the world, the vast majority
of the world's population has no direct access to it (much less any
influence over the nature of the changes it brings with it).  Of an
estimated 179 million people with access to the Internet (barely 3%
of the world's population), more than 80% are in North America or
Europe, home to 10% of the world's population (5).  In most developing
countries less than 1% of the population has direct access to the
technology that is changing the world.  With the growth of the global
knowledge economy there is a very real danger that the ever-widening
gap between the info-rich and the info-poor may obliterate any chance
of a more equitable world order.

DIVERSITY AND CONCENTRATION

Switching our focus back to the media we can see that this sector is
also experiencing a series of disturbing changes, many of them brought
on by the same set of factors that are behind the rise of telecom --
liberalisation, privatisation and technological change.

However, the nature of the changes is significantly different.  While
liberalisation and privatisation have created new opportunities for
new players in the telecom sector, for radio the increased competition
often simply means a larger number of stations chasing after the same
number of potential listeners, and the same slice of the national
advertising expenditure pie.  There may be new players, but there are
no new markets.

Thus, while for telecom operators the solution has been to expand into
new markets and offer new services, for broadcasters the only obvious
option is to reduce expenses by producing cheaper programming or
by sharing production costs over a network, at the expense of local
content and alternative perspectives.

In many broadcast markets the drive to reduce or rationalise expenses
has led to increased concentration of ownership and control.  Seeking
to spread production costs over an ever greater number of stations,
larger networks buy up independent stations and smaller networks and
then use relatively inexpensive digital satellite technologies to link
them all together.  In the United States, for example, this tendency
has been so marked that even the Federal Communications Commission has
expressed concern (6).

In South America, hundreds of radio stations that began broadcasting
when the sector was liberalised in the early years of this decade
have since become part of national and even international networks.
In Peru, for example, three satellite networks, broadcasting from
the capital via repeater stations throughout the country, have more
audience share in the provinces than the forty largest provincial
stations put together (7).  In Argentina and Brazil the national
multimedia empires of El Clarin and O Globo have built satellite radio
networks that have transformed hundreds of independent local radio
stations into repeater stations offering programmes produced in the
national capital.  The economies of scale enjoyed by these networks
mean that the programming is of high technical quality, but the
cost is the loss of choice, of local information and of alternative
perspectives.

It is ironic that the convergence, liberalisation and privatisation
that were expected to open the broadcast spectrum to competition and
a greater diversity of voices, are in fact bringing about a broadcast
environment increasingly characterised by concentration of ownership
and control in fewer hands and the exclusion of local and alternative
voices.

At the same time, the benefits offered by the Internet are only
available to a few.  As valuable as they are, no telecentre or call
centre will ever be able to reach so many so easily as radio can.
If radio continues its decline, and the Internet continues to rise,
the gap between those who have knowledge and information and those who
do not will grow.

By way of example, local radio stations in rural communities often
broadcast the prices paid in various national markets for agricultural
products produced in the community.  This enables farmers to grow the
crops that will provide them with the best return, to sell them crops
in markets that pay well, and to avoid being defrauded by wholesale
buyers and speculators.  If the local radio station's programming is
replaced by network programming from the capital, the need for price
information for local crops may be ignored.  At the same time, there
are a number of well-intentioned donor-supported projects to put this
information on the Internet.  Since speculators from the city are far
more likely to have access to the technology, the end result might be
better informed speculators, and more vulnerable farmers.

However, if the local radio station has access to the Internet, and
thus to a cheap way of gathering information about prices in national
markets, then it will be able to make sure the information gets to
the farmers.  In this case, radio is the best way of covering the last
mile of the telecom infrastructure.

BLENDING RADIO WITH INTERNET

None of this is to take away from the value of the internet and
the necessity of expanding it in whatever way possible -- direct
connection from home or office, telecentres and commercial call
centres offering email access are essential.

Over the past few years a number of experiments have begun to develop
ways of blending independent local radio and the Internet.  These were
presented and discussed at a conference _Converging Responsibility:
Broadcasting and the Internet in Developing Countries_(8), held in
Kuala Lumpur in September, 1999.

Some of these projects have sought to introduce more diversity and a
democratic environment into radio programming by using the Internet
as a distribution network among independent broadcasters for news and
programmes.  Examples of this type of experiment include: two projects
in Indonesia, Kantor Berita Radio 68H -- www.isai.or.id, and Local
Radio Meeting Point -- www.un.or.id/unesco/localrad/frontpage.htm;
the Panos Institute's Banque de Programmes On Line, located in
Mali with correspondents in twenty francophone African countries --
www.oneworld.org/panos_audio/; and Latin America's Agencia Informativa
Pulsar -- www.pulsar.org.ec.

Others, such as Sri Lanka's Kotmale Community Radio -- www.kirana.lk,
seek to address the problem of the growing gap between the info-rich
and info-poor by providing collective access to the knowledge
resources available on the Internet -- using the radio as a sort of
people's gateway making the Internet's resources available to rural
and marginalised communities.

The articles in this section (9) look at how radio and the Internet
can be used together to enhance the social use of independent, local
and community radio.  They are reproduced here with permission of
the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.  Links to various sites and articles
concerned with broadcasting and the Internet in developing countries
can be found at http://www.comunica.org/kl/docsnlinks.htm.

Endnotes

(1) Originally published in the journal Voices, Vol. 3, No. 3,
December 1999, Bangalore, India.  This article is part of a
Voices feature based on the results of the conference Converging
Responsibility: Broadcasting and the Internet in Developing Countries,
Kuala Lumpur, September 1999.  Links to information about many of the
projects spoken of here can be found at
http://www.comunica.org/kl/docsnlinks.htm

(2) Bruce Girard was founding director of the Agencia Informativa
Pulsar, an Internet-based radio news agency in Latin America.  He
was organiser and co-chair (with Sucharita Eashwar) of the conference
Converging Responsibility: Broadcasting and the Internet in Developing
Countries.

(3) While there is a trend toward centralisation of production in
national and regional centres, most radio programming remains local
with very little from outside Latin America itself.

(4) UNDP Human Development Report 1999, p. 34.

(5) Source - NUA Internet Surveys, June 1999
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/index.html .  Estimates
of the number of people with access to the Internet vary widely.
A recent UNESCO report puts the figure at 76 million at the end
of 1998 (Tawfik, Mohsen, Is The World Wide Web Really Worldwide?,
1999 http://www.unesco.org/webworld/points_of_views/tawfik_1.h tml).

NUA's figures, based on a compilation of dozens of individual surveys,
attempt to measure the number of people who accessed the Internet at
least once in the previous three months.

(6) In 1999 the FCC introduced a new class of low power FM radio
stations (100 watts) and requested comment on the possibility of
establishing a "microradio" class (1-10 watts).  In its request
for comments on the proposal, the FCC wrote, "The Commission's
goals are to provide new opportunities for community-oriented radio
broadcasting, foster opportunities for new radio broadcast ownership
and promote additional diversity in radio voices and program
services".  The National Association of Broadcasters responded with
what FCC Chairman William Kennard called "a systematic campaign of
misinformation and scare tactics" that, as of March 2000, looked as
if it would result in a Congressional challenge to the FCC decision.

(7) From a survey by the Organizaci'on Peruana de Radio (OPERA).  It
remains to be seen what will happen in the newly liberalisd broadcast
sectors of some Asian and African countries, but in at least some
cases the tendency appears to be similar to Latin America, with an
initial boom followed by consolidation.

(8) See the conference website at http://www.comunica.org/kl/

(9) This was the lead article in a Voices special feature section
on broadcasting and the Internet.  The other articles in the section
were: New Forms of Governance: Roles of the state by Rohan Samarajiva,
Democratisation or Liberalisation: The politics of ICT use by Nitya
Jacob, Radio Network: Ensuring people's right to information by
Santoso, Linking Rural Sri Lanka to the Internet by Chulie Kirtisinghe
De Silva and Combining Radio with Cable and the Internet by Arun
Mehta.

- - -
Bruce Girard - bgirard@xxxxxxxxxxxx or bruceg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
TU Delft: +(31-15) 278.8548  -  Fax: +(31-15) 278.7925
Home office: +(31-15) 213.3830  -  Mobile: +(31-6) 2039.6958
Kloksteeg 17b, 2611 BL Delft, The Netherlands


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