What are other types of radio and how are they used?

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Sun, 09/19/2010 - 1:33pm

#1

New Tactics's picture

What are other types of radio and how are they used?

Define other types of radio (inside or outside the realm of community radio): shortwave radio, public radio, online radio, etc. Why are these types of radio useful for human rights work?

Sun, 09/19/2010 - 2:19pm

#2

dkuttab

dkuttab's picture

On line radio

I have had experience with online radio since 2000 when I helped establish the Arab world's fist Internet radio. The reason we went this route was the fact that in our country radio was a governmental monopoly, so to circumvent that we set up a server outside the country and used that server to broadcast on line. Later we found a way to get the online signal downloaded in a nearby country that is allowed to use independent radio and was able to rebroadcast our signal back into our country. Today many are using the global reach of online radio to reach audiences around the world. What is important about online radio is that you are able to save audio reports that include actualities for as long as the web site is up. This allows for people to visit and listen to programs, news casts or separate reports as many times as they may want

Sun, 09/19/2010 - 2:23pm

(Reply to #2) #3

kantin

kantin's picture

Shortwave radio in Zimbabwe

Thanks for sharing your experience using online radio, circumventing the governmental monopoly on radio. I wanted to share the experience of a former Humphrey Fellow that works in Zimbabwe - he has worked with shortwave radio (also to circumvent government's monopoly on radio) in Zimbabwe and shared information on this on a blog post on our website:

pruhanya wrote:

Short Wave radios

Zimbabwe has three short wave radio stations operating from outside the country because of the monopoly over air waves by the state. There is Voice of America (VOA) Studio 7 operating from Washington DC , Short Wave Radio Africa (sw radioafrica ) from London and Radio Voice of the People (RVOP) which broadcasts from the Netherlands .

The most popular of the three is VOA Studio 7. The three radios broadcasts from outside Zimbabwe but they have their reporters operating from most parts of the country.

NGOS and other pro-democracy campaigners use these stations to communicate with each other and with their constituencies on various issues such as politics, health, education and other issues related to the humanitarian and governance crisis Zimbabwe is facing.

In order to do this, some NGOs work with community organizations such as unions, opposition parties as well as village heads to form listening clubs in their areas. They then source short wave radios that they distribute to these groups so that they can listen to news. They also give community leaders contacts of these radio stations to air their concerns.

VOA studio 7 broadcasts in three different languages, Ndebele, Shona (the two main indigenous languages) and Eglish. To hear the live broadcasts of news visit the following websites http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/Zimbabwe/index.cfm. Radio Voice of the People also broadcasts in the three languages while SW Radioafrica broadcasts only in English.

Do you use shortwave radio to reach audiences? Please share your experience!

Sun, 09/19/2010 - 7:47pm

(Reply to #3) #4

admin

admin's picture

Great idea, Daoud

dkuttab wrote:

This allows for people to visit and listen to programs, news casts or separate reports as many times as they may want

How, exactly, does on-line radio allow people to listen to programs as much as they want?

This is text from Microsoft Word that I want to add to the dialogue. You see, I was on a very long flight, without internet of course, but I knew I wanted to share this story..so I typed it into MS Word and now I want to share it in the dialogue. To do that, I clicked on the button that looks like a clipboard with a 'W' on it.

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