The use of transmedia storytelling in the radio universe

The streaming technology was first used in radio soon after its creation in mid-1995. Since its adoption, the radio has a new space, the Internet, and thus began to explore new narratives, with use of different matrices of language, such as visual-verbal, which materialize itself in a graphical interface. In addition to the emergence of a web radio, radio productions began to work with social networking sites on the Internet, in which interacts with users. In this scenario emerges a new narrative for radio, the transmedia storytelling. This article seeks to identify how this narrative takes place in the radio universe and map and classify the elements that make this kind of narrative occurs. The aim is to understand how this narrative is used to propose its best use by broadcasters

Motivations for Engaging in Radio Phone-in Programmes Among Radio Users in Osogbo

This study examined motivations for engaging in Osun state radio phone in programmes among radio users in Southwest Nigeria. The thrust of the study is to bridge the gap in knowledge by examining motivations for participation in phone-in programmes on Osun state radio and investigate any variations in the radio listeners’ participation in phone-in programmes on Osun state radio in terms of age. To achieve this and in line with the Uses and Gratification Theory upon which the study is premised, Survey and in-depth interview methods were used with a sample size of 384 respondents which were selected randomly for the survey while 5 presenters of the selected phone-in programmes were interviewed and analysed. The findings indicated among other things that the majority of the respondents often participate in phone-in programmes on Osun state radio when the topic of discussion interest them; due to programmes’ format, when a favourite presenter was anchoring. Keywords: Motivations, Phone-ins, Radio, Users DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/81-05 Publication date:June 30th 201

Characterising e-Participation in sub-Saharan Africa: A thematic review of the literature

e-Participation is understood to bring about greater participation, transparency and accountability in governance processes. North America, Western Europe and many countries in the South East Asia region, are reported to have made strides in transforming their governance systems in order to be able to accommodate e-Participation. All these countries happen to be ruled by democratic regimes. Africa on the other hand, and especially sub-Saharan Africa, is reported mainly ruled by post-colonial regimes that are not always amenable to democracy. That background suggests that little is known about e-Participation in sub-Saharan Africa. A review of a selection of most influential works was performed with the aim of characterising e-Participation in sub-Saharan Africa. The findings of the review suggest that the narrative of e-Participation in sub-Saharan Africa does not provide a proper understanding of local e-Participation actors; mostly only accounts of government led projects and initiatives; mostly only accounts of the overwhelming burden of contextual factors; does not offer clear accounts of the effects of initiatives; and does not provide a thorough evaluation of projects. Further studies should empirically examine sub-Saharan African actors, their online interactions, the effects that e-Participation has had on their lives and on their communities; making use of context relevant evaluation approaches and methods

Structural Changes in Radio and Impacts on Music Listeners

The current study explores structural changes in radio and assesses their impact on music listeners in Pakistan utilizing the theoretical underpinnings of the political economy of communication. A mixed-method approach was used to answer research questions and evaluate hypotheses. A contextual analysis was utilized to evaluate the qualitative analysis after the interviews with 14 experts in the Pakistani radio industry were transcribed. Cross-tabulation with chi-square test, Independent Sample T-test, and AVOVA with Tukey tests were used to analyze survey responses from 200 respondents in order to determine the correlations between variables. The findings show that structural trends in the radio industry\u27s deregulation and commercialization have curtailed access to a varied range of listeners in Pakistan. According to the research, deregulation, licensing fees, new license fees, and the restriction of Indian music, revenue generation, and licensing to nonprofit FM radio have all limited access to a diverse spectrum of radio music listeners in Pakistan. This trend also leads broadcast media in Pakistan to produce and disseminate more entertainment programming rather than information and education programs

Background Paper: Politics and Interactive Media in Zambia

The PiMA Working Papers are a series of peer-reviewed working papers that present findings and insights from Centre of Governance and Human Rights’ (CGHR) Politics and Interactive Media in Africa (PiMA) research project (2012-14). The project, jointly funded by the ESRC and DFID (ES/J018945/1), focuses on expressions of ‘public opinion’ in broadcast media via new information and communication technologies (ICT) such as mobile phones in Kenya and Zambia. PiMA examines the political implications of such interactions in the two African countries, with a view to drawing conclusions of wider significance to practitioners and policymakers. Series Editors: Sharath Srinivasan, Stephanie DiepeveenThis background paper provides an overview of the history and context of interactive media and public opinion in Zambia. It is prepared as part of Politics and Interactive Media in Africa (PiMA) - a collaborative study involving the University of Cambridge, University of Nairobi and University of Zambia. The main objectives of the PiMA project are: (a) to explore the extent to which media interactivity is widening (and deepening) political participation in Africa; (b) to investigate how public opinion is collected and represented by African media and for what (and whose) purposes; and (c) to establish the extent to which public opinion expressed via interactive media affects accountability mechanisms and policy-makers’ behaviour. The primary purpose of this background paper is to provide a political and policy context to the Zambian case study, and introduce the history and context of interactive media in Zambia. The paper is organised into four sections. The first section provides a brief history to the evolution of broadcast media in Zambia. The second section outlines the legal and policy context of broadcasting in Zambia. The third section discusses the state of interactive media in Zambia and its attendant challenges. The fourth section examines the state of public opinion formation through media platforms.PiMA was jointly funded by the ESRC and DFID (ES/J018945/1

Mediated Sociability: Audience Participation and Convened Citizen Engagement in Interactive Broadcast Shows in Africa

This article examines what drives audience participation in interactive broadcast shows, with implications for the democratic potential of these shows as spaces of citizen engagement and public discussion. It makes three contributions, the first two to audience and media studies and the last to political communication. First, it provides evidence to fill a gap in empirical knowledge on what drives audience participation in interactive broadcasts in Africa. “Mediated sociability”—the ways in which audience members are socialized into thinking about interactive broadcast shows as a space in which people like them have a voice—emerges as a strong determinant of audience participation. Second, it then uses this evidence from a non-Western perspective to reinforce the importance of conceptualizing the interactive broadcast show as a convened social space that can enable active citizenship. Third, by advancing scholarship on audiences and publics, the article deepens our understanding on the democratic significance of interactive broadcast in Africa and beyond.The research for this article was jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom (ES/J018945/1

Social media, interactivity and radio production in the digital age : a case study of Commercial Radio Hong Kong

published_or_final_versionMedia, Culture and Creative CitiesMasterMaster of Social Sciences in Media, Culture and Creative Citie

Participation – in what? Radio, convergence and the corporate logic of audience input through new media in Zambia

Recent literature has pointed to the way in which new media such as the internet and mobile phones have the capacity to enable more participatory and interactive communication, either through user-generated content or through a broader participation of audiences in mainstream media’s content production. This potential is celebrated even more in contexts in which there is deemed to be a lack of political accountability or limited consultation of citizens by government. This article investigates the extent to which new technologies have changed the quality of audience participation in radio content production in Zambia. Engaging with literature on participation in media studies as well as development studies and based on interviews with station managers, producers and presenters of six radio stations in Zambia, the article examines both the opportunities and limits of the use of internet and mobile phones in audience participation. It argues that there is a need to situate these practices within a broader corporate logic in which participation is not merely about adding more voices but also feeds into radio stations’ commercial strategies of increasing revenue and accessing personal data of listeners through SMS and social media

Africa’s Voices: Using mobile phones and radio to foster mediated public discussion and to gather public opinions in Africa

This paper presents the findings from a one-year applied research pilot project, Africa’s Voices, run by the University of Cambridge’s Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR). Africa’s Voices developed out of CGHR’s wider research programme on politics, ICTs and interactive media in Africa. That research analyses how audiences interact with radio stations through mobile phones; how different actors including audiences, radio journalists, and governance actors (state officials, but also others such as community leaders and aid actors) perceive the importance of these interactions; and what the practical implications are for public discussion of political and social issues and for governance processes that shape access to and the quality of public goods. With Africa’s Voices, the CGHR research team piloted a programme format with local radio stations in eight sub-Saharan African countries with the objective of practically assessing the potential for deploying interactive radio to gather and comparatively analyse opinions of harder to reach sub-Saharan African populations. Besides evaluating optimal modes of working with smaller and more rural radio stations, the research has focused on patterns of audience participation in different formats of mediated public discussions and on the efficacy of different approaches to defining, gathering and measuring public opinion. This paper presents the results of the pilot and discusses them with respect to the abovementioned objectives. The paper also discusses some of the methodological and ethical challenges of using the affordances of ICT and interactive media that make them suitable for gathering and researching citizens’ opinion in Africa