India:

Use of Educational Radio Drama

This video discusses the production of ‘Matdata Junction’, a 52 episode radio drama series produced by the Election Commission of India in 2022, in collaboration with All India Radio. All India Radio (AIR), officially renamed Akashvani in 2023, is India's national public radio broadcaster and one of the largest radio networks in the world. It broadcasts in many languages - reaching millions of listeners across the country. The network delivers news, music, culture, education, and entertainment. Audio drama is a regular programming element.

According to the Times of India the ‘Matdata Junction’ project used drama, storytelling, experts’ interviews and song, to try to “remove urban apathy that is known to known to keep the voter turnout low in the big cities…”. This video examines how All India Radio in Chennai approached the production of these episodes, which were designed for the Tamil Nadu region.

India:

Anna Community Radio, Chennai

India’s First Community Radio Station

Launched on February 1, 2004, Anna Community Radio has the distinction of being India’s first community radio station. Operating out of Anna University in Chennai, the station was born out of a landmark 1995 Supreme Court ruling that declared Indian airwaves public property, paving the way for educational institutions to pioneer local broadcasting. Departing from standard campus radio models, Anna Community Radio avoids mainstream populism, like playing commercial film songs. Instead it broadcasts original folk music and grassroots, community-centric programming. It serves and supports underrepresented listeners, focusing heavily on poor households and vulnerable women living in low-income localities surrounding the campus.

This video features excerpts from interviews with Dr. I. Arul Aram, Professor and Head, Dept. of Media Sciences, and Dr. R. Lavanya, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Media Sciences, at Anna University, Chennai, India.

African Radio

In 2006, Coley was invited to spend six weeks in Addis Ababa as part of a BBC World Service Trust training initiative for staff at Radio Ethiopia — an experience that had a lasting influence on his subsequent radio research. The project focused on the development of educational radio campaigns promoting sexual health and reproductive awareness, drawing on his background as a Creative Director and commercial producer. It became the basis of his Masters dissertation on development radio, and has since informed conference presentations and a published chapter, Creating Health Related Radio Messages in Ethiopia, in the Communication Journal of New Zealand (Volume 11, July 2010).

That work went on to inspire an extensive research journey across Africa in 2010, undertaken in partnership with Birmingham City University's International Department. Combining institutional recruitment visits with field research, Coley met with student radio, community radio, and state broadcasters across South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nigeria.

Between 2008 and 2009, Coley held a Research Fellowship on an AHRC-funded Knowledge Transfer project led by Professor Tim Wall at Birmingham City University, which included work as a media trainer for the charity CARE International — among other outputs, an audio-slideshow documenting CARE's work in Rwanda.

Edited interviews from the 2010 fieldwork are available on Radio for Development (R4D), a research site Coley created in 2007 and has maintained since. The site and its associated YouTube channel focus on radio as an educational and development tool across the African continent. The audio-slideshows below, recorded in June and July 2010, document the work of community and state broadcasters encountered during that research.

Kenya:

Pamoja FM

Nigeria:

Unilag 103.1

South Africa:

Vow 90.5

Kenya:

Capital Radio 98.4

Nigeria:

Voice of Nigeria Radio

Nigeria:

FRCN

South Africa:

SABC

Nigeria:

Metro 97.6