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Radio and African rural communities: Structuralstrategies for social mobilizationAnthony A. Olorunnisola Ph.D. aa Assistant Professor of Media Studies , The Pennsylvania State University , University ParkPublished online: 18 Aug 2009.

To cite this article: Anthony A. Olorunnisola Ph.D. (1997) Radio and African rural communities: Structural strategies for socialmobilization, Journal of Radio Studies, 4:1, 242-257, DOI: 10.1080/19376529709391695

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Radio and African RuralCommunities:

Structural Strategiesfor Social Mobilization

Anthony A. Olorunnisola, Ph.D.

This paper reevaluates and questions some of the assumptions that havebeen made about the efficacy of radio broadcasting in rural Africa—thetarget of most domestic and international social change programs. Amongother possibilities, the paper suggests that the inexpensive availability,portability, and nonliterate accessibility of rural audiences to radio arenecessary conditions but are insufficient to maximize the medium's poten-tial utility for social mobilization. Using an existent tripartite concentriccultural diameter as the basis for argument, the paper reemphasizes theclaim that the rural African community is distinct from the suburban andthe urban. Recommendations are offered, on that basis, for a restructuredradio network that would reflect the uniqueness of rural communities andthe changing phase of Africa's marginalized population.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhapsit is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music

which he hears, however measured or far away.—Henry David Thoreau

Whenever the issue of social development in rural Africa is broached, radio—the only electronic device in numerous homesteads—is regularly peddled asthe powerful medium without which the dissemination of messages is nearlyimpossible. Radio's potential and efficiency in this regard has been measuredlargely on the basis of its ability to reach virtually unlimited numbers of people,its portability, its comparative inexpensiveness, as well as its preclusion of lit-eracy and electricity. These economic and technological advantages have wonradio a wide appeal in governmental and nongovernmental circles, locally and

Anthony A. Olorunnisola (PhD. Howard University, 1994), is Assistant Professor ofMedia Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park. His researchinterests include the cultural aspects of international and development communicationand media roles in conflict on the African continent.

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internationally, where the promotion of rural lifestyles and welfare is of notableand optimum importance. Public enlightenment messages generated by thesesources have varied from health, agriculture, and other special non-formal edu-cational types to the highly structured radiophonic formats that supplementand sometimes replace formal education (Vergeldt, 1983). More specifically,such messages have covered birth control, child spacing, infant immunization,oral rehydration therapy, the queuing culture, planting, harvesting, and storagetechniques, reading and language skills, self-reliance through cooperative asso-ciations, and the values of banking (Hall, 1973; Hall, 1978; Okunna, 1995;Uche, 1991). Most of these messages are mass mediated with the battery-operated transistor radio serving as the stimulant for an all-encompassingprocess of social mobilization (Grenholm, 1975;Katz&Wedell, 1977;Mackay,1964; Moemeka, 1994; Wedell, 1986).

Indisputably, radio has the highest potential as the disseminator of socialinformation on the African continent. The inherent capabilities of radio maynot be matched or easily supplanted by such recent equipments as the audiocassette recorder, the video cassette recorder (VCR), and the camcorder,which have recently been suggested as alternatives (Balit, 1993; McQuail,1987; Okunna, 1995; Stuart, 1989; Traber & Lee, 1989). Primarily, radio'sestablished economic advantage outweighs the need for reequipment that theproposed alternatives present. At best, the newer technologies can play supple-mentary roles when the factors of consumer access and cost are removed.However, the extent to which the social mobilization programs planned andexecuted in rural Africa have generally failed may point to the likelihood that,among other conjoint factors, radio's potential as a viable medium has neverbeen fully tapped. In response to the uncertainty that surrounds this assumedefficiency, this study: (1) places radio in proper perspective by reevaluatingits utility value in colonial and post-independent Africa while using its rigidlycentralized and distributive structure as a context; (2) reviews the extent towhich the production of and the eventual content of the varied radio pro-grams have been specifically relevant to the audiences located in African ruralcommunities; and (3) suggests the establishment of rural community radio asa complement to the existent national and regional broadcasting efforts toproduce an integrative operational format.

STRUCTURE OF BROADCASTING

The introduction of radio service to Africa by the colonial powers, the modalityof its subsequent usage by succeeding African governments, and the stiffreluctance that has met its privatization many years after political indepen-dence leave the impression that the medium was primarily introduced, handed

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down, and inherited as another instrument of conquest and control. ManyAfrican countries, particularly those that were under the British and Frenchpolitical hegemony, had their first exposure to radio broadcasting by becom-ing relay stations of the colonial governments' worldwide shortwave pro-grams (Mackay, 1964). For instance, all British empire broadcasts originatedfrom London and were simply redistributed to the relay stations located inthe British colonies. The content of these programs had no direct relevanceto the basic needs and lifestyles of the indigenous audiences. Fundamentally,the rebroadcasts were to fulfill the colonial master's listening needs andcravings to be in touch with the home country.

Radio's development, as a medium imported solely to cater to the elitecommunity of expatriates, progressed to the popular stage only when thecolonialists recognized that a full-fledged service would be useful in rallying theprotectorates together for administrative efficiency. The task of managing ageographically dispersed populace was anticipated to become easier withoutthe engagement of additional administrative staff. Radio, with its ability to reducethe distance between the government and the otherwise remote "natives," becamea low-cost means of governance (Chimutengwende, 1984; Hornick, 1984).Subsequently, the value of radio in reducing the stress attached to battling human,animal, and plant diseases, as well as the improvement of housing and watersupply was discovered. All of these matters were previously insurmountablemountains that would submit to the capabilities of radio broadcasting. At thispoint in its history, radio had metamorphosed into an instrument of entertain-ment, propaganda, and education.

With the distribution service stations as the backbone, many African nationsin the Commonwealth became broadcasting conscious and continued to expandbroadcasting facilities well after independence. Almost all of the nationsretained BBC experts as technical and administrative consultants while Afri-can technicians and broadcasters were provided on-the-job training. Whathad evolved at this stage was a center-peripheral pattern of growth, whichsaw radio broadcasting develop, from the center outward, into a system ofnational and regional networks.

Several years after the BBC consultants departed, radio broadcastingretained a centralized distributive principle as a fundamental operative model.Although indigenous operators had traded places with the BBC experts, themodus operandi remained unaltered (Ugboajah, 1979). National programs,with nationwide appeal and those that were particularly geared toward fos-tering national integration, were broadcast in English from the nation's capi-tal and relayed to the rest of the country via the regionally located transmit-ters. This practice has also survived and has transcended the initial stages ofnation building when African governments recognized the need to establish

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and cultivate the sense of national identity, national integration, and nationalcohesion. The basic objective at that point was to "bind the various ethnicgroups together as a national entity rather than as disparate subgroups" (Ansah,1986, p. 47). Well after independence, the regional stations, which eventuallygained the freedom to develop and isolate their own programs from the head-quarters, could leave the national relay at appropriate times of the day toprovide programs of regional interest in the local languages and dialects. Theredefined goals of the regional stations included the uplifting of the culturesand special interests of the numerous communities that geographically fellwithin their catchment areas. However, the attempt to cater to such a widespectrum of interests has only weakened broadcasting efficiency given thedifferentials involved.

The centralized arrangement described above has survived to date, andso has structural expansion from the political centers to the regions. The ruralcommunities, where a little more or less than 80 percent of the total popula-tion of Africa resides, have remained excluded and marginalized. An exami-nation of the extent to which centrally produced radio programs are relevantto the needs of rural communities is a worthy exercise.

CENTRALIZED VOICES AND RURAL EARS

Although many scholars (Beckner & Barker, 1994; Hall, 1973; Hall, 1978;Katz, 1979;Moemeka, 1994; Starosta, 1976;Ugboajah, 1979; Valbuena, 1988)have evaluated and/or suggested strategies for the dissemination of variegatedmessages to rural audiences, very few others have thoroughly examined mes-sage-to-audience congruence. Almost 20 years ago, Katz (1979) raised thequestion that had consistently bothered many scholars of development and socialmobilization when he wondered whether or not broadcasting could "give voiceto culturally authentic forms of expression" (p. 114). The question was raisedagainst the background of the debate surrounding the dominant paradigm andthe more fundamental issue of whether or not socioeconomic growth andtraditionality could coexist. Relying on a survey of radio and television pro-grams in a few developing countries, Katz concluded that the status of broad-casting, as it were, did not prepare the institution to achieve the feat. Becauseculture resides in the language understood by the recipient and can be accessedonly via the same means, the language of broadcast messages became identifiedas critical to the achievement of message salience.

In a move to rectify the existent anomaly, Algeria, Nigeria, and Tanzaniawere among the few African countries whose governments pioneered thedemand for a decrease in imported programs and an increase in the propor-tion of broadcasts done in the vernacular languages. As a valid corollary to

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the increased use of local languages, the policy makers in the respective coun-tries were equally interested in the "instrumental use of the themes of tradi-tional culture as a more effective means of reaching people with the messageof national integration and modernization" (Katz, 1979, p. 114).

Laudable as these national desires were, a few inherent problems quicklybecame evident. One was how to resolve the choice of a cultural medium amongthe many options available in the multifarious and diverse communities. If thechoice were easy, whose culture would be the ideal and would outsiders to thechosen culture accept and find relevance in the messages? There were alsoconcerns about the logistical readiness and competence of the broadcastinginstitutions to marry the moods and nuances of a traditional culture with theborrowed production style of the colonial master. Yet another problem washow- to make the marriage work for the achievement of the developmentalpurposes desired by the respective countries.

Ugboajah (1979) must have recognized the serious challenges of select-ing a particular language and cultural medium for broadcasting purposes whenhe suggested that "a typical African country consists of three distinct concen-tric cultural entities: the nation/city, the province/city periphery, and the vil-lage/clan" (p. 42). Against the background of multilinguistic and multiculturalentities, it becomes imperative to worry about the quantity of relevant mes-sages that are accessible to audiences in rural communities when English or adifferent indigenous language is used in broadcast transmissions. Quoting anunpublished study compiled in 1975, Ugboajah reported that only 27 of 178Nigerian indigenous languages are used in any form of broadcasting. Invari-ably, speakers of the remaining 151 marginalized languages, who are alsounfortunate enough to be incompetent in English, would be totally shut outof media and/or radio messages. To the excluded population, "Nigerian mediaconsist of little more than music broadcasts" (p. 42).

Going by Ugboajah's description, a group of people's level of media usageand participation would strongly depend on the match between the body ofmessage received and their concentric cultural locatioa Given the centralizedlocation of the broadcasting system, therefore, audiences in the city would beactively participatory, those in the city periphery would be pseudoparticipants,while those in the rural areas would be nonparticipatory. As an alternative tothe modern forms of the media, rural communities would have to rely on suchtraditional avenues as the village gongman, the village market square, the King'scourt, mythology, divinations, and related methods to satisfy their communica-tion needs and curiosities. One can safely assume, however, that an alteration inAfrican rural communities' nonparticipatory status may become realistic withthe creation of community radio services for the sole purpose of assuring con-tent, linguistic, and cultural contiguity.

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The question remains as to whether members of a rural community withits own radio service can find their voice, experience inclusion—defined asthe subtle bond between a citizen and his/her nation—and participate activelyin national affairs. The attempt to address the latter question may benefitfrom raising another: What is a rural community? The profile that emergescould become a pointer to what may have been missed or ignored in ruralaudience analyses or the lack of it, and the kinds of institutional and policyreassessments that would need to visit the locational and operational consid-erations of Africa's radio services.

Unveiling the African rural communityLately, the term community has become shopworn. Many authors have eitheravoided the task of definition or assumed a unified interpretation in the mindsof readers. In his discussion of media communities' replacement of local com-munities, Jakubowicz (1989) suggested that:

Originally the term community denoted a group of people who occu-pied a geographical area; people who were together engaged in economicand political activities, who essentially constituted a self-governing socialunit with common values, and who experienced feelings of belonging toone another... relatively small areas and numbers of people, no more thancan maintain face-to-face relationships, (p. 2)

Jakubowicz's definition becomes valuable to the current attempt to defineAfrican rural communities and distinguish them from the continent's sprawlingcities and city peripheries. Going by this author's first hand exposure, a typicalAfrican rural community shares many of the ingredients Jakubowicz describeswhile displaying unique characteristics. Primarily, a rural community consistsof people engaged in multiple relationships where one interacts with all withoutconsidering them as others. The one-for-all and all-for-one cohesive existencecomes with sets of responsibilities recognized by all, accepted, and held in trustfor the sanity of the community. Such communal responsibilities are dischargedwhen tribesmen and women tell moonlight stories, folktales, and oral history tochildren or when an adult corrects a neighbor's child for misbehavior. Individu-als, cognizant of a shared destiny, are aware that their actions and/or inactionshave repercussions for the community. "It takes one to have a child and anentire village to raise it" is a saying that epitomizes communal life. Moreover,when individual interests conflict with the communal, the latter takes prece-dence as one is assumed to be less than the sum of all.

When juxtaposed with the African city, the rural community offers a higherlevel of social and cultural cohesiveness that has sometimes been deemed

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retrogressive by western agents and scholars of development. Members sharecommon values and subscribe to the same unwritten norms, codes, mores,and standards. Members who flout these conventions are summarily ostra-cized. Some African rural communities enjoy the occupational homogeneitythat encourages activities, pastimes, and other ties that bind. Many of theseinteractions occur in traditional face-to-face settings that are organized aroundage groups. Such arrangements help to build and sustain such lifelong andshared engagements as the rites of passage.

One can further claim that there is a higher level of interpersonal relation-ship, contact, and intergroup reliance at the rural leveL This associative interac-tion traditionally transcends the here and now to include community membersclassified as the living dead or ancestors, depending on their location in com-munal memory. Community members who have passed away but were knownand are still remembered by living members are categorized as the living dead.Those who have departed long ago, but live on through folktales, genealogicalrenditions, and oral histories, are categorized as ancestors. Occasions that callfor libations provide the opportunity to rekindle the bond with the living deadand ancestors alike. Somewhere in the midst of this highly collective and par-ticipatory organization of persons is a traditional hierarchy of authority thatrecognizes elders in the community as the repositories of the knowledge andwisdom that have been handed down from one ancestral generation to another.

Constant exposure to and nonisolation from African cities and city periph-eries leave room for a discussion of levels of communality among rural com-munities. However, an African rural community in the traditional sense evolvesnaturally and is perpetuated by the practices that have guaranteed its whole-ness. Such a community is neither created by others nor imposed by such geo-graphical boundaries as the terrain, new technologies, and legal technicalities.Shared social services such as banks, health centers, agricultural extension offices,and schools created by government and other agencies have neither created norsustained communities. Yet there are psychological boundaries recognized bypersons who step into the rural communities from the city or the city peripher-ies. The cultural transition and the change in rules are profound and quantifi-able enough for one to draw a line between such places as Accra, Lagos,Monrovia, Johannesburg, Yaunde, and a given rural community in any part ofAfrica. The question can, however, be broached as to whether or not thesecapital cities of selected African countries are communities in and of them-selves or a combination of communities.

The foregoing notwithstanding, persons living in the capital cities of Afri-can countries can claim to experience "a sense of community" even when itrevolves around sharing such demographic detail as origin from the same vil-lage, local government area, region or state, alma mater, a street name, mem-

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bership of a vigilante group assembled to stem the wave of armed robbery inthe neighborhood, and/or membership in an exclusive country club with others.The definition of community is, evidently, open to varied interpretations. Inspite of possible rural-to-urban locational and associational spillovers, it maybe possible to draw a line between African rural locations and urban areasalong the concentric cultural lines that Ugboajah (1979) drew. For instance, therural communities possess a self-contained culture that is comparably tradi-tional and distinguishable from the suburban and the urban. African ruralitescommunicate using distinct dialects and accents that retain a higher level oforiginality than urban dwellers of the same origin. The rural population sur-vives extensively on an agrarian economy that witnesses a high proportion ofsubsistence farming. They are comparatively poor, have lower per capitaincomes, have lower literacy levels, place a distinctive value on life, and have alife expectancy that varies from that of the urban dwellers.

Africans in rural communities sometimes find urban lifestyles stressfuland at times laughable. They hold the view that inhabitants of urban settingsare out of touch with nature and, by implication, reality. The little that isadmired about urban life is envied from afar for reasons that are physical,logistical, and cultural. When those sporadic interactions take place, theruralites deal with the urbanites in an "us versus them" context. People in therural communities are often separated from the city, the city periphery, themedia, and the government (federal, state, and local) by geographic distanceand inaccessible road networks. The mandatory income tax, and media sug-gestion of conformance with same through jingles, becomes the most fre-quent reminder of the government's existence. This cadre of Africans endurepolitical alienation and taxation with inadequate representation of their basicinterests. Besides the evidence of near internal colonization, many ruralitesexperience the feeling of peripheral abandonment, powerlessness, helpless-ness, despair, and cynicism. For most individuals in these locations, the vil-lage is their entire world. In that world, subsistence, survival, and existenceare objectives achieved with limited association with the government andmass media institutions alike.

TOWARD AN INTEGRATIVE COMMUNITY RADIO STRUCTURE

Why would the same African rural communities that thrive on the intensiveparticipation of their members be nonparticipatory with the mass media? Thisquestion is vital because one of the most crucial challenges faced by mediapractitioners in Africa and other developing countries is how to generate,promote, and sustain the participation of indigenous peoples in the process ofsocial and economic development. The foregoing evaluation of African broad-

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casting institutions and the rural communities suggests that the centralizedstructure of African radio networks leaves them unprepared to effectivelyaccount for the communal sensibilities of a sizeable portion of the populationthey are mandated to mobilize. There is, for instance, no room in the currentarrangement for participation and power sharing in information dissemination,two factors that would appear central to community as well as nation buildingefforts (Mody, 1991; Servaes & Arnst, 1992). If the central-peripheral struc-ture of media facilities encourages rural audience passivity, how can Africanmedia services—radio in particular—become physically and culturally inclu-sive of and sensitive to the rural communities?

The latter question is especially compelling because a number of scholarshave perceived the contradiction that may exist in the dual role of radio broad-casting in social mobilization and the sustenance of cultural heritage and iden-tity. Katz and Wedell (1977) expressed the fear that the conflict may be esca-lated by modernization's emphasis on individualism, secularization, andmaterial values that oppose the collectivism, tradition, and spiritual valuesemphasized by cultural continuity. However, the failure of many social mobi-lization programs may have shown that no nation can achieve the integrationof its diverse peoples without first recognizing and subsequently enhancingtheir cultural uniqueness.

The current structure of radio services in Africa poses a serious problem,parity because it was designed with a mass audience in mind. For several years,radio has largely been an urban phenomenon with a receiver-borne access tothe rural communities. Indigenous forms of communication have been able tosurvive alongside the modern due, essentially, to the diametric and culturalseparation of the city, the city periphery, and the village. In that connection,radio, in its current format, has shared in the geographical, the economical, thepolitical, and the sociocultural distance that separates the rest of the worldfrom rural audiences. As a result, voices representing international agencies,national, and/or provincial governments may meet at a confluence where theyare jointly confronted with similar challenges when they attempt to inform,convince, or entertain rural minds for purposes related to social change.

RECONCEPTUALIZING THE ROLE OF AFRICAN RADIO SERVICES

The need to mobilize and carry African rural communities along with the restof the countries would have to be preceded by a reconceptualization of mediaservices. Ironically, radio represents a viable instrument needed for this drivebecause a little more or less than 80 percent of the total population of Afri-cans who reside in rural locations can be connected to national issues only viathis medium. Therefore, it is imperative that African countries complete the

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truncated cycle of radio service expansion that commenced with an outwardgrowth from the capital cities and were halted, in most cases, at the cityperipheries. The structural growth toward the rural areas that is envisagedhere should comfortably follow the existent political structure of the federal,state, and local governments, which has seen most African nations so ar-ranged for administrative efficiency.

There are a number of advantages in this pattern of radio expansion. One,the existent state and local government structures have been arranged in mostAfrican nations to coincide with the linguistic and cultural contiguity of theconstituents. Two, in a few instances, the constituents have themselves lob-bied for the creation of their own state or local governments, citing the samefactors. Therefore, as one moves from the countries' capital cities, throughthe regions, to the rural areas, the tendency is to experience a diminishinglevel of English language competency per square mile and an increasing scaleof linguistic and cultural heterogeneity by catchment area. In addition, therecommended pattern of structural expansion should produce the number ofradio stations that is commensurate with the linguistic and cultural constella-tion of that segment of the country concerned. The expansion should, how-ever, not be limited to the physical siting of radio stations near geographicallocations that are rural. The programmatic content of those stations shouldreflect the unique cultures, languages, folklore, and lifestyles of the targetaudience.

So as to be consistent with radio services located in the major cities andthe peripheral provinces, the enabling policies establishing community radiooutlets should specify terms of reference that are cognizant of their basic rolein the mobilization of the rural communities of Africa. The separate terms ofreference should amount more to a programmatic than a structural segmen-tation of the radio networks. To sustain the sense of community, programsdisseminated via community radio outlets should primarily be locally relevant.In the process of community radio development, however, there should beroom for the sustenance of national unity through programmatic integration.Programs of national importance would find a ready outlet via rural radiooutlets just as communal self-help and other developmental efforts at therural level that are worthy of national attention could be accorded the deservednational attention. Radio services in communities that are linguistically andculturally contiguous as well as those whose audiences are found to be bilin-gual and/or multilingual can also exchange programs that are valuable totheir respective audiences.

This suggestion is consistent with the existent interaction between thenational and regional radio networks. It also corroborates Ansah's (1986)suggestion that, in spite of their uniqueness, African communities are not

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totally isolated from one another. The rural community segments of the nationalradio networks should not be isolated units. Their creation should simplycomplete the truncated structural cycle and ensure the inclusion and partici-pation of the rural population in issues peculiar to their needs and those thatconcern the body politic.

Figure 1 provides a graphic representation of the typical radio networkarrangement in most countries of Africa.

Central or National Radio

Regional Radio

Nonexistent Rural CommuniTv Radio

Figure 1Concentric circles of radio network showing central, regional, and nonexistent ruralcommunity radio.

The innermost circle represents the central or the national unit, usuallylocated in the capital city, with the core objective of facilitating national inte-gration, national cohesion, and national unity through its programs. The cen-tral unit administratively coordinates the integrated exchange of program-ming between the center and the existent regional outlets. In this existentarrangement, rural community radio, represented by broken lines, is nonex-istent. However, it is possible to visualize the concentric circles of radio net-work that will evolve complete with a central unit that is common to theregional and the rural community outlets.

Central or National Radio

' Regional Radio

Rural Community Radio

Figure 2Concentric circles of radio network showing central, regional, and rural communityradio.

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In figure 2, the innermost circle and that of middle distance represent thenational and regional radio outlets located in the capital cities and the regionallevels respectively. The regional stations would continually uphold and upliftregional cultures, special interests, and harmony. The outermost circle repre-sents rural community radio outlets whose outgrowth, as a collective harbingerof rural languages and cultures, should complete the truncated extension ofradio services. Essentially, the central unit's location and influence should notjeopardize, but be cognizant of, the uniqueness of the radio outlets representedby the outer rings. The extension of radio services to cover all segments woulddemonstrate the recognition of the linguistic and cultural differences that sepa-rate rural communities from Africa's political centers. The same recognitionwould enhance the motivation of rural audience participation.

Reponal Ridio

Rural Community Radio

' Figure 3

Showing reciprocal connections between the central, regional, and community radio.

Figure 3 graphically represents the reciprocal interaction between the cen-tral, the regional, and the community radio services once this model is adopted.Information originating at any of the points can be shared with audiences servedin the other segments. There may also be situations that would demand thataudiences be unified by the same event. Such an integrated network of radioservices assures the independence as well as the coordinated effort of all sta-tions in the attempt to uniquely and competently serve their respective audi-ences. The same consideration, particularly at the community level, shouldincrease audience participation and power sharing in information dissemina-tion. By implication, such a development would provide the ingredients centralto community and, by extension, nation building.

Another Structure of Radio Broadcasting?The recommendation of a decentralized and/or privatized radio service forAfrican countries is not entirely new. What is unique is this paper's suggestionof a quasi-privatized, open-ended ownership structure at the rural communitylevel. The specific pattern adopted by a community would depend on the reali-ties of funding. Where they are willing and financially able, private owners,who may be individuals or entire communities, through self-help arrangements,

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should be allowed to own and operate community radio. In the absence of suchprivate or communal initiatives, the local government may bear the cost ofinitial installation until private hands become available to take over. Additionaloperating expenses can be offset by advertising, popular contributions and,where applicable, government subsidy. Through modest budgets sustainable bylower salaries and reduced rural expenses, community stations can survive byactively employing volunteers and part-time help.

In addition to a heavy reliance on community participation, rural commu-nity radio outlets, regardless of ownership status, could affiliate themselveswith existent regional and national outlets for programmatic exchange. Thisway, private operators are able to gain experience at broadcast managementin smaller communities where the language of expression and cultural prac-tices are uniform enough to be manageable. This proposal recognizes thedifferential fiscal capabilities of African countries. Thus the diverse abilitiesand objectives will produce different policies, time frame for implementation,and, in effect, distinct results.

However, the location of community radio within the target geographicalareas should reduce, if not eliminate, the problem of producers and changeagents who have no grounding in the cultural traditions of their audiences (Katz,1979; Moemeka, 1994; Starosta, 1976). Certainly, there would be voices in therural communities who are familiar with the linguistic, semantic, and culturalnuances of folkways and folkjargon (Ugboajah, 1979) and are also competentto bridge the gap. M'bayo and Nwanko's (1989) description of these localvoices as traditional and modern intellectuals is noteworthy. The traditionalintellectuals are those members of the community who have received no formaleducation but have, through firsthand exposure to and participation in localevents, become adept in the ways of their people. They are able to "collect,store, retrieve, and analyze certain kinds of information about their environ-ment" (M'bayo & Nwanko, 1989, p. 10) and share the same with others simplyto increase awareness.

Intellectuals in the traditional category would include, but are not limitedto, the griot, the musician, the drummer, the local poet, the artist, the traditionalmidwife, the medicine man, the story teller, the village minstrel, the court jester,the gongman, and the town crier. In the second category are modern intellectu-als who acquired formal western education and are specialists in their ownrights in various professional fields. In addition, they have the capability toeither play or understand the roles of traditional intellectuals enough to impartthe knowledge to others. These resource persons represent sons and daughtersof the soil who are returning to the rural communities for reasons that mayextend from planned retirement to forced or voluntary socioeconomic reloca-tion necessitated by Africa's declining economy (see Olorunnisola, 1995). Their

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presence in the rural communities is gradually, but steadily, changing the con-stitution of rural Africa Owners, sponsors, writers, producers, program direc-tors, and the actors who would be mvolved in rural community radio programdesign should have ready access to these traditional and modern intellectuals,who will be and are competent to provide the technical expertise needed toscale the hurdle of cultural ignorance.

In particular, Makinde (1986) presents a strong case for the modern adop-tion of the town crier's capability, experience, and credibility where the lin-guistic and cultural practices of the community are concerned. He (Makinde)visualizes the candidate for the modern town crier position as an individualwho, in addition to requisite traditional qualifications,

would imbibe the attributes of the modern communicator: be fairlyeducated, knowledgeable of government policies, programs, objectives,and activities and armed with government publications and a loudspeaker....would be able to accommodate questions and measure people's reactionfor eventual feedback to government. The modern day town crier wouldmove about on four wheels which enables him to cover long distanceswithin a short time. (Makinde, 1986, p. 10)

Such creative tapping of local resources should facilitate the frequent bor-rowing and eventual perfection of preexistent delivery and reception strategies.The dissemination of effective social messages should also receive an invigo-rating boost. With time, such aspects of rural African lifestyles, folklore, folkmedia, music, dance, rituals, and art that are enriching and culturally communi-cative should become radiogenic enough to be broadcast effectively. By thismeans also, pioneers in rural radio broadcasting can begin to develop a culturalcontent for the training manuals of budding rural broadcast journalists whosegeneration should enter the field more prepared. The Baha'i community radioin Ecuador (Hein, 1989) exemplifies the possibilities of radio as a tool for socialmobilization and the maintenance of cultural identity. The communities becomeempowered and experience a shift from passive to active participation in socialwelfare. Latin America, which has had extensive experience at developing localpublic service radio, presents several practical leads for implementation, fund-ing, and management that Africa can adopt.

The proposed open-ended ownership structure offers a few advantages.In the first instance, the few African countries that have promised theprivatization of electronic media can experiment with this plan at the commu-nity level. The success of privatization at the community level may reduce theanxiety of government operatives and become a model for duplication at thenational level. The latter may initiate a bandwagon effect in neighboring coun-

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tries. Secondly, African governments do not have to single-handedly bear thecost of extending radio services to the rural communities. Thirdly, the inher-ited radio broadcasting technology would have been adapted to the uniqueneeds of African countries.

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