Radio forums: a strategy for rural development.

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This chapters purpose is to derive a series of generalizations about the role of mass and interpersonal communication in rural development from a review of past research and program experience with radio forums. A radio forum is a small listening and discussion group that meets regularly for the purpose of receiving a special radio program which the members then discuss. On the basis of the program and discussion the group decides what types of relevant action to take. Emphasis in radio forums is usually placed not only on creating knowledge of new ideas but also on implementing them. The basic elements of most radio forum systems are: organizers who establish the forums and help service them written discussion guides that contain information and discussion questions that are distributed to forum leaders prior to the radio broadcast to which they pertain regularly scheduled radio programs beamed at forum members who gather in a home or a public place to hear the broadcast and discuss its contents and regular feedback reports of decisions by the forum members and of questions of clarification to the broadcast programmers. The basic underlying assumption of all media forum systems is that multi-channel communication is more effective than single channel communication. In terms of mass media radio is the main channel used in forum programs in most countries but printed material may also be used in forum systems. Probably no other developing country has paid as much attention to rural radio forums as a tool for modernization as had India. The Poona project indicated the superiority of rural radio forums for India. Several factors accounted for the success: the project was the center of attention of many institutions and influential officials the experimental treatments were brief and the project had ample financial and staff support. The information available from Poona tends to support the concept that radio forums are a “potent tool” for rural development in India and elsewhere. The data from the Ghana radio forums project provide evidence that radio forums are effective for the conditions of rural Ghana and that radio forums are superior to the use of radio alone. Evidence from the Tanzania case suggests that a programmatic noninstitutionalized approach to organizing the forums may be advantageous over the continuous type of radio forums in achieving group action on specific development problems. The following are among the guidelines that have emerged on the role of radio forums in rural development in Asia Africa and Latin America: radio is the single mass media channel that most effectively reaches the widest audience of villagers at this time; it is possible to produce radio programming about development topics that is attention getting and interesting to village audiences; and radio as a medium of conveying development messages should be supplemented by other media such as listening guides workbooks simple booklets and various audiovisual materials.Â