Creating Citizenship Through Community Radio in Rural Thailand
This study seeks to analyze the ongoing social movement to establish community radio in rural Thailand as a participatory communication process in order to transform people into citizens. More specifically, the study analyzes the participatory process inherent in the development of community radio in Thailand since its inception in 1997 to the present and illustrates success cases of citizen empowerment. The study is based on analysis of documents and secondary data, personal observation and interview of key persons, field study and case studies of numerous community radio stations. The study showed that the movement was triggered off by the 1997 Constitution which advocated a participatory democracy and reallocation of radio frequencies for public interests at all levels. To vie for frequency allocation, a number of government, non-government, public and private agencies rushed to set up community radio as a pilot station. As a result of the failure to establish a national broadcasting regulator as stipulated by the Constitution, most small radio stations had been operated illegally and in a chaotic state. However, there was some evidence suggesting that participatory community radio, particularly hill tribe radio, has the potential to transform rural people into active citizens due to radio’s ability to involve and empower the grassroots as well as to treat its listeners as subjects and participants rather than as objects or passive audiences.
Articulating the Shan migrant community in Thai society through community radio: A case study of the Map radio FM 99 in the city of Chiang Mai, Thailand
Community radio as an alternative public sphere for minorities has emerged apart from mainstream media and formal public spheres. In particular, its ethos of understanding community participation as a key component of operating a station highlights its potential to empower community members as active social agents. This study examines the social consequences of an ethnic migrant community radio station, Map radio FM 99, to explore its role for the Shan migrant community in Chiang Mai, Thailand. To do so, field work was conducted for 7 weeks between December 2015 and January 2016, with data collected from semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and relevant documents. Employing a qualitative approach, this study found that participation in community radio helps participants to be socially active in Thai society by maximising their participation in the social sphere through the use of media. This study concludes that participation in Map radio enables participants to adapt to Thai society by providing and obtaining information necessary for their lives and contributed to the formation of a collective identity as ethnic migrant workers, creating community cohesion. Nonetheless, lack of political efficacy of this alternative public sphere might partly prevent social participation of community members in Thailand. (Less)
The Role of Radio in the Rwandan Genocide
We examine and interpret the role of the government-controlled Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which involved mass killings both of and by civilians. We consider the historical and political context of the genocide and analyze excerpts from RTLM radio broadcasts and observational accounts, and we interpret, via several strands of communication scholarship related to collective reaction effects and dependency theory, the role played by radio in inciting the genocide.