RADIO AS A TOOL FOR COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT: A STUDY OF KALUBALE ON FREEDOM RADIO, KANO

RADIO AS A TOOL FOR COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT: A STUDY OF KALUBALE ON FREEDOM RADIO, KANO

Abstract:

Radio is considered to be a very powerful tool for engendering community empowerment due to its capacity to cover wide audience and its easy and accessible nature. However, despite these qualities, empowerment programmes aired through radio often do not achieve their aim because media houses fail to include the target audience in all stages of designing messages intended for them. The aim of the study is to enhance Kalubale programme through effective participatory communication for community empowerment. The study seeks to determine the level through which audience are carried along when coming up with topics for Kalubale, a radio programme aired on Freedom Fm Kano; to evaluate the role of Kalubale in Fagge D2 and Mekiya communities of Fagge and Gabasawa local government areas of Kano state; to identify the factors that limit Kalubale programme from achieving community enpowerpment in FaggeD2 and Mekiya communities and to suggest ways through which the programme can be improved. The study is anchored on the Theory of Dialogic Communication by Paulo Freire(1970) who proposed that empowering people should not be seen as dissemination of information but rather participatory in all stages emanating from the people in the atmosphere of equality and respect for one another. The study employed both the qualitative and the quantitative research methods. Data for this study were generated from Questionnaire, Focused Group Discussion (FGD), Key Informant Interview (KII) and Documentary Observation. The targeted populations for the study are: Fagge D2 in Fagge Local government and Mekiya community in Gabasawa local government areas in Kano state. The findings of the study revealed that the target audiences are not consulted before designing topics for the programme. It was also discovered that the programme is aired during the period when the target audience are busy and as a result, they miss out of the programme because it is a live programme. Findings also revealed that the feedback mechanism is poor. Audience participation is low because Short Message Service (SMS) is the mode through which audience participate in the programme. It is recommended that audiences’ opinions be sampled before deciding on the topics to be discussed. The programme should be replayed so that audience who missed it when it was aired live will benefit from it. Other modes through which audience can participate and contribute to the programme should be devised aside SMS.

RADIO AS A TOOL FOR COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT: A STUDY OF KALUBALE ON FREEDOM RADIO, KANO