Twenty years after the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom

poached by commercial stations.
Community radio is more processoriented
than product-oriented.
Its primary goal is to encourage
ordinary people to become media
producers and not just consumers,
in an effort to demystify media
particularly to large sectors of <strong>the</strong>
population who did not previously
have access to state-owned media.
This causes a tension which makes
it difficult for stations to compete
with more ‘professional’ commercial
stations.
Around Africa, community radio
stations have been historically mandated
to ‘empower and educate’ <strong>the</strong>
community, but state policies provide
little to no guidance on <strong>the</strong>
practical techniques for accomplishing
this. Stations have interpreted
community empowerment
as involving community members
in AGMs, on <strong>the</strong>ir board of directors
or as volunteer presenters. However,
this presents some difficulties
in <strong>the</strong> latter case, because only a
few presenters can be appointed.
Some stations interpret community
involvement simply as affording
listeners <strong>the</strong> opportunity to call in
and engage with presenters on <strong>the</strong>
air. Meanwhile, <strong>the</strong> most successful
stations are often those with tightly
controlled and closed leadership
structures.
The rise of online social networking
has changed <strong>the</strong> way that stations
operate, and community stations
have also been swept up by this –
following <strong>the</strong> trend by commercial
stations to use Facebook and Twitter
to stay connected to listeners. This
raises issues of <strong>the</strong> digital divide
as many community radio listeners
do not have access to <strong>the</strong> internet;
though <strong>the</strong> rise of <strong>the</strong> mobile
internet has meant an increasing
number of people can go online
using <strong>the</strong>ir cell phone handsets.
Despite <strong>the</strong> many, weighty challenges,
community radio stations
94 | Media in Africa - 2011
continue to operate. In South Africa,
figures from <strong>the</strong> South African Advertising
Research Foundation show
<strong>the</strong> audience is growing rapidly
which may indicate rising popularity
despite problems of sustainability.
The potential for community radio
stations remains clear: to provide
local communities with a voice, in
<strong>the</strong>ir own language, and to present
an alternate voice in an increasingly
centralised and tightly controlled
media ownership landscape. In
South Africa at least, <strong>the</strong> challenge
is to carefully negotiate <strong>the</strong> relationship
with government in order
to maintain editorial integrity.