Community radio: the case of Reach Out Radio in KwaZulu-Natal

Gary Mersham &Volker Hooyberg

SUMMARY

This case study tracks the process of the establishment of a community radio station in the Zululand area of KwaZulu-Natal, an area which is characterised by the vastly different levels of development of its constituent communities. Survey work, establishing the patterns of attention to existing media, and the question of the establishment of a community station to satisfy community communication needs are discussed. The role of the station in the areas of local governance, economic development, media training, public relations and industrial relations and language policy are examined. The findings of a survey investigating listeners' responses to the station's language policy, subsequent to the station going on the air, are also discussed.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the urbanising and rapidly developing townships surrounding the Richards Bay/Empangeni industrial hub of northern Zululand, the tension between the 'what was' of the apartheid era, and the 'what may be' of the new dispensation is drawn into sharp relief in the patterns of media attention and the way that information is sought, shared, traded and believed or rejected.

The area under consideration in this article (see map) represents a full spectrum of differentiated levels of development among widely diverse communities. As such, it forms an excellent case study of the challenges inherent in the development of a region that is characterised by the collision and convergence of traditionalism and modernism -- a microcosm of change agents and conservative elements within the political, social and economic spheres. It encompasses the largest growth area on the continent of Africa -- the Richards Bay/Empangeni industrial complex.

Alongside it is one of the most underdeveloped regions in the country -- the rural hinterlands of the Ingoye mountains, and in between, two variations of urbanising black communities.

The first, characterised by the 'township' of Ngwelezane, is growing out of its historical basis as a labour reserve for the once exclusively 'white' town of Empangeni. It has virtually no infrastructure other than housing. The second township, Esikhawini, was also begun as a labour reserve, primarily to serve the Richards Bay industrial complex. Esikhawini is differentiated from Nseleni by a much greater degree of infrastructure, such as paved roads, provision of basic services, an influx of new settlers and a population less traditional in its outlook.

The context is one of an emergent, modernising black society, caught up in transitional developmental, social, economic and political processes. Put simply, the region represents a crucible of change in which all sociopolitical and economic groups are dynamically involved, sometimes conflictually, in the process of social change.

Why is it important to study communication media in these areas? Apart from the most obvious answers to this question, it is clear that developmental efforts such as the RDP and the newly introduced Transitional Local Authorities will remain absolutely dependent upon sharing information with the people that such efforts are supposed to include. The very well-known political cleavages in the area have contributed to a lack of truly representative and reliable civic communication structures. Existing nationally based radio media are perceived in certain cases as biased towards particular political beliefs and/or lacking in coverage of local issues. Local print media is limited to one local newspaper which lacks penetration across all communities. Television is seen as largely focusing on national events and issues, and where it does focus on KwaZulu-Natal, it is usually confined to the Durban/Umlazi areas, the South Coast (south of Durban) and Ulundi.

Vrede

Amersfoort

SWAZILAND

MOZAMBIQUE

Manguzi

Ingwavuma

Paulpietersburg

Pongola

New Castle

Vryheid Nongoma

Harrismith

Mahlabatini

ULUNDI

Hluhluwe

Mtubatuba

St Lucia

Ladysmith

Melmoth

Enseleni

Empangeni

Ngwelezane

Richards Bay

Ezakheni

Eshowe

Vulindlela

Esikhawini

Estcourt

Greytown

LESOTHO

Stanger

PIETERMARITZBURG

Tongaat

Bulwer

DURBAN

Kokstad

Port Edward

N

INDIAN OCEAN

Comprehensive reception area of Reach Out Radio Primary survey area

10 0 10 20 40 80 km

2 BACKGROUND

In 1993 the Department of Communication Science at the University of Zululand launched a research project, incorporating three surveys, to investigate media usage and attention among the residents of nearby black townships of Esikhawini and Enselini. The aim was to establish

• patterns of attention concerning existing available media
• perceptions of the value attached to such media
• perceived information and communication deficiencies in existing, available media
• other sources of what local people considered to be 'valuable information'.

A second project investigated the possibility of establishing a local community radio station in the Zululand area. Ultimately, the findings of the surveys and additional research would form the basis of a motivation to the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) for granting a licence for this purpose. The findings also served as reference material in the two public hearings held by the IBA prior to the granting of the licence to broadcast. Reach Out Radio (also known as Zululand Community Radio) began broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from 1 August 1995.

Following the launch of Reach Out Radio, the Department began a second survey monitoring responses of community members to the station.

This article examines some selected findings of these survey reports, how these findings impacted on the introduction of the station, and some of the preliminary findings of the 'post broadcast' period.

It is not the purpose of this article to discuss the survey work comprehensively -- no attempt is made to present the methodology in detail, the full extent of the data gathered and its subsequent interpretation. The aim is to highlight certain key findings for the reader and to demonstrate their relevance in the process of bringing about the introduction of a community radio station.

The first survey under discussion is Media attention, usage and perceptions of Esikhawini, Vulindlela and Enseleni residents -- carried out from November 1993 to February 1994. This survey investigated the attendance of residents in urban, peri-urban and semi-rural environments (Eskihawini, Vulindlela, Enseleni), to media communications. A semi-structured questionnaire was designed to obtain data on media attention and usage, but specific questions were incorporated to obtain the views of respondents on wider issues related to media and communication. Data was obtained through field work involving semi-structured questionnaires administered face-to-face to a quota sample of a total of 258 resident respondents. The questionnaire was administered in a way that allowed motivations to the responses to be probed and recorded, thereby contributing to a better understanding of views and perceptions of existing media.

Overall, the survey indicates that radio has an extremely high penetration, and television a much higher penetration than is commonly thought (see table 1: Claimed media attendance/usage).

Radio reaches 90 per cent of the township residents and television 75 per cent. In the case of television, viewing in general is less regular than radio listening, with viewers often gaining access to television through watching neighbours' receivers. The high level of television viewership, seen against much lower levels of television set ownership, is explained by respondents as a result of high levels of communal viewership, with some respondents indicating groups of family and friends of up to 20 people viewing specific segments (Hooyberg & Mersham 1994). With regard to radio, the overwhelming majority claim ownership of their own receivers. In contradistinction to the electronic media, claimed attention to print media is comparatively low (claimed newspaper reading at 34 per cent and claimed magazine reading at 22 per cent).

These findings are supported by data from a previous survey (Behrens et al 1991) in which 90 per cent of residents claim to use Zulu in their daily communications at home, but employ English when 'we go to town' (Empangeni, Richards Bay) 'to do business' or 'go to the shops'. Radio Zulu is perceived as the most 'user friendly' medium available and culturally familiar material is cited as a central reason for listening. The relatively high Radio Metro listenership is explained by the fact that respondents assigned it a great deal of political legitimacy -- 'dealing with issues that affect us' and 'giving us good political information', and because it broadcasts in English -- 'the language of education and advancement'. Metro is aimed at an urbanised audience who are competent in English. This ties in with the psychographic of the 'new modern' township dweller, which is increasingly represented in e'Sikhawini. If one examines radio listening by station, cross-tabulated with age (Table 2), another observation can be made.

There is a definite 'bulge' in the two age groups encompassed in the range 16--35 years. This is associated positively with economically active individuals, particularly those that are employed by the large corporations in the area. Turning to the question of language preferences, 69 per cent of the sample indicated a main preference for Zulu, with a reasonably high level of preference for English at 30 per cent. No other languages were significantly referred to as preferential, although a minority of respondents made reference to various degrees of competence in Afrikaans. When respondents were questioned on their reasons for English language preference, the answers were remarkably similar to those reasons given specifically by Radio Metro listeners -- English is perceived as the language of the workplace, business and trade, and informal education. More sophisticated respondents cited English as 'the language of aspiration and empowerment'.

2.1 Print media

In the subsample of readers (N=184), the Zulu language paper Ilanga is the newspaper most read, reaching 67 per cent of readers. However, there is a claimed lack of credible reporting on political issues. UmAfrika, New Nation and City Press were seen to provide credible reportage on 'issues', particularly of a political nature. The Natal Mercury and the Zululand Observer were read less (30 per cent and 25 per cent respectively), but were accorded a moderate degree of legitimacy and were regarded as more consistent sources of local news (note: the Daily News was surveyed but the newspaper group has since terminated distribution outside the urban areas of Durban and Pietermaritzburg).

The finding of comparatively low overall levels of attention to print media (newspapers and magazines 34 per cent and 22 per cent respectively in the entire sample) is significant. Respondents indicate this is the result of three main factors connected with access: low levels of interest in print media; limited physical access to print media generally because of poor distribution to local points of sale; and a prohibitive factor of cost.

2.2 Other cited sources of 'valuable information'

Independently of the media attention questions, respondents were asked to name their most valuable sources of information. The electronic media were identified as the most valuable source overall, but other sources were consistently mentioned, namely, 'my friends', 'our church group', 'the union' and 'our community group'. These sources are collapsed into one category -- 'interpersonal' -- in table 3. This suggests greater attention should be given to these social formations in future communications planning.

2.3 Electronic media

A significant finding of the survey was the relatively high levels of combined radio listening and television viewing (table 1). The finding of high radio listenership is of course not surprising, a fact that is widely acknowledged nationally. The claimed high levels of interest and attention to both radio and television warranted further investigation. Correspondence Analysis (cf Greenacre 1993:9) of the cross-tabulated data, while it does not imply a causal relationship, does indicate that there is an association between 'radio listening plus TV viewing' in a particular sociographic profile type (see appendix 1 for a brief description of analysis procedure and methodology). To summarise the results of the correspondence analysis carried out, higher combined radio and television attendance by 'established' and 'pioneer' groups (that is, those claiming longer periods of residence) provides an important clue to emerging trends in attendance by rural/semi urbanites to the electronic media. It clarifies the possible processes underlying the relationship between electronic media and an emergent modernising semi-rural population, and predicts that where people have acquired radio listening habits, they will strive to seek exposure to television as the next broadcasting medium in the hierarchy of electronic media.

It is in the context of difficulties accessing print medium together with the expected entertainment and information values of the broadcast media as well as low literacy levels that radio attendance needs to be understood in association with television. Qualitative statements by semi-urban/rural attenders make claim to a sense of higher status on the basis of higher media exposure, indicating derived personal value, and identification of electronic media attendence with a broader, South African modernising society. Implied here, on the basis of demonstrated attendance by semi-rural residents, is the growing gap between those that perceive themselves as modernists because of their exposure to electronic media and those who define themselves as traditionalists (for whom exposure is much less of an issue).

THE INTRODUCTION OF COMMUNITY RADIO IN ZULULAND

The extended and complex process of planning and negotiation over a period of three years which led to the introduction of Reach Out Radio, a community radio station based in Empangeni, can only be touched on in this article. Direct consultations took place with some forty community groups, NGOs, representatives of big business in the region, organised labour, the Joint Services Board and the Transitional Local Authority. Results of the surveys mentioned, plus other research carried out by the Department of Communication Science were made available to all potential stakeholders.

Problems facing the communities that might be served by a community station were identified. These included

• lack of relevant community media
• little or no information about developmental efforts in the area
• fragmented settlements with few civic structures or services
• lack of information about local learning and developmental facilities

Facilitators of corporate social investment programmes and representatives of NGOs argued that they could use community radio to improve communication with their stakeholders. Lack of access to existing broadcast media which are geographically distant, problems in dissemination of messages through the print media, and poor telecommunications infrastructures such as telephone services, were cited as reasons for supporting community radio. Community radio was identified as an initiative which could improve the application and utilisation of their expertise and resources.

It was felt that ideally community radio offers an opportunity to create a synergy between professional expertise and community-based development. Radio could provide the opportunities for 'reaching out' and 'feeding in' from the various communities in a cost-effective manner.

After an intensive period of broad consultation, it was established that a community radio station could act a bridge between the developed Empangeni/Richards Bay industrial complex, the developing urban black townships of Esikhawini, Ngwelezane and Nselini, and the underdeveloped rural areas of KwaZulu by drawing on the development synergies between the developed, developing and lesser-developed sectors.

3.1 Key community communication needs

The following key community communication needs were identified:

• social education in its widest definition
• the articulation of community concerns
• the dissemination of information felt to be relevant by the community to the community
• the integration and dissemination of community goals in the form of a coherent voice
• the desire to create a sense of community.

It was established that a local community radio station has the potential to do five things:

• encourage communication between people of different communities in the region
• create a sense of community
• disseminate important information instantly and widely
• stimulate entrepreneurship and growth
• aid the communication objectives of the RDP.

Specific sub-issues were also investigated, namely local governance, training, public relations and industrial relations, economic development, and language policy. A brief overview of each of these questions follows.

3.2 Local governance

Local government, in its new form as the Transitional Local Authorities of Richards Bay and Empangeni respectively, is faced with massive challenges in creating an understanding of its role and efforts to a culturally diverse set of constituencies. Although for all intents and purposes united in a new political structure, the representatives of local government represent communities which for many years have been separated by ideological and developmental divides. An extremely challenging function of community radio is to bring together in a dialogue all the stakeholders and interests of the area to communicate on issues of mutual importance in local governance. The scope of dialogue and communication can be fruitfully extended into the community via the power of the radio medium. This is a process which presents real challenges in terms of bringing about political tolerance among ordinary people, and, just as importantly, cooperation and reconciliation between political players.

3.3 Training

Throughout the world, community radio stations are recognised as the training grounds for broadcasters in the mainstream public services and commercial services. In South Africa there is a dire need for training, but few facilities to carry it out. Community radio stations can offer both formal and informal technical training. The SABC is currently undergoing substantial restructuring. As a result, a great deal more emphasis is being placed on the provision of training and the sourcing of programming originating from the provincial regions. It is expected that linkages will be established where the local station will become both a training base and a source of material for the SABC. It was envisaged that the station would also join a network of community stations countrywide with the ultimate aim of sharing news and information.

Community Radio brings much wider training opportunities than technical training for broadcasting and provision of material for mainstream electronic media. Isolation has meant that the majority of the population do not know what the possibilities are for more participative broadcasting. They need to experience a range of programming to enable them to make decisions. The development of community radio programming will need to be innovative, diverse and experimental, drawing on a wide variety of local resources, inputs and expertise, putting people in touch with each other in a way that they can learn from each other.

For example, universities, technikons, NGOs, business and community self-help groups can be involved in the production and dissemination of agricultural programmes, small business development, entrepreneurship programmes, school management and teacher advancement training programmes, media communications training and health and civics programmes.

3.4 Public relations and industrial relations

Channels of communication are vital to the public relations and industrial relations practitioners in the region who need to be 'in touch' with a variety of stakeholders in this period of rapid social change. Increasingly large business organisations must be responsive to the needs of the communities in which they operate, and community radio can play an integrative role in Corporate Social Investment programmes. Both organised labour and industrial relations management can benefit by using community radio as a public forum for discussion and resolution of mutually important issues.

Community radio provides opportunities for easier access than was previously possible when radio broadcasting tended towards national coverage. Therefore 'niche' public relations -- public relations messages that are relevant to specific communities within the geographic area that a community station broadcasts, but not necessarily to broader audiences -- will increasingly form part of local practitioners options. For the practitioner numerous opportunities for social investment sponsorship of appropriate programme segments will arise.

3.5 Language policy

It was accepted that the language medium policy would be experimental (and no doubt somewhat controversial). Programming would be framed largely in Zulu, the home language of the majority of potential listeners, but English, as the language of international communication, education, business and technology, would constitute approximately 40 per cent of airtime overall. Afrikaans would be included in specific cultural slots to a much lesser degree.

One of the main decisions on language policy was a need for flexibility, breaking away from the foregone era of strict language exclusivity exhibited by existing mainstream stations. The station would encourage bilingual and multilingual announcers and presenters to provide non-mother tongue English, Zulu and Afrikaans-speaking listeners with brief translated summaries and overviews of what is being said in the talk programmes. Audience-participative bilingual and trilingual programmes were vaunted as experimental slots.

3.6 Economic development

Community radio can also play a role in stimulating economic development. It is clear from the recent President's Conference on Small Business that small to medium business enterprises (SMEs) have not been stimulated and supported sufficiently in South Africa. Apart from programming aimed directly at providing potential entrepreneurs with information and contacts required to start up a small business or to grow their existing businesses, community radio can meet another related need. National broadcasters and even provincially based broadcasters do not attract smaller and community-based businesses who require less expensive, more narrowly targeted advertising.

Community radio can serve the requirements of the advertising and marketing efforts of smaller business in a cost-efficient manner, reaching target audiences relevant to their products and services. Effective marketing and advertising reach to appropriate markets was identified as one of the missing elements in small business development in the region under consideration.

Concurrently with these investigations, test transmissions were carried out with a small transmitter at the University of Zululand to establish the technical feasibility and technical requirements for a community service. Several senior students and members of the Zululand Community Radio working group were facilitated to attend community radio training courses in the United States, under the auspices of the United States Telecommunications Training Institute. Representatives attended various meetings and seminars of the National Community Radio Forum.

A sponsorship drive was launched, aimed at the large corporates in the region, and sufficient funds were raised to fund the technology and running costs of the station for the first six months. A business plan was developed which envisaged the station breaking even and showing a profit from sponsorship and advertising revenue after the first three years. The station began broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week on 1 August 1995 from studios based in Empangeni.

4 SECOND PHASE SURVEY -- COMMUNITY RADIO LISTENERSHIP

Immediately after Reach Out Radio began broadcasting, a listener survey was launched to provide immediate feedback to the station management and staff. One of the key requirements was to establish audience reaction to the language policy of the station. A questionnaire was developed for application in a face-to-face situation by field workers that would allow rapid collection and processing of data in a relatively short time frame.

In table 4, language preferences are cross-tabulated with listenership age categories in a sample of 188 listeners. Age groupings are collapsed into six broad categories, namely, up to 20 years of age, 21 to 25 years of age, 26 to 30, 31 to 35, 36 to 45, and 46 years of age and above.

*‚The initial contingency table, using eight age groups instead of six as above, indicated a chi-square statistic of 31.51 (df‚=‚21) which is marginal at the 5 per cent level [X²(21) = 31.51,p <0.05] but in view of some age groups with low frequencies, the emphasis is on a consistent pattern. In this case the row and column profiles indicate a tendency towards 'mixed languages', and a consistent trend according to age group.

The depicted language preference categories are defined as follows:

Mixed languages
listener preference for the inclusion of the nine other official languages of South Africa, in addition to predominantly Zulu and English (listeners in this category said they would prefer an open policy where all languages could be given airtime).

English/Zulu
preference for broadcasting in English and Zulu in a roughly equal split (Note: preferences have not been ranked according to first and second preference or for emphasis on one language or the other).

Zulu
preference for broadcasting exclusively in Zulu

English
preference for broadcasting exclusively in English

4.1 Interpretation

The very strong overall support for a 'mixed language' broadcasting might be explained by two main factors. At the time of the survey, the principle of the equality of South Africa's 11 official languages was a very topical issue engendering considerable local and national debate. Respondents may have indicated strong support overall in an effort to demonstrate congruency with national trends towards democratic practice and conventions. This is not to undervalue these responses as attempts to be 'fashionable', but to suggest that the national debate was characterised by broad support for the ideal regardless of the complex practical problems associated with formal implementation and actual usage at all levels and contexts. That particularly strong support in the 21--30 years age sector (characterised as the young modern, socially mobile individual) supports this thesis. Additionally, this group contains many 'newly arrived' residents whose length of stay is less than three years. These residents have migrated to the area in search of work from other major centres where black indigenous languages other than Zulu are spoken, and where English tends to be the lingua franca.

Overall, the profile of broadcast language preferences across the age groups clearly indicates a stronger preference in the first four age groups for 'mixed languages'. Although the chi-square for this contingency table is marginally significant at the 5 per cent level, the consistent pattern suggests a clear ranking of broadcast language preferences.

The available data as reflected in the above table tends to support a flexible broadcasting policy where all languages could be given airtime. The higher preferences for 'mixed' broadcast languages most evident in the 21--25 years group suggests that this group could be characterised as the most receptive to the concept of linguistic diversity and the concomitant issue of multiculturalism.

CONCLUSION

Clearly, initial reaction to the station is positive. However, this early phase might be described as the 'honeymoon' period -- listeners will initially tune in out of curiosity or because it is novel and fashionable to do so. The real challenge will be to build long-term audiences. No attempt has been made in this article to discuss initial data which reflect audience reaction to specific programme segments, since this work is still in progress. Only a small window on the findings has been described here, albeit in a rudimentary fashion and without the usual plethora of statistical data and long justifications and elaboration of the methodology. What is important is that a body of work is being developed which contains valuable information unobtainable through other sources such as market research surveys and AMPS data.

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to acknowledge the valuable assistance and guidance of Dr Michael Greenacre, particularly his advice on survey methodologies and his assistance in the processing of data for various correspondence analyses, via the Internet. Dr Greenacre is currently visiting Professor of Statistics at the University of Pompeu Fabre in Barcelona, Spain.

APPENDIX

In correspondence analysis the basic concept (cf Greenacre 1993:9) is that of profile. The profile of a set of frequencies is obtained by dividing each frequency value by the sum of frequencies in a given row or column.

For example, the first row profile in the table is for radio. The set of frequencies for radio is 8, 9, 7, 23, corresponding to four resident groups with a total frequency of 47. If we now divide each frequency value by the total frequency value, we obtain the profile of radio attendance across the four resident groups. In percentage terms (not expressed in the table), this profile is the set [17.0%; 19.1%; 14.9%; 48.9%] . The profile of radio is therefore concentrated in the 'pioneer' group (5+ yrs) at 48.9 per cent. Using this method, wherever radio and television occur in whatever combination, the profile is characterised by a concentration in the 'pioneer' group.

Treating the table as a contingency table, the computation of the chi-square statistic assumes that there is no difference with regard to length of stay and media 'preference' or attendance. It implies that the four resident groups are homogeneous (cf Greenacre 1993:24), and expected frequencies are calculated accordingly. This provides a value for the chi-square statistic of 26.73 for 15 degrees of freedom, and its interpretation follows the argument that the larger this value, the more discrepant (cf Greenacre 1993 : 25) the observed and expected frequencies are, implying that the assumption of homogeneity does not hold. The probability or the r -- value associated with the chi-square is <.05 or less than a five per cent chance that the observed frequencies can be reconciled with the expected frequencies (also referred to as the homogeneity hypothesis), and one concludes that there are real differences between media attention and the resident 'length of stay' profiles.

Simply put, the finding suggests that the longer the stay in the area, the greater the attention to the electronic media. The finding of a 'significant association' does not imply any causal relationship (Everitt 1977:10) but indicates a 'closeness' of 'radio‚+‚TV' to the 5+ years resident group, the pioneers, and lends itself to interpretation from a Communication Science perspective.

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