RadarCultura website

BBC Digital Planet story How the web makes radio reactive

Guy Berger, the project coordinator and head of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, admits that it will be difficult to fit the news into the 160 characters that an SMS message can have, but they are already thinking of how to overcome the problem.

In the future, Berger hopes that the program will expand and possibly include other technologies like MMS (multimedia) messages. “We want to interface with the newspaper website, and we’re developing open source software to link the two,” he said. Berger said that there would also be research into the effectiveness of the project. “Then we’re also going to research next year the significance of this whole project,” he said. “Is it making a difference? What does it mean for democracy to have a lot of citizen journalism and to have young people contributing to the public opinion?”

Local News with SMS at mobileactive.org

The Container Project is an innovative, arts-driven engine for community empowerment through creativity. It is based in a bright yellow converted shipping container in the heart of Palmers Cross, a rural community noted for its poverty and associated social problems.

Read about the mobile CMC on UNESCO’s website.

The publication introduces the CMCs and outlines the benefits and challenges that the centres have faced since they were established. Each CMC is discussed in four parts; location and context, organisational structure, programmes and sustainability. The case studies show how local communities access and utilise newly available ICT tools in different ways.

Download the publication from the UNESCO website.

The eTUKTUK not only provides a travelling internet and voice service for the community, but also helps the radio station keep in close touch with community members and activities. According to Ben, community members often request the eTUKTUK to visit and “provide coverage of religious and cultural gatherings and facilitate forums and workshops.”

The itinerant vehicle encourages staff from Kothmale to actively engage with their target audience while the narrowcasting and editing facilities enable programs and training to be conducted in a familiar environment that encourages broader participation. The community can play an active role in media creation and through the loudspeakers and multimedia projector, content can be narrowcast and verified by the community before being broadcast.

Ben also writes that the eTUKTUK is influencing Kothmale’s programming:

[It] has generated a new program format at Kothmale where the etuktuk community programs are compiled into an daily program broadcast between 7-8pm which also provides live link-ups with the etuktuk in the field.

There are some videos of the eTUKTUK site, but you’d better have a good connection to see them – especially the one at the top of the page, Creating Harmony in the Community, which weighs in at 123 megs.

hola,
there is an experience of free media/alternative media going on with open source tools (format ogg/theora ( video ), ogg/vorbis ( audio )) that exists since 2004 and now hosts 50
community radios like :

radio numero critico : http://www.radionumerocritico.cl/news.php
radio aktiva : http://radioaktivafm.blogspot.com/
and much more …

and has also hosted alternative tv initiatives Horitzo TV : http://www.horitzo.tv and some video streams for special events ( Social Forums, Free Software Events, … )

you should be able to receive it on a mobile device if you have the video lan client installed
( http://www.videolan.org ), it exists for some PDA running an embedded Linux like Zaurus.. also many telephones have now an ogg player and can receive audio streams, thus radios.

this project is called G.I.S.S. : Global Independent Streaming Support, http://www.giss.tv
and lets you see a map of current activity of the network with a geographical map :
http://gollum.artefacte.org/mapuse/map.html

there is also a text about the motivations behind GISS : http://giss.tv/wiki/index.php/About_Giss_by_Yves_Degoyon_2007 ( sorry if i quote myself )

if you want to refer to these experiences, you can always contact us on-line on IRC channel :
server : irc.goto10.org
channel : #giss

regards,
sevy

A good mobile phone with multimedia capabilities is part of our ICT and community radio essential toolkit.

Read the story from MobileActive.org: Reuters/Nokia Collaboration Has Potential for Citizen Journalists