At first glance SMS text messages would seem like a natural for inclusion in a community radio station’s essential toolkit. SMS messages are inexpensive and easy-to-use and in recent years the mobile phones that are needed for sending and receiving them have become ubiquitous. However, a survey of recent projects indicates that use of SMS messages among community media in the developing world is still at an early stage. In most stations SMS use is informal. The few cases identified of community stations making more complex use of SMS messages have accompanied political crises or natural disasters and have inevitably been donor financed. There are few, if any, experiences of complex uses of SMS by community media without external funding and technical support, even though the financial and technical resources required are minimal.
Tag Archive for 'Senegal'
A chapter in The One to Watch by Lynda Attias and Johan Deflander looks at the harsh reality of using internet and radio West Africa.
Since our radio has been connected to the Internet, our telephone bills are four times higher, but I’ve also seen that we communicate four times less with our community.
– Zane Ibrahim, Bush Radio; Cape Town, South Africa
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