Four steps to community media as a development tool

 Community media are usually conceived as local alternatives to mainstream broadcasting, occupying

only fringe positions around the edges of big media. However, they represent a crucial

input in development processes, playing an important role in democratisation and building

citizenship, social struggles, and awareness raising. Despite their role in fostering local

development, particularly in the so-called global South, community media still face difficulties

due to the constraints created by national media laws. Often regulators overlook their activities,

and ignore that these activities, far from being simply ‘illegal’ from the legislator’s point of

view, can have a real impact on people’s empowerment.

This paper addresses development advocates and communities,1 offering them a concrete

proposal for the inclusion of communication activities at the community level in development

projects and advocacy work in the field of media policy. The four sections of the paper, which

can be seen as four ‘steps’, illustrate a sample advocacy process for a policy environment that

supports community media as a development method: (1) understanding the link between community

media and human development; (2) reflecting on the specific needs of local community

media practitioners; (3) learning from other experiences; and (4) elaborating with practitioners a

few realistic ideas towards a community-friendly policy environment.

Section 1, or step 1, proposes a reading of community media activities through a development

lens, linking the empowering consequences of community communication to social and cultural

development. Step 2 addresses the most pressing issues on which the very survival of community

media depends: what does a community-based media that is really beneficial to the community

look like? Can financial mechanisms be established to ensure sustainability over time?

Should some analogue or digital frequencies be earmarked to community broadcasting? Step 3

suggests looking around and learning from others. In demonstrating how media policy can be

reshaped ‘in practice’ to meet community needs, I introduce two paradigmatic cases: the UK,

where the communication regulator (Ofcom) has opened a process to license local not-for-profit

media and has set up a Community Media Fund; and Brazil, where thousands of ‘illegal’ community

channels are facing repression and, despite a consultation process launched in 2005 to

incorporate practitioners’ suggestions into a new policy framework, not much has been accomplished.

Finally, step 4 discusses what we can learn from the case studies, and provides a checklist for

advocacy, reflecting also on participation in the policy process. As a reference to values and

good practices, I refer to the positions expressed by Community Media Forum Europe

(CMFE), an umbrella organisation representing the ‘Third Sector Media’ in policy making at

the European level.

Antonio Nunez- Ayudo