RADIO AS A NEGLECTED MEDIA

Tina Kawooya presented a paper on radio: The FM radio a vital necessity in Uganda and a neglected media in Canada. For her, the radio is a neglected medium in the West (and also in Canada) in the 21st century, because television and the Internet are the main media and both have the biggest audiences and also due to modern technologies as iPods. Yet, in the Uganda the FM radio is still the best way to establish communication with people and also the main medium for education and entertainment. The radio is a blind medium, she said, that we use with help of imagination. But, according with Ms. Kawooya, the radio can act with a cause. She explained how powerful a public communication campaign can be, using a radio drama format, focused on a story of fishing and farming communities in rural Uganda for people of 15-24 years old target. Because oral tradition in the Uganda is strong, verbal expression and language and songs transmitted by radio drama were very successfully. The main reason of this success is that radio is a cheap medium and a humble and friendly that follows you everywhere. The FM Radio is local and offers listeners a sense of community and connects with everybody and shares knowledge, educating people about diseases, farming campaigns and so on.