Remote audiences beyond 2000

Abstract

This article explores how Todas, people of a remote indigenous community living in the Nilgiri hills, South India, use radio in the context of a rapidly changing media environment. The fieldwork conducted in the Toda settlements shows that the Todas consider radio to be an important medium for information, entertainment and development. Responses from indigenous audiences also reveal how gender and age influence their pattern of radio listening. Men seem to be more inclined towards agricultural programmes relevant to local conditions; women listen to Christian programmes and ignore entertainment programmes; and children consider radio to be a companion and an intimate medium of entertainment and information. The article describes how a low power regional radio station located near indigenous communities serves its audience distinctively, in a country where radio broadcasting functions like a commercial operation.