Who Is the “Community” in Community Radio?: A Case Study of Radio Progress in the Upper West Region, Ghana

Abstract

Who Is the “Community” in Community Radio?A Case Study of Radio Progress in the Upper West Region, Ghana Africanus L. Diedong (bio) and Lawrence Naaikuur (bio) Introduction The pillars upon which any community is based are a combination of sharing a geographical area, a common socio-cultural background, and/or a common religious affiliation. The relevance of each of these pillars to community members can be actualized by the degree of dynamic interaction among them. Community radio is a potent communication medium capable of energizing and giving meaning to the dynamic process of interactions among the pillars of community. Dr. Sulley Gariba, a former Senior Policy Adviser in the Office of the President of Ghana, has noted that community radio stations are relevant because they can foster communal ties and harmony, which is vital to the process of forging national cohesion (Moomin, 2013). Community radio’s power to positively influence the lives of women, marginalized, and rural communities in particular has been well documented (Mata, 1994; Alumuku, 2006; White, 1993; Diedong & Naaikuur, 2012). Generally, though the objectives for which a community radio station is established are mainly to promote local identity and culture, encourage open dialogue and the democratic process among different ethnic groups, and promote development and social change, these laudable objectives can hardly be achieved without an in-depth understanding of the concept [End Page 68] “community.” A clear and adequate understanding of the concept by all stakeholders can facilitate the creation of a democratic communication context, which practically implies broad-based support and participation by the communities served by the radio station. This paper attempts a theoretical clarification of the concept of “community” in community radio and correlates that with some perspectives of community members on the same concept in a bid to see how well Radio Progress demonstrates such perspectives in its programs in a participatory manner. The paper has the following sub-divisions: A Sociological Analysis of the Concept of Community, Relevance of Communication in Community, The Upper West Regional Community, Background Information on Radio Progress, Research Methodology, Results and Discussion, and Conclusion. The main findings of the study include the non-participatory nature of most radio programs and the need for a conceptual clarification of “community” by the stakeholders of Radio Progress. Our conclusion challenges readers to question whether participation should be defined in the context of “community” or whether “community” is defined in the context of participation. A Sociological Analysis of the Concept of Community “Community” continues to be a key concept of social science, yet it is one of the most controversial. Social and political scientists, historians, and philosophers have been divided on the use of the term. Anthony Cohen notes that, “over the years, the term community has proved to be highly resistant to satisfactory definition in anthropology and sociology, perhaps for the simple reason that all definitions contain or imply theories, and the theory of community has been very contentious” (1985: 10). These controversies over the definition of community are manifest in the different applications of the term by various branches of social science. In general, for sociologists such as Nukunya, the family, like kinship, is a basic institution in every society (2003, p. 41). Community has traditionally been designated as a particular form of social organization based on small groups such as family, neighborhoods, or a spatially bounded locality. Anthropologists such as Tengan have applied it to culturally defined groups (2000). Kröger & Meier and Lentz understand community in terms of political consciousness and collective action (Kröger & Meier 2003; Lentz, 1994). In this approach, the emphasis is on a collective “we” opposing injustice. Two broad categories of definition of community, namely contemporary definitions and traditional definitions, can be identified among the various theoretical positions on the concept. [End Page 69] Definitions of Community Contemporary definitions of community tend to move away from seeing community as a geographical area or a simple social unit. In them, community reflects a more complex social phenomenon than was earlier denoted. Anthony P. Cohen, in The Symbolic Construction of Community (1985), argues that community and everything in it has symbolic dimension and that the symbols of community are mental constructs, which provide...