community broadcasting

• Characteristics of Community Broadcasting (Gomez, 1975)

  • Purposive - intent in communicating
  • Audience-oriented - focus on needs of audience
  • Service-oriented - serving audience
  • Field-generated/field-based - information comes from audience
  • Audience participation
  • Built-in monitoring and feedback system - how information impacts audience
  • Well-defined goals - SMART objectives
  • Systematic and organized - education and research based
  • Integrated teaching-learning element - changed behavior
  • Research based
  • Coordination and cooperation with government and non-government agencies, and other changed agents.
• Characteristics of ComBroad


  • Purposive
  • Ordinary people, GOs and NGOs, project implementation experts
  • More homogenous
  • Increase knowledge, stimulate interest
• Characteristics of Conventional Broadcasting


  • Non-purposive (profit)
  • Known personalities
  • More heterogenous
  • Profit
• University-owned radio stations


  • DZLB (UPLB)
  • DXMU (CMU)
  • DZUP (UPD)
• NGO-owned


  • Tambuli Community Radio Project
  • DZJO AM
• Community-owned/managed


  • Radyo Sagada
  • Radyo Lumad
• LGU-owned


  • DWRL
  • DXUP in Upi (Cagayan)
  • Making Waves in Maguindanao
• Radio Sutatenza


  • 1st experiment in community radio
  • Sutatenza, Colombia
  • Focus: literacy and informal education
• Alcoholism was a problem in Sutatenza (became a problem because walang ibang magawa sa Sutatenza)
• Radio Sutatenza

  1. Fr. Jose Salcedo offered his film projector to show movies

  2. Made a homemade transmitter to broadcast lessons
• Integral fundamental education


  If you want to improve your life, you need to learn
• 1st broadcast (music performed by Sutatenza farmers)

  Oct 16 1947
• President of Colombia inaugurated the station and GE (General Electronics Corporation) donated a 250-watt transmitter

  1948
• Ran into financial and administrative problems; sold to Caracol Network Colombia

  1990
• Radio Sutatenza was a victim of its own success. The community participation components that once characterized it were sacrificed for the benefit of a larger audience.
• Radio Mineras


  • Union radio
  • All of them would join the "cadena minera" and defend it to death
  • Community organization, solidarity
  • Mining radio stations facilitated by miners
• Bolivia (used to be a mining country with mining as its income source: silver and tin)
• 20 radio stations in Radio Mineras operating


  1970s
• Economy change lead to less powerful miners and death of Radio Mineras
• Objectives of Radyo DZLB

  • Disseminate development information relevant to and supportive of national development
  • Serve as a lab for future development broadcasters through broadcasting courses offered by the CDC
  • Be utilized as a broadcast communication research facility
  • Serve as a training center for development broadcasters
• DZLB was conceived to assist UPCA

  1962
• Reasons DZLB was conceived

  • Research on agricultural information dissemination
  • Training staff and students on using radio as an extension tool
  • Provide useful information within university and outside areas
• Received a grant of 7,710 dollars from the ADC to install and operate a 250-watt station

  1963
• Radyo DZLB Ang Tinig ng Nayon went on air with 30-km coverage radius; Mon to Fri, 1-6pm


  Aug 2 1964
• Became a campus station, Mon to Sat 4-10pm

  Sep 1965
• 40-foot makeshift antenna was installed on top of CAS bldg: 1-8pm English and Filipino programming

  Oct 1966
• All Filipino programming generally for rural families

  1968
• Went off-air for 14 months because of Martial Law


  1972
• The World Bank through the EDPITAF granted 54k dollars, Acquired a 5-kilowatt transmitter

  1973
• 150-km coverage radius: Laguna, Rizal, Metro Manila, some areas of Cavite, Bulacan, Pampanga, Batangas
• 35 radio programs: 20 informational, 4 educational/informational, 11 entertainment/informational, 18 by DZLB staff, 12 by cooperators, 2 by students, 3 by other agencies


  1997
• Current Programs of DZLB

  • PAK (Para sa Agrikultura at Kalikasan)
  • Lider ka, K!
  • GAling UPLB
  • DZLB News
  • One program in Laguna partnered with Royal Cable
• DZLB Strategies


  • Cooperator system: coordination with government agencies and other institutions
  • Localized programming: personalized broadcasting
  • Evaluation: audience analysis and listenership studies
• DZLB Problems


  • Technical: decades-old equipment, transmitter, and facilities
  • Financial: no room for innovative techniques
  • Personnel: cannot devote full attention to duties as broadcasters
• DZJO AM 720 kHz


  • Place: Infanta, Quezon
  • Focus: Community mobilization
  • Partner: Infanta Integrated Community Development Assistance, Inc. (ICDAI)
  • Fr. Francis Lucas - head of ICDAI, most well- known combroad
  • Strategy: information - formation - transformation
  • Radio school: utilizes the group learning approach
• Four levels of communication

  • Person-to-person level: consciousness-raising through word of mouth
  • Small group level: increasing public awareness through workshops, etc.
  • National level: rural area is linked to urban clout
  • International level: adopting a relational newscasting format
• Combroad is small group level
• Urban bias - bring attention to local issues
• BBC - Bayanihan Broadcasting Group (arch diocese of Lipa)


  Infanta was able to organize itself to solve problems in logging, illegal fishing, military, and police abuse, among other things. The mobilization started at the grassroots level…
• Tambuli Community Project


  • Goal: set up experimental community media and training centers in remote, isolated, economically depressed communities
  • Community building through low-powered FM station and/or community newspaper, w/ livelihood training unit where possible
  • Community media council: multisectoral group composed of farmers, fishermen, youth, women, educators, religious groups, laborers, and local government officials