Online Survey Report: Radio for Peace Building Workshops

This survey from United Kingdom (UK)-based consulting company Radio for Peace Building Ltd. was created as a way of finding out more about the kind of radio for peace building workshops that radio professionals around the world say they want. The document offers as background the Search for Common Ground (SFCG) radio peace building work: Radio for Peace Africa (RFPA) workshops and guidebooks aimed to disseminate information, ideas, and experience in making radio programmes, from soap opera to news and current affairs, which were designed to have a positive impact on violent conflict. It includes details of the survey methodology and results.

As stated here: "There were four main reasons for initiating the survey:

1. To help develop a clearer picture of what radio professionals feel they need and want in terms of radio for peace building training;
   
2. To find out something about the individual radio professionals who responded to the survey;
   
3. To provide the basis for the planning, development and implementation of a number of relevant workshops in different parts of the world;
   
4. To publicise the work of Radio for Peace Building Ltd. among a significant peer group."

Responses to a four-question online survey were solicited through organisational, personal, and professional networks. Results sought included: type of radio for peace building workshop or training which would be most useful; type of radio station or production studio where the respondents work; information about the respondent; and respondents’ comments. Of 154 responses, the majority was from Africa, reflecting where information was being sought, working at community radio (37%) or national/state radio (16%) or in a production studio (18%). The largest responses were from: Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, UK, and Liberia.

Reasons for holding workshops on radio peace building include:

• showing "how to produce news and/or current affairs programmes which respond to the duty and moral responsibilities of radio journalists to those they report on or talk about...
  
• ...giving the power of radio programmes made by and for children (former child soldiers for example), or by and for the disaffected, under-employed, ill-educated, youth of innumerable cities across Africa (in particular), to help build more responsive societies, and to give those young people a sense of their own worth...
  
• help[ing] radio professionals make full use of the skills they have perfected, and of the power of their voices to reach even the most remote regions and psychologically isolated individuals, to prevent and manage small, local conflicts..."
  

A table on page 13 aggregates the demand for types of workshops by region in Africa, along with representation from South and Southeast Asia and Europe and North America. A table on page 14 aggregates responses by type of radio station.

The document concludes that the majority is interested in "workshops on radio journalism for peace building, and on talk shows for peace building, rather than in soap operas or youth programmes. However, a high percentage (30.5%) is also interested in a more generalised workshop approach, that of radio for conflict prevention / management.... East Africa had the highest demand for kids’ radio for peace building workshop, reflecting perhaps more experience of the genre. While in South and South East Asia soap opera for peace building was the workshop subject most in demand (although the sample size is low)."