In the house where I grew up, we used to say; “today we have eaten the announcements. Yesterday we ate the Kiswahili news /News Hour, etc.” What this meant was that we would be having our dinner at the same time the Kiswahili news/announcements/News Hour was on. We memorized BBC and Radio Uganda jingles and program promos.
With the advent of FM and smaller portable radio sets, almost everyone in my village had a radio set; kids would carry it as they go to graze goats, women would put one in a tree at the bottom of the garden and men would hang one in a banana plant as they tended their plantations.
And that was before radio came to your cell phone.
In the era of social media, radio remains the widest form of media in terms of penetration, for the Ugandan public. In some corners of the country where old men and women cannot pronounce the word internet, small stereo sets and Chinese handsets rule. Some of the handsets are internet-enabled.
But this is not to discuss the politics of media penetration or the practicability of setting up national ICT infrastructure. Rather, it is to share my experience of playing a tiny part in an effort to make Ugandan radio break out of the stereo set.
A few months ago I got assigned the task of co-coordinating (why did my bosses choose to call it that?) multi-media for Uganda Radio Network. So, among others, am supposed to see to it that Uganda Radio Network on Face book and @ugandarn on Twitter are up-to-date, and the comments that come through are within acceptable limits and the like.
I have had the privilege of breaking the news on those pages while the editor is still putting a real news story together, and then praying that someone on the network notices.
The encouraging thing is that since we started updating those pages consistently, there is a steady stream of ‘likes’ and ‘followers’. At some point, I picked up on doing minute-by-minute updates of crucial debates in parliament, and the response was interesting.
But then a question lingers on my mind; wouldn’t people want their radio (news) in their stereo set? I console myself by thinking that having options is never a bad thing.
The real test came when I visited a few URN bureaus, telling radio journalists about integrating social media into their news sourcing, research and dissemination. I was talking to three types of people; about 2 in each group of close to twenty would have active social media accounts, where they discuss what they ate and who was caught with whose wife. About 10 would have dormant accounts, the rest had no idea what in the world I was going on about.
When I would open Uganda Radio Network and @ugandrn, I would get looks that say people would rather be in the rain catching grasshoppers. But mid-session, heads would be nodding; hands would be raised. In Hoima, I opened one of the participants a Twitter account on the spot.
Now, with the passing of time and the steady trend of attention the URN social media and blog pages get, I ask myself; what is wrong with giving someone a tip of the news online, while they wait for the top-of-the-hour bulletin? The Facebook/Twitter updates may not have the jingles and anchor’s captivating baritone, but I bet they…well…break the news.
At URN, 2011 was more like the year of launching a social-media-in-radio revolution. While radio stations create Facebook pages to discuss the ‘coolest hunk in the American pop music industry’, we are saying; “Radio news in your stereo and on your social network!”