2005 Media Releases
Wednesday, 6 July 2005
Global development
Turn up the radio as 'Live 8' fades out
When the glare of global television dims on Live 8 – as it did on Live Aid and Band Aid before it – other groups the world over will continue to chip away at the social and political ills that cause poverty and hinder development.
Their media often is radio. It may lack the grand impact of celebrity-fuelled satellite television, but radio is entering a new era by merging with digital technology.
‘This creates new opportunities for improving conditions in third world countries,’ says Trobe University lecturer in Media Studies, Dr John Tebbutt. ‘As a result, studies of radio, long neglected in the era of television, have been reinvigorated in many nations.’
To discuss these issues, La Trobe University will host a seminar next Sunday, July 10, on the creative use of radio for development and social justice in the new digital environment.
The seminar brings together speakers from Bhutan, Pakistan, Nepal, Ghana, Botswana Malawi and nations in the Australia-Pacific region.
Three international participants have been helped to attend the conference through travel bursaries provided by La Trobe University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and its School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry. The Media Studies Program also received grant assistance from AusAID’s International Seminar Support Scheme to fund four participants.
Organiser Dr Tebbutt says the seminar, RadioPlus: Evaluating Hybrid Forms for Development, will examine issues such as web delivery of sound and radio, the impact that internet roll-out can have on development projects and how email can enhance health and social justice radio programming.
For example an AusAID sponsored participant, Kishor Pradhan, heads up Panos (South Asia), an international agency that promotes development through communication. In his talk titled Radio and Digital Technology: Experience from South Asia he will discuss new technologies and creative strategies for their use.
Another speaker, Ms Tasneem Ahmar – one of the AusAID/La Trobe University sponsored participants – heads up Uks-Research in Islamabad, Pakistan. She will discuss how radio impacts on men’s attitudes to honour killings in her country.
The La Trobe RadioPlus seminar will be held on the University’s Bundoora Campus at the John Scott Meeting House. It will be followed the next day by ‘The Radio Conference 2005’, a trans-national forum for radio scholars, teachers and broadcasters to be held in Melbourne from 11 to 14 July.
The conference will bring the La Trobe RadioPlus participants together with more than 130 other scholars from 26 countries to discuss the wider impact of digital technology on radio.
For further details and assistance:
Please contact Dr John Tebbutt on Tel: (03) 9479 5098; Mob: 0411 672 659 or AH: (03) 9687 5861.
'The Radio Conference 2005' is sponsored by La Trobe University, RMIT, The University of Melbourne, ABC Radio Australia, and SBS Radio.
Further information about the Conference is available on the following website: http://www.rmit.edu.au/appliedcommunication/radio2005