Radio communication : the impact of local radios’ news on capabilities of rural people in Cambodia

Abstract

Based in province, local radios are supposed to be the most adequate medium to produce local news that is nearby rural communities. Since most of people living under poverty line reside and work in the countryside, government, international and national development organizations have set priorities to improve living condition of rural people who in 2008 represent 80.5 percent of the total population of Cambodia. And along with those efforts, it is recognized that “a vibrant media and civil society are developing” in Cambodia. Although the proliferation of radios, especially provincial stations, has become a significant feature of Cambodian media development, there exists “a lack of synchronisation between the changes taking place and rural people’s preparedness for them” (MoP& UNDP, 2007). The rural/urban inequality of access to relevant information in Cambodia has been highlighted and widened access to needed information as a development priority in rural areas has been advocated. There have been many researches related to media’s impact on specific areas of capabilities but it is hard to find previous studies on the impact of local radios’ news in Cambodia on aggregate capabilities of rural people. This research thus has two objectives: 1. To explore to what extent local radios, as communication specialists, fulfill media’s basic functions and address topics which are relevant to capability development. 2. To evaluate the impact of local radios’ news on the capabilities of rural people in Cambodia. It has been presumed that the capabilities (which help to mitigate other constraints on livelihoods) of rural people are upheld through local radios’ journalistic production. The findings from this research indicate the strong relevance of local radios’ news in some areas of capabilities, and moderate relevance in some other areas. But generally local radio’s news affects more or less most dimensions of rural people’s capabilities.