Radio:
Getting the Message Across

Radio is a particularly useful mass medium for extension. Battery-operated radios are widely available in rural communities. Information can reach households directly and instantly throughout a region or country. Urgent news or warnings can be communicated far more quickly than through posters, extension agents or newspapers. Despite radio's mass audience, a good presenter can make programmes seem very informal and personal, giving the impression that an individual listener is being spoken to directly. Radio is one of the best ways of spreading awareness of new ideas to large numbers of people and can be used to publicize extension activities. It can also enable one community or group to share its experiences with others. Groups of households also get together to listen to radio programmes - so radio can even reach those that don't own their own radios.

Farm Radio: What is it? Creating Scripts for Radio Examples of Radio Scripts The Seven Cs of Effective Communication References and Further Reading

Radio is the most cost-effective mass medium for reaching rural audiences in a form and language they can understand. Its main disadvantage is the lack of visual presentation. This can be turned to advantage, however, as it reduces the chance of audience rejection if the particular scenes show practices that are unlike their own farming or resource management environment. Usually, expert scientists or extension personnel explain research outputs in a lecture format or in an interview with a professional broadcaster. Audiences are more likely to learn and be interested in the interview than the lecture. More imaginative formats and strategies for radio use can create opportunities for feedback and dialogue, local adaptation of content through local and vernacular radio, and farmer-to-farmer extension. Radio is most effective when content and treatment are based on audience research and the format is interactive.

The terms rural radio and community radio have come to be used interchangeably to describe FM stations established to broadcast to a local and predominantly rural audience. The growth of rural radio stations over the past few decades reflects both the improvements in information technologies and the shifting development paradigm towards a more participatory style of information and knowledge transfer. The community aspect of local radio initiatives combines a number of approaches. The most obvious is that a local radio station gives the community a voice. Another important aspect is the ability to use the medium as a means of disseminating information to farmers.

The objective of a radio project is to produce a comprehensive but generic radio messages aimed at improving a working environment on the farm, or introducing new ideas and methods. These generic ideas can then be adapted by listeners in the region. Programmes may, for example be in the form of a regular set of educational episodes, which cover different topics each time. There may be a question at the end of each episode, which solicits answers to gauge understanding of the listeners. Programmes can be also be in form of short plays.

Before the actual airing of radio programmes, a number of activities need to be carried out. These include identifying a language for airing the programme, deciding on and contracting a suitable radio station, identifying the specific issues in the target areas and thus relevant radio topics, and drawing up a format for the radio programmes.

The effectiveness of the delivery of radio outputs relies mainly in the people responsible for designing and implementing the project. A project team should be set up that will carry out the project activities and ensuring that results are delivered on time and within the available budgets.

1. Signature tune or theme music
   
2. Introduction (to the programme series, any sponsors, etc.)
   
3. Commercial (these can of course help towards funding the series).
   
4. Narration: Starting with questions to fire up curiosity. For example, for a scene on livestock health, the following questions and narration may apply at the start of the programme.

How healthy is your livestock? Do your animals ever seem aggressive or overly excited? Do they produce plenty of milk or eggs? Animals need to feel safe and comfortable to be productive and healthy. Livestock react poorly to crowded spaces without access to clean water, air and light. And they need protection from weather, and predators. Today we're going to visit (use a suitable name) farm and hear from the animals themselves what it takes to keep them healthy and productive.

5. Sound effects. Following the above example, suitable sound effects would include noises from several animals at the same time - perhaps cows, chickens, pigs and sheep or goats (a cockerel crowing, hens squawking, cows mooing, and lambs bleating).
   
6. The main story.
   
7. Concluding narration and remarks, perhaps in relation to lessons learned and how to obtain more information.
   
8. Announcement and conclusion (field days, sponsorship, etc.)
   
9. Signature tune
   

Every successful form of communication follows seven basic principles, often referred to as the Seven Cs of Effective Communication:

1. Command attention
2. Cater to the heart and the head
3. Call to action
4. Clarify the message
5. Communicate a benefit
6. Create trust
7. Convey a consistent message

This list is adapted from
Esta de Fossard (1998) How to design and produce Radio Serial Drama for Social Development: A program managers guide.

See also Esta de Fossard (1996), How To Write a Radio Serial Drama for Social Development. A Script Writer’s Manual. This includes examples from a family planning perspective, but can be easily adapted to suit the needs of livestock extension.

Command attention.
All the world loves a story and all the world loves the opportunity to listen in on the lives of other people. Serial drama tells several stories at once; stories that engage the listeners’ emotions and that continue over a period of time. Serial drama commands the attention of the audience, not just once but repeatedly. It holds the attention of the audience as they wait to find out how the various joys and sorrows of the story interweave and unravel. As listeners become emotionally involved in the story, their attention is naturally attracted to the message at the same time.

Cater to the heart and the head.
Social development messages inevitably appeal to the intelligence and logic of those to whom they are addressed; they appeal to the head (the mind). Life experience shows, however, that people aft likely to have a morn lasting remembrance of and a stronger response to matters that touch the emotions (the heart) as well as the mind. Serial drama successfully caters to both the head and the heat, with the harmonious blending of a story that engages listeners’ emotions and demonstrates the logic of the message in the lives of the story characters.

Call to action.
One of the most powerful motivators of human behaviour is the desire to be like people who a universally or even personally admired. Serial drama can present characters with strong audience appeal; characters the audience wants to emulate. When listeners observe their favourite drama characters improving their lives by adopting a new behaviour, they want to follow suit. Simply instructing listeners to adopt a certain behaviour or technology usually does not succeed as well as does the motivation provided by the behaviour of characters they admire.

Clarify the message.
Serial drama has two major advantages as a carrier of social development messages:
1) it continues over many months, or even years and
2) it contains several plots and many characters.
The fact that serial drama is ongoing means that the message can be introduced gradually and can be repeated as necessary. The audience, therefore, has the best possible chance of understanding the message, even if they must hear it several times before its relevance to their own lives becomes obvious. A variety of plots and characters allows the message to be introduced in different ways. This variety increases the likelihood that people with differing personalities and from varying walks of life will have the chance to see how the recommendations relate to their own lives.

Communicate a benefit.
Serial drama is a demonstrative rather than a declarative medium. The drama does not tell the audience the benefit of a new behaviour. It shows them how other people (the characters in the story) benefit by a change in behaviour. One of the cardinal rules of good communication is “Show, don’t tell”. Serial drama is an extremely powerful “showing” tool even when it is presented through the medium of radio. As the benefit of the recommended behaviour is shown clearly in the lives of the drama characters, so it becomes communicated in a relevant and realistic way to the listening audience.

Create trust.
Serial drama has the power to inspire trust in the audience, trust in the content of the message and trust in those who promote the message. Many people hold real-life authority figures in a certain degree of awe. Even though they know that such people as doctors, lawyers, and government officials are held a high esteem, they never feel entirely comfortable with them. Serial drama has the ability to show such authority figures in more than their public rote. It can present them as real people and in that way increase the audience’s belief and trust in them. An agricultural or livestock extension worker who is known personally to the audience through the story is much more likely to attract the trust of the listener than is a public official who is known only in a formal setting. Listeners are also are encouraged to trust the message in the drama by seeing their favourite characters confidently adopting the recommended behaviours, methods or technologies.

Convey a consistent message.
A message heard once or only occasionally is likely to be forgotten or considered as suspect. A message that is heard repeatedly and consistently is more likely to raise at least curiosity. This curiosity leads in turn to the desire for more knowledge from which a personal, rational decision can be made. By its nature, serial drama is a format that allows for repetition, and when that repetition is consistent and clear, it is likely to be considered seriously by those who hear it.

Chapman, R., Blench, R., Kranjac-Berisavljevic’, G. and Zakariah, A.B.T. (2003). Rural radio in agricultural extension: the example of Vernacular radio programmes on soil and water Conservation in n. Ghana. ODI Agricultural Research & Extension Network. Network Paper No. 127.

de Fossard, E. (1996). How To Write a Radio Serial Drama for Social Development. A Script Writer’s Manual. Population Communication Services. Center for Communication Programs. The Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.

FAO. (2001). First International Workshop on Farm Radio Broadcasting - Final Report. Information and Communication Technologies Servicing Farm Radio: New Contents, New Partnerships. Communication for Development Group Extension, Education and Communication Service, Research, Extension and Training Division, Sustainable Development Department. FAO, Rome.

Girard, B. (ed). (2003). The One to Watch. Radio, New ICTs and Interactivity. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, in collaboration with The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Geneva Office and Communication for Development Group Extension, Education and Communication Service Research, Extension and Training Division Sustainable Development Department. FAO, Rome.