Radio: A Post Nine-Eleven Strategy for Reaching the World's Poor

Featured October 11, 2006 on N.P.R./W.A.M.U.'s Kojo Nnamdi ShowIn a post 9/11 world where a few ruthless men and women can use modern technology to create powerful webs of conspiracy, the public voice of radio is needed more than ever. Computers trap us in the blue glow of their virtual reality. Cell phones connect us, but what do we have to say to each other and especially to the poor that will impact their lives? Radio attempts to answer this question. Radio listening groups helped Tanzania create a new democracy in the aftermath of colonialism. Radio taught young children in Kenya to speak English and made "learning their A.B.C.s" a lively and exciting adventure. Radio "learning groups" taught Honduran and Ecuadorian mothers the benefits of breast-feeding. Learn along with millions of British the fate of Grace who dies in an accidental barn fire as the B.B.C. tries to teach post-war U.K. farmers to avoid the same fate. Live the trials of families in India faced with the pressure of traditional customs, trying to deal with the challenges of a modern world. These lessons of radio's potency are being submerged in the clutter of new techno gadgets, gimmicks, and gizmos. Co-authors Stephen Sposato and Wm. Smith bring these little known stories to life and revive our faith in radio as a truly modern tool of social change. They help us to understand the changes undergone in U.S. governmental broadcasting as attempts are made to make today's radio relevant in the Middle East and beyond. Authors' royalties from this book will be donated to four prominent non-profit educational foundations, all radio practitioners: The Academy for Educational Development, Freeplay Foundation, Panos and Population Communications International(P.C.I.).

Stephen Sposato is an international economist with more than 25 years of professional experience around the world in international economics, agricultural economics and nutrition, communications outreach, business, and equity finance. He has been specializing in development communication issues for the last five years, with an emphasis on radio. Wm. A. Smith, Executive Vice President at the Academy for Educational Development, directs more than 100 major programs of international development using radio to target poverty, disease, and human development. He has a doctorate in Education and more than 35 years experience in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.