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| Auteur / Author : | Abubacar Selemangy | ONLINE |
| Titre / Title : | Produçao de Programas "Educaçao Civica Eleitoral" - Manual de Apoio | |
| Collection / Series : | ||
| Editeur / Publisher : | UNDP - UNESCO | |
| Année / Year : | 2003 | Nbr. Pages : 41 pages / 187 Kb Taille / Size | ||
| URL : | http://www.mediamoz.com/CR/crmanuals/ProdProgEdCivElManApoio.pdf | |||
| Evaluation / Book review. | ||||
| Foreword Few practices are so directly linked to the questions of Democracy and Governance as a country’s elections, be they municipal or national. And during these important democratic events, the media are more than ever at the centre of attention, both in terms of getting the coverage for those with a direct interest and involvement in the elections themselves, in terms of being held informed about the election campaign and process, and in terms of measuring the democratic maturity of a country: what is happening, how is it reflected in the media, and what role is the media playing? Whereas the role of the public media in Mozambique during an electoral process is well defined and described in the national legislation, the role of Community Radio is not. The UNDP funded and UNESCO implemented media development project (“Strengthening Democracy and Governance through Development of the Media in Mozambique”) has therefore, together with other partners in the community radio area - organised in the national “Núcleo de Coordenação” – initiated a process to identify and define how the community radios can best play their role as community promoters of social change. To define the role of community radio in the electoral process, a national consultative process was initiated in 2002, where all the community radios on air in Mozambique at that time – 37 in all – sent high level representatives to three regional seminars, discussing and defining the role they would prefer to see the radios play in the upcoming municipal and national elections. The result of these seminars was a set of clear recommendations, condensed into “Ten Rules of Conduct for Community Radios during the Election Period” (presented in this manual). This “code” was publicly launched, and the different actors in the “Núcleo de Coordenação” – the state, the Catholic Church and the Community Associations - held seminars with their radio partners to locally launch and present the Code. Furthermore UNESCO coordinated, in collaboration with the national Communication Institute (ICS), a series of regional training courses to ensure effective implementation of the Code. The present manual was prepared in support of the above mentioned training and implementation process taking place at a given historic moment in Mozambique. And the issues presented, are seen to have a much more general and far-reaching mission in terms of election coverage and the community radio than just the situation in which this process was conceived: these small community media have as their most important “capital” the community’s confidence and reliance on the fact that the radio will continue to reflect the reality of all “communities within the community” impartially and with a view to facilitate the community’s identification of community solutions to their everyday challenges and problems. If the radio betrays this confidence by becoming partial or preoccupied more with overall politics than with the burning community concerns – which is particularly threatening during an election period – then the radio may loose its special “capital”, the community ownership feeling. And what is then left? It was the above concern that transpired from the national consultative process, and resulted in the decision by the communities and the radios themselves that the role of the community radio during an election period is to inform, to educate and to reflect the community concerns in this relation. “Civic Education” was therefore the definition of the role of the community radio during this election period, and it was agreed to leave the high profile political reporting and election coverage to the well trained journalists at the public radio in the spirit of letting each do what they are best suited to do. It is our sincere hope and wish that the community radios manage to turn the recommendations of this manual into effective community radio programmes. This could importantly contribute to the national strengthening of both a participatory democracy and effective and good governance practice. |
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