DW-AKADEMIE recently introduced regional blogs covering DW-A projects worldwide. Future updates on our Laos projects will be published at DW-AKADEMIE Asia Blog, tagged “laos”.
“Friends of the People”, the new daily one-hour morning show (585 kHz, Mo-Fri 8am-9am) has been broadcast by Savannakhet Provincial Radio for almost a year (since September 21st 2009). The project is still developing and currently undergoing some major changes:
In order to lower the production costs and to efficiently strengthen people’s needs and opinions on air, the production team in Savannakhet has asked us to help revise the program and to develop it into a call-in-show. The aim is to invite the audience to more actively participate in the program – to call in live and to get in touch with other listeners, civil society, politicians and civil servants.
The re-alignment of regional radio is based on the fundamental principle of serving the public: more transparency and accountability, greater participation by all citizens in public debates, improved information and the inclusion of all voices and opinions. Project details and outlines will be discussed during Teamlaos’ next trip to the region (September 2010).
Working in Laos is inspiring. We have already learned a lot, but still know little about the road ahead. Yet we share a vision based on both our experience and on our partners’ needs and desires.
To introduce our view of the prospects ahead we have visualized some major information.
Subsequent to the successful partnership in the field of training, Lao National Radio (LNR) and DW-AKADEMIE have reached a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MoU) underlining the importance of cooperation to support capacity building and public participation.
The two partners agreed to further foster the development of “new radio formats in the public interest for Lao National and Provincial Radios.” The common understanding is to achieve the mutual goal set by both the Lao and the German government: “increasing public participation as a means of working towards accomplishing the Millennium Development Goals.”
All efforts will be focused on the field of knowledge-sharing. LNR and DW-AKADEMIE have therefore agreed to exchange information and share experiences in order to i.e. improve the technical production and distribution capacities of both LNR and its provincial stations; foster digitalization; create and develop an economically sustainable and autonomous funding situation.
Gerda Meuer, Managing Director of DW-AKADEMIE, and Sipha Nonglath, Director General of LNR, signed the MoU on location in Vientiane on September 15th 2009.
Poor conditions More than 27% of the population of People’s Republic of Laos (Lao PDR) live with not more than 1$ per day. Some 78 million “Unexploded Ordinances” (‘UXO’) keep threatening everyday life, remains of massive US bombardments during the so called “Secret War” and the war in Viet Nam. Laos ranks 164th of 173 states on Reporters Without Borders’ “World Press Freedom Index” and is regarded “not free” by Freedom House. The leading communist party is using media only “to link the people to the party, deliver party policy messages, and disseminate political ideology”. All major media is either state-owned or -controlled and delivers mainly “protocol news”. Lao media still suffer from self-censorship although the constitution grants Lao citizens freedom of speech and information. A media law did not exist until 2008.
Promising prospects On the other hand, there is considerable economic agility and growth, especially in transfer-areas like Savannakhet, where newly built roads and bridges connect Thailand in the west with Viet Nam in the east. Together with a relative independence of the provincial sector in decentralised Lao PDR and accompanied by ‘beacon-projects’ supported by UNESCO, UNDP, SIDA, DW-AKADEMIE and others, a shift towards more audience-oriented community-radio formats has begun. This shift can also be seen in discussions among media professionals about the role of the media in society, and the public call for “good reporting [that] must focus on issues relevant to people’s daily lives”.
Laos is one of the 60 focus countries of Germany’s bilateral development co-operation policy. DW-AKADEMIE, national partner Laos National Radio and the affiliated province station currently co-operate on the development of new radio formats in the southern Savannakhet province.
DW-AKADEMIE Team Asia: Supporting Media Development in Savannakhet province From the national broadcasters’ experience, people had turned away from Lao media. This perception was supported by several surveys from international donors and researchers. Starting with nothing but the desire to win back the audience’s attention, a new project was outlined. After several years of dropping isolated training courses, we came to realise more and more that mere training without including transfer is nice to have, but next to useless. And that a strong link between training, implementation, day-to-day practice and ultimately changed programme output needs to be established.
First step was to better understand the status quo and the mechanisms of media market in Laos, and in Savannakhet in particular. This led to realising one goal: the importance of making people’s voices heard in future programmes, rather than just passing along government statements. Only then could we start considering concrete ways of reaching this goal. Since 2009, a team of DW-trainers and young Lao reporters work co-operatively on the conceptualisation and implementation of a daily one-hour morning-show in Savannakhet. It was not until the current project-phase that training-modules have been introduced. Yet, we still concentrate on fostering the understanding of our role in a media market, which develops alongside the ongoing economic growth and possible political detente.
A prosperous relationship between media and audience depends on dialogue It is the project design and the ideal behind it, what makes it special. The whole process of preparation, conceptualisation, implementation and evaluation is participative and accountable in character. Rather than implementing externally planned patterns we focus on our partner’s and the audience’s needs. It is now possible to pause at any given time within the process, sit back and reconsider some -or even all- aspects. Of course all of us imply success, but targets might turn out to be inconvertible along the way. Yet, we are not as focussed on results as that we would regard this possibility as failure. In contrary: Not just any progress made, but also the sheer process of co-operation means success by definition.
Documentation + Communication = Docommentation DW-AKADEMIE has set up the Weblog “Supporting Media Development in Laos” in order to deepen both accountability of the complete project cycle and the participation of all partners (and hopefully the audience, too). It combines the possibility to document every single step of the project with several ways of modern communication: Comments, eMail- and Twitter. This helps trainers, reporters, audience and everybody else to learn about and from the project as it grows and participate in shaping the process of media development. Beyond the actual launch of the planned morning-show, even in future projects, this open “docommentation”-tool helps to understand how we succeed or fail.
Social Media in the making To make use of Web 2.0, Open Source and Social Network applications appears to be self-evident nowadays. In accordance with the ideals of these continuously developing phenomena, we remain in ‘perpetual beta’. As Tim O’Reilly says: “Users must be treated as co-developers” to form “a world in which ‘the former audience’, not a few people in a back room, decides what’s important”. DW-AKADEMIE and partners feel confident that this approach empowers all stakeholders (including DW-AKADEMIE) to constantly learn from each other. In other words: Fostering a participatory architecture is the key tool to reach MDG 8, a global partnership for development.
Helping people get their voices heard means supporting democratic development.
A second pilot was produced the day after the first one. It was good to see how the learning of the first group was directly applied to the production of the second one. By then, everyone had been part of either hosting, producing or providing a packaged report to at least one program.
What might sound like daily bread to most journalist in the euro-american world is a small revolution for radio workers in this country: A morning show filled with music and information and packaged stories that feature the voices of people from all walks of lives.
Revolutions abound All in all a very new and exciting experience for our colleagues. Some had been working at the radio for over a decade, with the relaxed but somewhat unexciting “same same, no different” kind of feel (and look on their faces) to their day-to-day-work.
Monday morning another revolution: Air-checks. We listened to and discussed both programs at length. I had taken notes of things that I thought could be improved. To my surprise, in the following discussion I was able to tick them off one by one: The Lao colleagues had understood that there’s a lot to be done and suggested themselves which problems to tackle next.
Relax, sit back, be humble All of this was still on the “outer” level of things: Neither I, nor my co-trainer do understand Lao, and the programs had not been translated. So we were not able to take on things like phrasing, storytelling, style, etc.
Interestingly enough, these were also not the concerns of the production group: While they felt that things were too long and thus could be boring, their remedy was simple: be shorter! A good idea in principle, but it is still only looking at quantity and not quality.
Meet your process-Buddha: Letting go Yet this situation of not knowing everything is in fact quite helpful for us facilitators: It prevents us to try and intervene (and thus take control) on too many levels at the same time.
Our motto has to be: take as much control as necessary, as little as possible.
One step (and small ones) at a time is the solution. The time will come, where all the small steps add up to the big change. The last three weeks, training-module three of our project in Savannakhet, showed a first silver lining.
It was an exiting, cheerful moment when the first 1 hour program was finished – real radio, linear production, two hosts, three reporter packages, hopefully useful information for the envisioned audience: the people of the province of Savannakhet, Laos.
It was the first major achievment of our cooperation so far and judging from the faces of our Lao colleagues worth the tremendous effort they and we had made.
“The launch on September 21. is secured” said head of News, Phongsay S. in his new role as producer and host of the pilot show. Everyone in the control room agreed. To that, a good-forbidden standard-ending: “Whether that will become true, remains to be seen…”
Two things for sure: The ambitious goal all of a sudden became much more tangible for all those involved in the project. And: A lot remains to be done. Judging from the quality of what was produced – the comments about that came from Laotian colleagues and test-audience – we are only just starting!
We’re not starting from scratch in Savannakhet. Some of the people in the production group for the new daily program have received training before, some by us, DW-AKADEMIE, some by SR MDO, funded by SIDA, some by others.
Quite often, when we introduce new concepts to the group, it takes a while until find common ground to start from.
Today was a lucky day: we stood on the solid foundation of the training done by the Swedish colleagues and followed up by ourselves 2 years ago. I asked: “Do you still remember what a VoxPop is?” There was nodding and confirmation coming from some of the Laotian colleagues. Then: “What is the most important ingredient?” Some guessing, so fast forward: “An open question!”
We quickly had an open question, fitting the topic of tomorrows second pilot program. It was test-driven among the colleagues, worked fine. Two reporters went off and came back with a number of quite interesting answers from the people out on the streets and some pictures they had been taken with the “project camera”.
Tough question: the right equipment Note that the equipment used is not the M-Audio recorders provided by the Swedish project. While these here do work comparably well in the environment, they are more often out-of-order, as they have to be recharged on time. Unfortunately this is a task beyond the organisational level of most of the people at the radio.
Shiny new bus-stops /w no bus in sight It was about the bus-stops that had shown up recently with no busses in sight. A company had built them, but a bus network was abandoned due to taxi-drivers’ and peoples’ protest: It seems as if people did not like the idea of having to stop at the city limits, then changing into the inner-city busses and pay again for a new ride, when before their country-bus would take them to the downtown destinations right away.
“What do you think about the bus-stops?” One answer was: “Will you be setting up a bus company for us?”. No, but we can make it a topic on your radio and see what happens. It’s still a long way to go, but as (the chinese philosopher) Lao-Tse teaches us: Even those long journeys start with small steps…
Preface As “Landlocked Least Developed Country” (LLDC) positioned between China and Myanmar in the north, Thailand in the west, Viet Nam in the east and Cambodia in the south, People’s Republic of Laos (Laos PDR) is one of the poorest countries in the region. Between 1990 and 2005 there were more than 27% of the population living with not more than 1$ per day. On UNDP Human Development Index Laos (with a scale of 0.608) ranks 133rd of 179. Laos still suffers from the results of massive bombardments during the so called “Secret War” and the war in Viet Nam: Today, some 78 million “Unexploded Ordinances” (‘UXO’) remain threatening everyday life troughout Laos. Laos is one of the key partners of German development co-operation in the region.
Background: The media situation in Laos PDR Regarding freedom of the press, Laos media still undergo strict oversight by the centralist communist government, but currently begins opening up (mainly in terms of economic freedom). Yet, Laos ranks no. 164 of 173 on Reporters Without Borders’ “World Press Freedom Index” and is regarded as “not free” by Freedom House, who argue that the leading communist party were using media only “to link the people to the party, deliver party policy messages, and disseminate political ideology”. All major media is either owned or controlled by the government or the communist party, yet few examples are allowed in the entertainment sector. Until 2008, there has been no press- or media-law. According to freedomhouse, Laos media were suffering from self-censorship although the constitution grants Laos citizens freedom of speech and information and there is no official censorship.
Thai TV rendering Lao Radio useless Radio has a lot of potential and could lead to promising developments: Laos’ radio receivers per-capita value is one of the highest in the region, but the audience would rather consume Thai media (due to similarities in language, many Laotians understand almost all Thai). The Laotian audience is simply turning away from what in their experience is mere ‘Protocol-News’ (This is the observation of a high ranking Lao media official, based on Audience surveys conducted by Lao National Radio, UNICEF and SIDA). Laotian people lose grip of ‘their news’ and ‘their stories’.
On the other hand, there is considerable economic growth (especially in transfer-areas like Savannakhet, where newly built roads and bridges connect Thailand in the west with Viet Nam in the east). Together with a relative independence of the provincial sector and accompanied by ‘beacon-projects’ carried out with support by UNESCO, UNDP, SIDA, DW-AKADEMIE and others, a development towards more audience-oriented community-radio formats has begun. The first media-law has recently been signed, raising hopes on a further consolidation of Laotian media.
The objective of this first phase of our project here in Savannakhet is to get a new, daily program on air. While so far national and provincial radio either featured top-down information, “protocol” news or plain entertainment, the new program should get peoples voices on air, their views, their concerns.
Working towards that one goal
Working towards such a concrete objective makes things both very easy – and sometimes very hard: If things we do are not about launching that program, we don’t need to do it. If there’s an obstacle that will stop us from reaching our goal, we have to sort out what it is and find a solution. Finding that solution takes sometimes all kind of different skills: psychology, sensitive inter-cultural communications, linguistics, counselling, consulting.
Today was the day when a, after weeks of sowing and growing, it seemed as if all the toil was finally bearing fruit: A first realistic radio or format clock was established among the production group of the future program. We had been working on preparing packaged reports, finding topics, creating the right questions. Digging into the “Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why? and How?” of those topics. Coming up with people to talk to. Talking to this people. Creating the stories. How would it all fit together?
Getting the clock right
A debate started. It was, at the end, the old against the new: Little information, lots of talk, more music? Or: Packaged, dense storytelling including everyday peoples’ voices on air? Important things first. The group voted for the new way: One hour it shall be now for the first pilot program. One hour, with three packaged reports of approx. 7 minutes, news and information, spots and announcements and of course “Lao song”, the ubiquitous music of this country.
Once that was clear, the rest was all downhill: If you want such a program, the necessary steps to create it could easily be derived. An agreement was reached: who would be in charge of organising the program and how. Off the group went: Editing, writing, recording. That’s the part that makes working towards a set goal so easy: Everything you do can be derived from it. Backwards planning: If this is what we want, this is what we have to do. Simple, yet powerful. It will be exiting to hear what comes out of it.
— Project Status Radio posts provide details on the current status of projects concerning radio. For basic information please refer to Project Descriptions.
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