Attitudinal Baseline Survey of Radio Professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa

Commissioned by Radio for Peacebuilding, Africa (a project of Search for Common Ground), this baseline survey of radio professionals in sub-Saharan Africa sought to determine their knowledge of, attitude towards, and use of different peace building techniques in radio. It was conducted in English and French between August and October 2004; data was collected via email and face-to-face interviews with radio professionals in the following countries: Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Executive Summary

Overall 423 radio professionals out of the targeted 1000 responded to the questionnaire. The majority were reporters and presenters, although there was a lot of professional overlap, with a high number of respondents playing more than one role (ie both presenter and producer).

Nearly 50% of the respondents work for national and/or state radio stations, about a quarter for private/commercial radio stations, and nearly the same proportion for local/community radio stations. Most respondents are positive about the idea using of peace building techniques in radio, and most of them strongly agree with the following statements:

• Peace building techniques in radio programming are important in bringing about peace and reconciliation
• It is high time that radio stations started to help bring about peace and reconciliation
• Even music and drama programmes can help bring people together in conflict situations
• Broadcasters need to be more informed about peace building techniques in radio
• Conflict can be positively influenced by many different forms of radio programming.

There was high awareness of some peace building techniques and of some basic journalistic principles, with most respondents claiming to be aware of importance of the following:

• Giving ordinary people the opportunity to voice their opinions as well as politicians and officials
• Reporting on shared interests and goals which may reveal common ground between opposing sides
• Treating all sides’ suffering as equally newsworthy
• Differentiating between opinion and facts

However there was low awareness of other peacebuilding techniques, and of some basic journalistic principles.

Overall a surprisingly high 89% of respondents claim to already use some peace building techniques in their radio programmes. The countries with the highest positive response rate were Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Niger, Liberia, Guinea, Central African Republic, Burundi and Congo Brazzaville. On the other hand, nearly half of those interviewed in Zimbabwe claim not to use any such techniques. The main stated reason for not using peace building techniques was ‘lack of information and training’

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