You have got mobile phones. You call, you text,you capture stills and videos. Well ,by now you know that it is easy using these features

Technology has reached to everyone one or other way. But can it transform lives? Bring out positive changes in our society?

Well, let us read something on community media .

Can’t a camera enabled mobile phone be used for capturing a story that matters to you and to your community ? May it be a village feast or a football match – news and happenings that affect you – you capture, you share.

A community should own , control and disseminate information and knowledge that matters to them.

Why?

1.Public Broadcasters and State run Media don’t have the infrastructure to reach out and integrate with every community.

2.Private commercial media are tend to tell only stories that sell.

Look at what wikipedia speak about Community Media:

Community media is any form of media that is created and controlled by a community, either a geographic community or a community of identity or interest. Community media is separate from either private (commercial) media, State run media, or Public Broadcasters. Community media is increasingly recognized as a crucial element in a vibrant and democratic media system (for example by UNESCO, the World Bank, the EC, etc)

Now let us put this way:

In a traditional media sphere it is not easy to get your news across . You need to have right connections. Otherwise you should own one. Say, a leading new spaper, a television channel and other conforming networks. It  all need huge infrastructure and  huge amount of money.

Given this one side, we can still see that we have reached to a point of media saturation .

Look at Kerala. Plenty of News papers,Television channels,FM Radio stations.

How do they run them?. On charity? No way!.As Business?. Yes!

Set aside the entertainment channels. Take the so called news papers and news channels. What do they print? What do they telecast?

News that sell.

Yes…It is all about sensationalism.

So is it possible for a community to make its voice heard through the traditional media?.

Not easy.

News papers and channels run on policies,agendas and more over for profits. So no hope there.

This is why we need an alternative. It should be democratic. And it should be cost effective. Let us call it community media.

Let us put some frame work here:

Can we get an interested group of people from a community. Let us put some basic skills in their lives. To use a mobile camera/ digital camera/handy cam. Some news gathering and probing skills. Let them go out to the community they live. Let them gather news that affect their lives and on the people live around them.

Say that they have raw news captured as text,image,video or audio . Let them edit it using a computer.Let them use free and open source software for their editing and mixing.

How do they reach the news  to the community?. Let them make it as bits of radio programmes. Write it in CD and play them where people gather. Or what ever short films they have made, let them play it in different community centers for people to watch , say , using a LCD projector . Or let people regularly visit their community news center to get latest documented knowledge on their community. Let them take into consideration the feed back of the people .

Sameeksha Experiment:

Sameeksha – Community knowledge Centre, is a joint  project of SPACE(http://www.space-kerala.org), Kerala State IT Mission(www.itmission.kerala.gov.in),Idukki District Administration and Munnar Grama Panchayat.

It is an experimental project to explore out the possibilities of Community Media especially among the disenfranchised communities of Kerala.

Out of 40000 population of Munnar Grama Panchayat,majority of the people work in the tea estates.There is also a  large section of tribal settlement in this Panchayat, especially Muthuvans and Hill Pulayans.So it is considered to be interesting to come out with some stories on their lives.

Munnar Gramma Panchayat identified 10 people  to work at Sameeksha,7 young women  and 3 young men, to be trained as community media team .They will  take the work of Sameeksha ahead.

Once the   training is over, the community media team will  produce a range of media content focused on critical social issues of the area using technologies such as radio, video, web and new media to be shared among the community.

Hope that we will soon come across  stories told by community the way they see it.

Community Media Team-Munnar