Evaluation of Women-Centric Programming on Community Radio with a Case Focus on Jayoti Vani

Abstract

This paper is an assessment of the success and community relevance of female programming at Jayoti Vani, a community radio station at Rajasthan. As it becomes an evident phenomenon that localized media can be very important in empowering the marginalized groups especially females in rural and semi urban societies, the study will address some critical areas in terms of listening patterns, awareness of the programmes, relevance of the content, sense of empowerment, community participation and barriers to access such as financial ability. An appropriate sample of 250 respondents (mostly females) with different socio-demographic backgrounds was also surveyed by the use of structured questionnaire. The information gathered was through self-administration and queries because this made it inclusive particularly to the illiterates. Descriptive statistical analysis, Pearson correlation, and regression indicated a close relationship between being a listener and feeling empowered as an individual, knowing the content and being an active member of the community, and inverse correlation between the barriers of access and listening frequency. The results indicate that the programming of Jayoti Vani is not only well-known and context-specific but also serves as a way of promoting behavioral changes including health seeking behaviors, gender rights de-bates in a family and financial decision making. Nevertheless, there are still some long-lasting issues that adversely affect optimal engagement, including poor access to technologies, as well as sociocultural resistance. It can therefore be concluded that Jayoti Vani has achieved a lot in ensuring media to be used as a tool of empowerment and participation among the women in India but there is a definite necessity to overcome structural obstacles of access. Respondents suggested improvements like use of local language, addition of success stories that the audience could relate with and the active training of women as writers of the content. This research leads to the wider building of debate in gender issues with the media or grass-root development, and it is of importance to the policymaker in their effort of working together with NGOs and community broadcasters in the quest to utilize radio as a resource to enhance an inclusive social change.