SUGGESTED ELEMENTS OF A MULTIMEDIA BRIDGE © 2000-2001 / KJS / RBO
• CONNECTING PEOPLE IN NORTH AND SOUTH
• BEYOND BARRIERS OF CULTURES AND LANGUAGES
• THROUGH A COMBINATION OF RADIO AND INTERNET
ELEMENT 1: YOUNG INTERNET REPORTERS’ NETWORK IN AFRICA
What will be achieved?
Schools which are already connected to Internet, but may need assistance in terms of soft- & hardware, will be identified as power houses for grassroots communication in a growing number of African countries.
At least one school in each country will have built a lasting partnership for communication within its community.
Students/Teachers/Parents-Clubs will participate in RBO-organised online-training sessions, based on a CD-Rom-Manual and accompanied by online tutorials; they will have learned techniques of how to identify and to produce stories from their environment, how to exchange such multimedia content through Internet, how to turn such activities into a sustainable local and international business.
A strict regime of online tutorials by RBO will introduce final exams providing successful participants with a Certificate as Grassroots Story Teller; a new type of media profession will spread throughout the region - Internet-Reporters and Small Scale Multimedia Entrepreneurs will have emerged out of school.
Participating schools will have acquired a new role within their community which goes beyond that of a provider of formal education, it will offer itself as a medium of community participation, and it will secure operational funds for continued Internet-based learning and communication by hiring out its technical facilities to trained school-leavers who want to start a business on their own.
The project idea
Major efforts are being made by educational organisations to equip schools in the South with connectivity. The process is meant to allow access to additional learning material and to interactive methods of "Global Learning"; it does not consider connectivity of a school as a potential communication tool for the surrounding community. RBO is convinced that this development should be utilised to empower students and their communities to enter new avenues of communication within their region and with the world. Here is a tool at hand which provides a chance to bid farewell to a formalised and quite often misused one-way-road of information through the traditional mass media, instead, introducing a modern mode of grassroots-based story-telling by a new generation of Community-Internet-Reporters.
Radio Bridge Overseas, as a media organisation with special interest in the grassroots, wants to exploit this development by launching an Internet-based media training initiative. The target for this far reaching program will be "A"-level students from schools with Internet facilities in Southeast, Central and West Africa. The idea is to arm the young mind with basic journalistic skills and cultivate a spirit of tolerance among the youth. A network for regular exchange will be created to give the students the medium through which they will debate or share ideas on topical issues of their choice from their environments.
It will be the task of RBO, together with partners, to identify as participants groups at schools which are already working with a computer, quite often within a scheme of "Global Learning". Priority will be given to schools in rural areas. It may be necessary to assist in upgrading of soft- & hardware so that pupils at such schools can be introduced to a wide range of digital multimedia operation. Multimedia shall be understood as a combination of any two or more different media types (text, graphics, images, audio, video). Whilst researching for one story, the multimedia approach seeks to gather material for print, audio, picture and video at the same time. Electronic devices are allowing digital capturing of audio, still picture and video with the same piece of hardware. With that multimedia approach one has a newspaper-, radio- or TV-story and one can combine them on a CD-ROM or on the Internet.
It seems necessary to stress the approach of RBO which will, at the beginning of its project, not target the use of Internet but the local use of technology which makes Internet possible. What do we mean by that?
RBO is of the opinion that young people in Africa should get a chance to master the digital communication technology so that they would not - by accessing Internet - become consumers of global (mainly Northern) content only, but also providers of high quality content from within their own culture for the information highway.
RBO is, at the same time, convinced that learning of the proper local use of digital technology could produce a new interest of young people with regard to their own local culture; in mostly orally oriented societies, they would be empowered to create links between generations by recording and processing in an easy way pictures, poems, tales, songs, music - and they would turn such material perhaps into attractive new local media-formats, they may - for example - create a regular multimedia-show displayed from the Hard Disk or from a self-produced CD-ROM through data-projection on a large screen at a school or in a community-centre, replacing the quite often non-existent local radio or local newspaper to which they would not have access anyway.
Such experiences may see the emergence of a new type of local entrepreneurs: School-leavers who turn into local information providers, making the use of new technologies at schools and within their communities sustainable by charging an entry-fee for such shows, possibly even incorporating results of Internet research translated into the local language, and thereby making accessible Internet-content to their community.
With the acquisition of skills and know-how, it may then become feasible that young Africans present aspects of their own cultures to a worldwide Internet-audience in a way which is not anymore hampered by feelings of inferiority, having discovered values and dismissed rotten roots in a local discourse, and now promoting African art and culture, developing them even further in a virtual context.
In order to achieve such an involvement of school-computer-bases as local information-centres, RBO suggests 3 phases within a 5-year-pilot-project in Southeast, Central and West Africa.
PHASE 1 / 1st Year
RBO and WAGNE, a partner in Cameroon, identify within their local constituencies (Zimbabwe & Cameroon) each at least 2 participating schools with groups of committed students and teachers which are already connected to Internet through schemes of "Global Learning". Necessary software and aspects of technical & journalistic training for digital multimedia story-telling will be identified and tested together with them. Target will be the production of a CD-ROM-based manual in 2 language versions (English & French). At the end of Phase 1, such a CD-ROM and a tutorial for online-learning will be available, developed in an exchange of experiences and ideas between Southeast, Central and West Africa.
PHASE 2 / 2nd Year
The first 4 partner-schools (2 in Zimbabwe, 2 in Cameroon) may become involved in a competition. They will try, within their respective regions, to get as many school-groups with Internet-connectivity as possible as partners for an online-training, supervised by RBO and WAGNE, and ending with a certificate for successful participants. Such training will include experiments with different multimedia content from local environments to be realised and presented on Internet, monitored and judged by tutors of RBO & partners, and with advise given on how to improve results. The Online-tutorial will also provide hints on how to make the local use of digital information technology sustainable within the respective community, examples will be featured, and all participants may again become involved in a competition with regard to best solutions.
PHASE 3 / 3rd - 5th Year
At the end of the 2-year-period, experiences and materials should be available which would allow RBO and partners in other regions of the Southern world to establish themselves as facilitators of such a combined CD-ROM-/online-training in several language versions, whereby clients would be requested to pay a minimum-fee for participation in a password-protected online-course.
RBO & partners will establish the professional service of a clearing house for a permanent exchange of stories beyond barriers of cultures and languages, carried on Internet broadcast services like Common Ground Productions, Interworld Radio and/or on the digital satellite broadcast system of WorldSpace, and relayed through channels of AMARC’s community radio networks and public radio stations of the European Broadcasting Union.
ELEMENT 2: CULTURAL INTERACTION SOUTH-NORTH
RBO would like to combine the actual production and distribution of this training project with an intercultural exchange, realised through the establishment of an internship-program that will allow young journalists from the South and the North to work together with emerging young Internet-Reporters on multimedia-features from the developing world and to distribute such co-productions to an international audience. It is suggested that a professional discourse about issues and formats would expose Northern participants to the challenge of foreign values with the need to help express such authentic views in a way that would find attention of listeners in another cultural environment.
Such an experience will help to influence professional attitudes of participants :
• from the South who would have learned to use formats for their issues which enhance the creativity and technical realisation necessary - not only for international marketing and mobilisation of interest of audiences beyond their own cultural environment - but will also facilitate the development of media in their own countries.
• from the North who will be more sensitised to authentic expressions from the South. They will be more prepared to allow space for other values than their own; the usual filter of Northern biases regarding Southern issues will be applied less often in a situation where they may become responsible for programming.
Such an internship program underwent already a trial period from April '96 to April '97, with four groups of participants from Germany, twinned with colleagues from Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique and accommodated at a rented RBO venue in Harare. Their co-produced radio programs were - in several language versions - on air in Germany, Austria, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia (details at: http://www.radiobridge.net/more/index8.html)
It is anticipated that such an intercultural exchange could be sponsored through fellowship programs by media related foundations and organisationsin Europe. Such an institution would provide, at the same time, a reliable access to a selected range of languages and their presenters needed for the overvoicing of audio programs. In the long term, it would help to build up support units by participants returned to their home countries.
ELEMENT 3: EVENT CENTRES
In every country, ordinary people will find at least one place where they can learn how their own culture and those of people in other parts of the world have developed. This is a place which brings together people of all walks of life in a curious mood, visiting as school classes or as a family excursion on a weekend: It is the local museum which is part of an already existing worldwide network, called ICOM, the "International Council of Museums".
Museums may quite often be used as a place of entertainment and relaxation, but their main task is to create an understanding of events which have an impact on cultural development locally and internationally, through space and time. Exhibitions there should not be static, many museums try to involve their visitors in an interactive way, staging cultural events or offering participation in special projects. Museums, with such an easy access for the public, could therefore serve as a live-forum for a regular dialogue between communities of different cultures, using the Internet as a mode of communication & interaction. Above all, most museums will already be connected to the Internet for an exchange of scientific data; upgrading of such facilities may be in the interest of museums which will immediately attract a great number of regular visitors once they participate in the proposed live-event. Participating museums could receive technical assistance by local Internet Service Providers (ISP) and coverage by local radio- & TV-networks.
ELEMENT 4: CONTENT
Each month a North-South editorial committee (co-ordinated by RBO through regular editorial chat links) will select proposals by participating communities for one general issue to be presented & debated during the event. Different formats will offer pre-produced audio- & video-clips, data presentation, alternative news, regular focus on human rights issues, resolutions & petitions to be forwarded to relevant authorities, live chats between participating audiences, online-interviews with relevant experts, virtual visits to relevant grassroots projects, interactive quiz-challenges, up dates on achievements & failures of "GLOBAL VILLAGE VOICES".
Individual online-visitors will have a chance to contribute from all over the world by obtaining an Internet access code to this video- & audio chat link. It is intended to request from such individual participants a pledge to pay a small amount into a fund which would allow to donate Internet-equipment to grassroots-communities in the South so that such communities can connect themselves to the world.
Each event may operate in several languages simultaneously. Collaborating organisations will be requested to participate in an online translation system which will allow to have digests of the spoken word typed by translators for a permanent live-display at the bottom of the Internet-terminals (screens) in the respective language area. Audio- or video-mini-features relevant to the issue will be pre-produced by RBO in similar language versions and will be available in those language areas during the live event.
This system will allow, for the first time, direct grassroots participation not only in an Internet-exchange but, through collaborating electronic networks, as listeners & viewers of the local media. The online-character of the Internet-show calls for coverage by local TV stations for edited audio versions to be broadcast as a digest by local radio stations in their respective language.
ELEMENT 5: MARKETING
The project will have to seek seed funds which secure operation for a pilot phase of at least 5 years. The system as described above will need a development in phases. It is intended to employ, on a voluntary basis, a growing number of Internet Service Providers (ISP) worldwide who will have the right to boost their corporate image through their participation; they will be allowed to use their support for public relations.
It is intended, at the same time, to sell the product through contracts with established radio- & TV-networks, especially in the North. Such contracts should contain a component which will support broadcasting on electronic networks of the South free of charge. Again, contract holders will be allowed to use their support for own public relations.
One segment of each event will be dedicated to the sale of grassroots products & services of the South through Internet. This will include promotion of works of relevant literature, contemporary art & music. It is hoped to establish an RBO-based mechanism which will not only support small scale entrepreneurs & artists in the developing world, but would help to earn considerable funds for the project in order to sustain it after the pilot phase. This idea needs collaboration with international organisations dedicated to the development of small scale enterprises in the South, e.g. UNIDO, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation and UNDP, the United Nations Development Program.
At the same time, established sales houses which offer already on Internet environmentally friendly products, quite often in direct contact with small scale trading organisations of the South, should be encouraged to build an intercontinental link allowing direct marketing of products & services through Internet & delivery to individual customers through mail-orders. This service, connected to RBO’s "GLOBAL VILLAGE VOICES" will be permanently available on the net and highlighted during each event with special offers. One particular subject could be direct offers of community based tourism projects in Africa, Asia & Latin America, presented in video/audio links.
