When the IREX Jordan Media Strengthening Program [9] (JMSP) launched, in 2006, there was one single, albeit vibrant, community radio station in Jordan. Today there are five, producing and broadcasting a variety of original formats geared toward local audiences. With JMSP’s assistance, the five stations have been cooperating on a news syndicate project and are currently establishing an independent federation of community radio broadcasters, the Jordan Federation of Community Radios.
Community broadcasters are filling a critical gap in news reporting in a country where state media pay little attention to what happens outside the capital Amman, and where less than a handful of independent stations broadcast news. Eight months after launch, the station Sawt al Karak secured the second largest listenership share in the southern governorate of Karak, according to a survey by local research company Strategies, and surpassed religious-themed and state-owned radio stations.
Sawt Al Karak (“Voice of Karak”) FM is a prime example of how a small station, operated by a group of student volunteers, managed in a relatively short time to become a major source of information, tailoring programming to local needs and expectations. The number of call-ins witnessed a dramatic increase, reflecting the unique relationship that community media build with listeners, as well as their role as platforms for public debate and political participation in nascent democracies.
On November 9, Jordanians went to the polls to elect the 16th Lower House in the Kingdom’s history. It was the first time that the new community radios had the opportunity to play their role as providers of accurate and fair information to enable the public to make informed electoral choices. And they rose to the occasion, producing a variety of programs on the campaign. JMSP supported the production of three election programs in Ma’an (250 km south of Amman), Karak (120 km south of Amman) and Irbid (100 km north of Amman). Those productions were undertaken by Sawt Al Janoub (“Voice of the South), Sawt Al Karak and Yarmouk FM, respectively.
At Yarmouk FM, 12 30-minute episodes of “Who’s your vote going to?” focused on women’s participation in the elections. According to station director Bashar Qabalan, the series’ main objective was to increase local women’s awareness of elections procedures and help them get to know female candidates who could speak on their behalf. At Sawt Al Karak FM, “Yes, youth matter!” – a 45-minute program broadcasting twice weekly - provided first-time voters with an opportunity to express their opinions on the elections as well as on policies and changes needed to empower youth, according to station director Hussein Mahadin. At Sawt Al Janoub, IREX assisted the production team and scores of volunteers and university students on “Youth of Article 15" – an elections show named after the Jordanian Constitution’s Article 15, which guarantees freedom of expression.
IREX local consultant Samia Kurdieh, who supervised the three productions, said that despite the lack of sophisticated technical resources, the three stations managed to produce lively, vibrant and uniqueprograms, characterized by a high level of interaction with audiences.
In the first two weeks of the one-month campaign alone, the three stations produced more than 26 hours of exclusive programming on the participation of women, youth and persons with disabilities in the election. The other two community stations based in Amman – Radio Al Balad and Farahalnas -- pioneered innovative formats in talk-shows and special debates.
To assess the performance of community radios in covering the elections – and to assess election coverage by other Jordanian media, namely online media – IREX embarked on a monitoring project in partnership with Al Badeel Center for Studies and Research and the Amman Center for Human Rights Studies. Although the final report will be released in January 2011, preliminary results show that, in the week immediately prior to election day, 121 of the 895 coded items broadcast by the five stations were mainly or entirely dedicated to issues related to the participation of women in the elections, while 106 were mainly or entirely focused on the participation of youths, and 66 on political parties.
Of the more than 220 items on women’s participation coded throughout the one-month campaign period, only one was found by the 10-member monitoring team to be biased against women. “Generally, there was an increase in quantity and quality of coverage of women’s and youth’s participation,” said IREX’s Yahia Shukkeir, an expert on the issue. In a society that has long complained of political apathy and a progressive erosion of parliamentary authority through the past two decades, these new community radio stations put key development themes – including women and youth – at the top of the elections’ agenda.
Compared to official media, there was also greater coverage of electoral crimes, prompting government officials’ and organizations’ statements on mounting allegations of vote-buying. At Radio Al Balad, Jordan’s and the Arab world’s first community station, reporter Ibrahim Qubeilat exposed a vote-buying scheme. He taped a conversation with a woman who offered to buy his vote for JD50 (US$70), according to Community Media Network Director Daoud Kuttab.
The elections are evidence that community radio is growing strong in Jordan. The low-cost, student-operated stations in the southern and northern parts of the country demonstrate the ever-increasing desire of citizens to access not only the news on their local issues and concerns, but also the news that they themselves create.
JMSP is a USAID [10]-funded program.