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Module 2 Educational Broadcasting and media Structures

Class exercise 2 Recall and give detailed description of any successful educational broadcasting projects around you.

Topic 1: Challenges Affecting the Development of Educational Broadcasting in Africa.  Political: unstable govt, political crises  Economic : Inflation, poverty  Physical: availability(cost) & accessibility (signals)  Technological: Lack of base infrastructure and technological know-how  Structural and organizational problems: lack of proper policy and planning, Loss of focus by the govt.

Topic 1: Challenges Affecting the Development of Educational Broadcasting in Africa. Funding By its very nature, educational broadcasting is a non commercial activity, and generally does not attract advertising revenues. In most instances, public funded institutions are mandated with the production of educational materials, in both print and non-print formats.

Topic 1: Challenges Affecting the Development of Educational Broadcasting in Africa. Hardware The high costs of establishing educational production and broadcast centers, coupled with the rapid obsolescence of technology, compounded by lack of common standards and technical formats are making technology choices difficult for educational planners.

Topic 4: Challenges Affecting the Development of Educational Broadcasting in Africa. Software Software issues have two dimensions: availability and relevance. While the developed Commonwealth and Asia can boast of software availability, there is limited information about what is available in Africa or in the Commonwealth Caribbean, or the South Pacific. More alarming in much of Africa and the Caribbean is the dearth of activity in this area.

Topic 4: Challenges Affecting the Development of Educational Broadcasting in Africa. Human Resources All regions face a lack of skilled personnel, either in academia, production or engineering, or management. Skilled personnel are available either in the national broadcasting systems or in the private sector. India, among the developing countries, seems to be the exception, with a wealth of skilled manpower in educational broadcasting.

Topic 4: Challenges Affecting the Development of Educational Broadcasting in Africa. Management and Administration Media, operating, either independently, or as part of an educational system have their own managerial and administrative dynamics. They are closer in requirements to industry than they are to education. As such, they are target and production bound, needing differently defined norms of management and administration.

Topic 4: Challenges Affecting the Development of Educational Broadcasting in Africa. Operations Media operations resemble those of other telecommunications industries. A hungry monster that devours programming, television has to meet precise minute-to-minute deadlines and to combine such precision with attention to detail, both of the content and the technicalities.

Topic 4: Challenges Affecting the Development of Educational Broadcasting in Africa. Distribution Distribution of educational television content, as well as sharing of educational television content across countries and cultures are rare, and are one of the weakest links in the chain of educational television in the Commonwealth. Very little is known of what is produced, and much of what exists is largely culture bound. Marketing and sharing of programmes between media systems can go a long way in fostering a South- South dialogue.

Existing media policy and the structures of media in a given society determine the use of educational television. Other than in the United States, most international broadcasting systems developed as non-commercial public service broadcasters. Supported by public funds, these broadcasters have been seen as a universal service, aimed at providing programming that, in addition to education, also directly affects the quality of life of its viewers. For example, educational television, sometimes seen as synonymous with developmental programming, would show programmes on agriculture, nutrition, health, and literacy, as is the case of Botswana(vii) and Maldives(viii).

Class exercise on 4 groups Reflect on any educational broadcast campaign you can think of. It could be in the radio or TV. Tell us what you know about it, its objective, medium and target population. Was the campaign successful or not and why?