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Community Radio as a Vehicle for Social Change in Conflict-Affected Settings

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Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the background, design, and applications of community radio as an engaged and participatory method for bringing about social change. We discuss a community radio education-entertainment (edutainment) campaign in the Great Lakes Region of Africa (i.e., Burundi, Rwanda, and Democratic Republic of Congo) that aims to bring about social change by preventing cycles of violence, reducing prejudice, and promoting intergroup reconciliation. We describe the challenging process of developing this mass media intervention in collaboration with local communities, including the involvement of diverse stakeholders and incorporation of audience feedback. We also discuss the mixed influence of the edutainment campaign on supporting social change in different sociopolitical settings.

Keywords

Community radio Conflict Violence prevention Education-entertainment Mass media 
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© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Applied PsychologyNew York UniversityNew YorkUSA

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