We’re still listening: radio in the Pakistan floods response
Recording a radio broadcast with rescue workers in Nowshera, Pakistan during the 2022 floods response. Credit: Amplifying Voices
In a rapid onset crisis like the floods in Pakistan, people have little time to make some of the most important decisions of their lives. The first thing people look for is ways to communicate with one another and to find information on the situation and available services. But with shattered communication networks, radio airwaves are often the only way people are able to maintain contact and receive information.
In Pakistan, broadcast radio is one of people’s most trusted sources of information, particularly in rural and remote communities. If done right, radio can go beyond information provision. It has the potential to be a highly personal medium that facilitates two-way communication and cultivates engagement with audiences in times of need.
In a disaster response, it can be tempting to stay close to the emergency hub of operations, to broadcast news and messages from the cluster groups and other experts. However, this runs the risk of a top-down messaging approach that can feel distant to affected people. Broadcasts that use technical language or humanitarian jargon can particularly alienate listeners, instead of drawing them in and encouraging them to extend the on-air conversation into their homes and neighbourhoods.
Community co-production
Amplifying Voices is currently active in the Pakistan flood response. Rather than making radio programmes for affected people from the confines of the studio, they create radio with affected people, in their streets and in their homes.
This kind of co-production with communities can be much more effective for facilitating affected people’s participation in media, compared with simply extracting information from communities. Co-production approaches can start small and simple – voice recorders or mobile audio studios, like First Response Radio’s ‘radio in a suitcase’, can be easily set up within communities far from a broadcasting hub.
According to Hazeen Latif, CEO of Amplifying Voices Pakistan, community co-production of radio and messaging has already achieved results in the Pakistan flood response. Ten days after floods hit, a village near Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province had still had no contact from authorities, despite significant needs for assistance. The community members, together with the Amplifying Voices in Disaster (AViD) team, made audio recordings and filmed interviews about their situation. The audiovisual clips were shared via both FM radio broadcast and social media groups linked to the local Disaster Management Authority (DMA). Soon after, the DMA responded by sending street-cleaning machinery, a drinking water tank, food, and spray to prevent the spread of dengue fever.
Radio and social media
This combination of radio and social media was instrumental in getting the village’s message out to the right audiences. The popularity of social media is growing in Pakistan and 89% of the population has mobile cellular coverage. Many leading social media channels are linked to radio programmes, with on-air conversations discussed on social media and vice versa – each enabling continued two-way engagement with audiences.
However, keeping radio in the mix is essential: access to the internet, social media and digital technology differs significantly between rural and urban areas and between men and women. A recent study on the gendered digital divide during COVID-19 found that six in 10 women respondents faced some kind of restrictions (mostly from their families) when accessing the internet.
The preference for different mediums shifts with time and between contexts, but the foundations of a successful communication and community engagement strategy remain the same: personalised content created with affected people. Whatever the medium, when it comes to times of greatest need, we all want to hear a familiar voice sharing information, guiding decisions and deepening a sense of belonging and connectedness.
‘It was a kind of silence that is deafening – the radio broke through it, somehow. To hear the music and another voice, in the middle of the night … made me able to hang in there for one more night…’ – a listener describing First Response Radio broadcasts after Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines
Authors: Johnny Fisher (Amplifying Voices), Mike Adams (First Response Radio) and CDAC Network
