a study of ‘lokvani’...table 3.3 use and effectiveness of lokvani programmes among the farmer...

ConsumerCommunication &Content of aCommunityRadio Station

A STUDY OF ‘LOKVANI’

A report submitted toAmbuja Cement Foundation

ByCentre for Media and Entertainment Studies (CMES), MICA

ConsumerCommunication &Content of aCommunityRadio Station

A STUDY OF ‘LOKVANI’

Project Lead & Editor

Santosh Kumar Patra, Ph.D.Associate Professor & Head, Centre for Media and Entertainment Studies (CMES)MICA, Ahmedabad, India

Research Team

Himani Sharma- FPM Scholar, Batch 2018-2021Hilda Harmony- Research Associate, CMESLeslin Bastian- Coordinator, CMESSaurabh Das- FPM Scholar, Batch 2015-19

Student Field Team

Ankit Pahwa, PGPM-C, Batch 2017-19Purvisha Sharma, PGPM-C, Batch 2017-19 Rukaiya Kapasi, PGPM-C, Batch 2017-19Ritika Thakkar, PGPM-C, Batch 2017-19Sukruti Iyer, PGPM-C, Batch 2017-19 Trishla Jhaveri, PGPM-C, Batch 2017-19

We acknowledge the support of MICA towards research and publication of this report. We also acknowledge the support of Ambuja Cement Foundation for their support during the eld visit and the study. Visit us at www.mica.ac.in

contentsList of tablesExecutive Summary

Chapter 1Introduction

1.1 Introduction 011.2 Literature Review 011.3 Background of Lokvani 021.4 Research Objectives 021.5 Research Methodology 02

I. Step-Ia. Cluster Creation 03b. Sample Selection 03c. Intra-cluster village selection 03d. Final Respondent Selection 03e. Instrument Design 03

ii. Step- IIa. Qualitative Techniques Used 06

iii. Step- IIIa. Analysis of the Data 06

Chapter 2Lokvani's Connect to Consumers: exploring reach and diversity 2.1 Age, Education & Occupation: prime drivers to

understand listeners 09

2.1.1 Gender and family income as a factor in Lokvani listenership 09

2.2 Contextualisng Lokvani in Multi-Channel Information Flow 12

2.2.1. Access to other medium of Information: Lokvani listeners vs. non-listeners 12

2.2.2 Lokvani Listeners community's priority of communication channels for agriculture related information 12

2.3 Programmes types and listenership of Lokvani 13

2.4 Time measurement and mapping of listener's engagement with Lokvani 16

2.5 Conclusion 16

Chapter 3Content Usage, Impact and Effectiveness of Lokvani

3.1 Content Consumption, Usability & Impact 19

3.2 Listeners satisfaction of Lokvani Programme and Content 19

3.3 Effect and Impact of Lokvani information on Farmer listeners of the community 22

3.3.1 Knowledge consumption, usage and output 22

3.3.2 Specic knowledge of agricultural process with technology upgradation 22

3.3.3 Lokvani as the tool of economic upgradation in the farming community 23

3.4 Reason for Lokvani non-listeners to exclude themselves form the information network 23

3.5 Conclusion 23

Chapter 4Gaps, Recommendations & Way Forward

4.1 Overview 27

4.2 Basic Premises of Communication: Content-Connect-Consumer 27

4.3 Content (this is not the major challenge for Lokvani) 27

4.4 Connect- Platforms/Mediums of Communication (Issues of Infrastructure) 28

4.5 Consumers are the key to success of the communication channel 29

Annexure I 31

Copyright © Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF)& Centre for Media and Entertainment Studies (CMES), MICA, Ahmedabad

All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced or utilised in any forms or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in 2019 by

Centre for Media and Entertainment Studies (CMES), AhmedabadMICAShela Telav RoadShelaAhmedabad 380058www.mica.ac.in

list of tables

Table 1.1 Cluster division of villages basis distance from KVK 03

Table 1.2 Village and Respondents Details in Each Cluster 04

Table 1.3 Research Method Process and Flow 05

Table 2.1 Age, Education and Occupation 10

Table 2.2 Lokvani listeners prole and diversity in terms of gender & income 10

Table 2.3 Community Consumption of Information from Different Media Channels 11

Table 2.4 Available Media Channels among Lokvani Listeners as a source of agricultural information 11

Table 2.5 Lokvani Programme Types and Listeners Association with Programme Aired by Lokvani 14

Table 2.6 Listener's engagement in terms of time spent for listening Lokvani programmes 15

Table 3.1 Listener's level of satisfaction in Lokvani's content aired 20

Table 3.2 Listener's opinion on Lokvani's content aired and further improvement 20

Table 3.3 Use and Effectiveness of Lokvani programmes among the farmer listeners of the community 21

Table 3.4 Specic Impact of tools and techniques used in agriculture in last ve years 21

Table 3.5 Lokvani's direct impact on the economy of agrarian community of the locality 24

Table 3.6 Major reasons of not listening to Lokvani (non-listeners) and its gender distribution 24

Table 4.1 Gaps & Recommendation of Lokvani Content 27

Table 4.2 Gaps & Recommendation of Lokvani Consumer Connect 28

Table 4.3 Gaps & Recommendation of Lokvani Consumer's Universe 29

The present study 'Consumer, Communication and Content (CCC) of a Community Radio Station' is an attempt to understand a community Radio Station (CRS)'s reach, programme content and effectiveness in the given locality. Couple of years back, Ambuja Cement Foundation laid down a Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Junagadh, Gujarat, in partnership with ICAR. Within a short span of three years, the KVK became very popular in the district. It was therefore felt that a CRS can serve as a valuable tool to disseminate the best indigenous practices, techniques and technologies in the given area. It functioned as a focal point for community engagement and enhancement of adoption of technologies among the masses. The present study was conceptualised with the following objectives:

Ÿ To identify the reach (listenership) of the community radio station 'Lokvani’

Ÿ To measure the consumption pattern and consumption of the content disseminated through the community radio service

Ÿ To understand the gap between content delivered and content required for more community integration

Ÿ To identify the emerging patterns and change drivers through the content consumption process of the community radio station

With these objectives, the study collected data by adopting both quantitative techniques and qualitative techniques from 15 different villages of the study area. From 15 villages 539 respondents were interviewed and after cleaning, the data 426 respondents are considered for nal analysis.

The ndings of the study is primarily divided into two major sections as per the objectives highlighted above and presented in second and third chapter of the report. First analysis chapter captured the Lokvani's reach and content consumption patterns of listeners and non-listeners. Some of the primary

observation of the section indicates the large section of the locality are still under media dark category, which is a huge potential for Lokvani to capitalise and strengthen the network. However, the strength of the Lokvani is its listener's community though in terms of percentage, it is a small section than non-listeners but they are not only well connected but also well invested throughout the Louvain's programme. There is no major difference between male and female listeners of the Lokvani programmes. The striking observation of this section is how Lokvani is the most preferred medium of information gathering among the socio-economic-educationally afuent community. This can be generalised in terms of global information consumption and consumption patterns of India as well. Finally, the observation towards the listeners interest for content other than agriculture is also quite interesting to note and this needs to be capitalised further by the Lokvani community radio station to strengthen the network further and deepen within the community.

In the second analysis chapter, the focus was impact of the content consumed by the respondents particularly how it has impacted the life of farmers who are the regular listeners of the community radio. Farmer listeners are the prime target group of the Lokvani and in spite of limited reach to farmer listeners this is gratifying to note that how this has touched lives of many farmer listeners in multiple ways. Listeners in general and farmer listeners in particular express their opinion about the importance of the knowledge shared by Lokvani also it is evident that how this has improved their socio-economic condition in the society. Going forward the challenge of Lokvani is not only improving the content as per respondents opinion but also converting the non-listeners into listeners with right advocacy, documenting success stories and promoting the knowledge capital in the given society.

executive summary

acknowledgementThe present study 'Consumer, Communication, and Content (CCC) of a Community Radio Station' is an attempt to understand the reach and impact of Ambuja Cement Foundation's community Radio Station operated by Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Junagadh, Gujarat, in partnership with ICAR. This study would not have been possible without the support of many individuals at different levels. This is also to extend my sincere gratitude to Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF) and MICA for their unconditional support to making this a success.

To name a few, I would like to thank the Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF's) team at Kodinar for facilitating all required logistics and providing necessary guidance pertaining to the project and the village demography. I am also grateful to Ms. Anagha Mahajani and Ms. Shilpi Gupta for all the discussions, feedback and inputs in the process of writing the report. This is also to acknowledge the effort of Mr. Abhijit Prabhughate for all the initial discussions before the project implementation on behalf of ACF.

I extend my sincere gratitude to Prof. Shailendra Raj Mehta, President and Director, MICA and Prof. Preeti Shroff, Dean, MICA for their support and facilitation for undertaking research with specic centres of excellence. This is also to extend my sincere gratitude to Prof. Mini Mathur, the head of MICA Rural Immersion activity for not only making the preliminary contact with ACF but also allocating two group of students for eld immersion and collect data on behalf of MICA rural immersion project.

Needless to mention that research team is always the backbone of any research and their unconditional support helps in executing the research project. This is to acknowledge the efforts of Ms. Himani Sharma & Mr. Saurabh Das (my doctoral students at MICA), Mr. Leslin Bastian & Ms. Hilda Harmony of Centre for Media and Entertainment Studies (CMES, MICA) for their unconditional support to materialise the project. The eld team needs a special mention those who collected the data from the eld are Ms. Trishla Jhaveri, Ms. Rukaiya Kapasi, Ms. Ritika Thakkar, Mr. Ankit Pahwa, Ms. Sukruti Iyer and Ms. Purvisha Sharma (PGPM-C, Batch 2017-19) for undertaking this as a part pf their rural project and collected data for this research project.

Also, I extent my gratitude to Mr. Vijay Uttekar, Ms. Sajitha Joshy, Ms. Mannan Purohit, Mr. Avdesh Jani and Mr. Naveed Dadan for their support in data analysis, transcription, report editing and designing.

I hope that the ndings of this study will enable Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF) in implementing more innovative programmes for the benet of farming and other communities around Kodinar.

Best Wishes,

Santosh K. Patra, Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Head, Centre for Media and Entertainment Studies (CMES),

MICA, Ahmedabad

India

Introduction

Chapter 01

1.3 Background of Lokvani

While setting up Lokvani, it was noticed that the Extension services in Agriculture and Allied Interventions has been always faced bottlenecks in rural India. Though a lot of work has been done by scientists at various State Agriculture University's (SAU) and Agriculture Research Institutes, there is an existing gap between knowledge creation, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge adaptation in the context of Indian agricultural innovations. To bridge this gap, the extension service of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) had launched Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) in 1974 at Pondicherry. In similar lines and as a continuation of the mission, Ambuja Cement Foundation laid down a Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Junagadh, Gujarat, in partnership with ICAR. Within a short span of three years, the KVK became very popular in the district. It was therefore felt that a CRS can serve as a valuable tool to disseminate the best indigenous practices, techniques and technologies in the area. It functioned as a focal point for community engagement and enhancement of adoption of technologies among the masses. With active community participation in all aspects of production and broadcast, a dedicated radio service for the region had huge potential and brought revolutionary tangible benets for its listeners.

1.4 Research Objectives

Ÿ To identify the reach (listenership) of the community radio station 'Lokvani’

Ÿ To measure the consumption pattern and consumption of the content disseminated through the community radio service.

Ÿ To understand the gap between content delivered and content required for more community integration.

Ÿ To identify the emerging patterns and change drivers through the content consumption process of the community radio station.

1.5 Research Methodology

To address the above-mentioned objectives, the research has adopted Quantitative and as well as Qualitative methods, to understand the reach, content consumption pattern, consumption

behaviour, and effectiveness of the knowledge consumed.

Following steps were adopted to gather data from the community reached by Lokvani through the radio frequency. Primary information was collected from the Krishi Vikas Kendra (KVK) to do the sampling to administer a pre-designed questionnaire and conduct required number of focused group discussions.

01 | Consumer, Communication and Content (CCC) of a Community Radio Station: A Study of ‘Lokvani’ Consumer, Communication and Content (CCC) of a Community Radio Station: A Study of ‘Lokvani’ | 02

1.1 Introduction

The relationship between information ow and national or local-level development is better understood in recent years; as has the role of communication processes in mediating social and individual change (Singh, Importance of Community Radio, 2018). Primarily, communication is a social process that produces change in knowledge, attitude and behaviour of individuals and groups through providing factual and technical information, through motivational or persuasive messages, and through facilitating the learning process and social environment.

Community broadcasting is a non-prot service managed through a trust, a foundation, or an association. Its aim is to serve and benet that community (Seidu Al-hassan, 2011). It is, in effect a form of public-service broadcasting, but it serves a community rather than the whole nation and relies mainly on the resources of the community. A community is considered to be a group of people who share common characteristics and/or interests (Neal, 2014). The commonality of interests may be based on: the sharing of a single geographical location, that is to say those living in a specic town, village, or neighbourhood; the sharing of economic and social life through trade, marketing, and exchange of goods and services. Community radio typically serves the interests of a particular community (like peasant community, tribal community, student community etc.) located in a xed geographical area. Community radio usually broadcasts programmes related to the target population with their own participation, and thus, it becomes a medium that gives voice to the voiceless; that serves as the mouthpiece of the marginalized and is at the heart of communication and democratic processes within societies (KHOI, 2018). It catalyses the development efforts of rural folk and the underprivileged segments of urban societies, given its exceptional ability to share timely and relevant information on developmental issues, opportunities, experiences, life skills and public interests.

Community based Radio services (CRS) in India were started after the rst policy for Community Radios was approved in the year 2002. The policy allowed only Educational Institutions to set up Community Radios. This policy was made broad-based in 2006 when grassroots organizations like NGOs and other Not-for-Prot organizations were also allowed to set up Community Radios in India. The lack of penetration of the CRS can be attributed to stringent guidelines for setting up, heavy initial investment and a cumbersome process. In fact, the entire process of granting licenses runs

contrary to the spirit of the CRS, where broadcasting would be liberated from the clutches of regulation and centralized control (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 2017)

1.2 Literature Review

Radio is the most pervasive and economical electronic medium in the world with the potential to serve as an 'ideal medium for change'.

“The Radio is an Apparatus of Communication. Radio is one sided when it should be two. It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So, here is a positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. The radio would be the nest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to receive as well as transmit, how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him. On this principle the radio should step out of the supply business and organize its listeners as suppliers.” (Brecht, 1932).

The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) gives a broad denition for community radio, which includes rural, urban, music oriented and political stations. AMARC denes community radio as any radio that “contributes to the expression of social, cultural, and political movements in all their diversity, as well as to the promotion of all initiatives for peace, friendship among people, democracy and development. The Indian experience with community radio broadcasting presents two useful characteristics:

1. A step-by-step introduction of community radio. Starting with radio forums and accompanied by debates that led to policy development regulating community radio licensing.

2. NGOs and government collaboration facilitating community broadcasting development.

In this era of growing inclination towards market-driven consumerist and commercial ideals, the role of community media at large becomes signicantly pertinent and sacrosanct. An essential component of community media is community radio (Abrol, 2011)

Step - I

a. Cluster Creation

Distance is considered as one of the major enabler of radio frequency and distribution. Considering, distance-constrained network of community radio stations we have considered the distance as the major yardstick to divide the Lokvani listenership community into three major clusters. All villages under the KVK identied and categorized into three clusters in terms of its distance from the KVK centre. First cluster consists of the villages under the reach of Lokvani that are within 07 KM range from the KVK centre, second cluster consisted villages within the range of 8-12 KM and third cluster consists of villages beyond 12 KM range of KVK. Distance and total number of villages in each cluster are given in the table mentioned below (for further details please refer the Annexure).

b. Sample Selection

Each cluster consists of 16-19 villages (Table 1.1) and for generating a holistic perspective of listeners across the clusters it was proposed to collect data from 450 respondents equally divided from each cluster i.e. 150 respondents from each cluster. To identify 150 respondents from each cluster, this study used the farmers list provided by KVK. Considering the response rate in a face-to-face interview in the context of rural community, it was decided to consider 30% more sample than the minimum target of 150 respondents in each cluster. As a result, it was decided to select 200 respondents from the list of farmers provided by the KVK to achieve minimum of 150 respondents in each cluster. Considering a substantial shing community in one of the villages (Dhamlej) in Cluster – II we have created a pool of 50 sample households in this community and 22 of them interviewed in the process (Table 1.2).

c. Intra-cluster village selection

Each cluster has around 16 to 19 village (Table 1.1). To bring more uniformity among the samples vis-à-vis the listening pattern, the study selected ve villages in each cluster with simple random techniques (Table 1.2).

d. Final Respondent Selection

KVK database on farmers of selected ve villages were considered as the respondent's primary universe and by adopting simple random techniques 200 respondents were identied among the ve villages of each cluster. These selected 200 respondents from each cluster were targeted to administer the questionnaire with the face-to-face interview technique. The detailed distribution of the design is given in the Table 1.3.

e. Instrument Design

A pre-structured close ended instrument (questionnaire) was designed with multi-format questions by considering the objectives of the study viz. total reach, consumption, content, and impact (RCCI model). The instrument was veried by the ACF team and nalized post-factoring changes suggested by the ACF team.

Cluster Village Name Taluka Total Sampled householdActual data

collected from each village

Cluster 1

1 Inchvad Nani Kodinar

200 sampled households

8

2 Matana Sutrapada 16

3 Pedhavada Kodinar 18

4 Solaj Sutrapada 22

5 Vadnagar Kodinar 108

Total Number of Respondents 178

Cluster 2

6 Dhamlej Sutrapada

200 sampled households + 50 shing households from Dhamlej Village

110

7 Gangetha Sutrapada 8

8 Kadodara Kodinar 26

9 Panadar Kodinar 54

10 Pipalva Bavana Kodinar 19


Cluster 3

11 Barevla Sutrapada

200 sampled households

15

12 Chhachhar Kodinar 46

13 Chhara Kodinar 63

14 Kadsala Sutrapada 7

15 Panch Pipalva Kodinar 19


650 539

Cluster Villages in Each Cluster Distance from KVK

Cluster I 16 upto 7 km

Cluster II 19 8 -12 km

Cluster III 16 13 km and above

i


Table 1.1: Cluster division of villages basis distance from KVK¹

Table 1.2: Village and Respondents Details in Each Cluster

1 The details of cluster division is given in the annexure. source KVK.

Step II

a. Qualitative Techniques Used

Focused Group Discussion (FGDs) and In-depth interview were adopted to nd out the insights and consumer behaviour of the listener community in the selected villages. Convenient purposive method used to conduct FGDs in three different villages (one from each cluster). Some of the village inuencers were selected with purposive samplings and Panchayat Sarpanchs and community leaders were interviewed to gather insights from the community. The details are given in the Table 1.3.

Step III

a. Analysis of the Data

Preliminary analysis of the collected data suggested that the data captured a vast range of age group of respondents varying from 15-91 years (primarily as indicated by the respondents during the time of interview). However, this was organically captured but for the convenience of analysis, data was sanitized by adopting the desired demographic mapping and respondent's age group range was created between 20-60 years. This is primarily to avoid outliers and goes by the denition given by the census of India for working population in agricultural sector which has a range between 15-59 years of age group. As per census of India, “when it comes to farming, people who are involved in agriculture in the initial ages do not take part in decision-making and work

2only as laborers within their own farms or outside .”

Post sanitization of the data and with the age bracket of 20-60 years we have considered total of 466 responses from the eld as the nal unit of our analysis. Simple statistical tools like cross tabulation was adopted to generate the required tables for further analysis of the gathered data. Insights were taken from the FGDs and in-depth interviews and this has also helped to outline the recommendations and way forward for Lokvani.

Stage 1: Quantitative

Total Sample Size and Design for the Survey

SrNo

Total number of villages

Total no of households Proposed number of respondents

Number of intervies conducted

1 Cluster- I 7623 150 172

2 Cluster - II 11202 150 217

3 Cluster - III 6145 150 150

Total 450 539

Stage 2 : Q ualitative

4 Focus G roup D iscussion ( FGD)

Cluster No. of FGDs

Cluster-I 1

Cluster-II 1

Cluster-III 1

Total FGDs 3

5 In-depth I nterview

In-depth interview of 5 village Sarpanch and village Mukhias happened by adopting convenient sampling

5


ii

iii

Table 1.3: Research Method Process and Flow

2 http://censusindia.gov.in/vital_statistics/SRS_Report/9Chap%202%20-%202011.pdf accessed on March 30,2019

Lokvani’s connectto consumers:

Exploring reachand diversityChapter 02

Age Listener % Non-listener % Total % Total (N)

21-35 years 31.3 68.7 50.0 233

36-50 years 25.6 74.4 37.8 176

51-60 years 17.5 82.5 12.2 57

Education

Illiterate 8.8 91.3 17.2 80

Below 10th 24.6 75.4 37.6 175

10th -12th pass 35.4 64.6 21.2 99

Graduate 35.6 64.4 19.3 90

Post graduate 50.0 50.0 4.7 22

Occupation

Farmers with/without land 29.3 70.7 60.7 283

Labourers 8.9 91.1 17.0 79

Fishermen 56.3 43.8 3.4 16

Other 33.0 67.0 18.9 88

Total (N) 128 338 100 466

Gender & Family Income Lokvani listener

(%)Lokvani non-listeners (%)

Total Number

Gender

Male 33.0 67.0 70.8 330

Female 14.0 86.0 29.19 136

100 % 466

Family Income (monthly)

Upto Rs. 5,000 23.5 76.5 31.97 149

Rs. 5000-10000 27.8 72.2 40.12 187

Rs. 10000-20000 30.8 69.2 19.52 91

Rs. 20000-50000 30.6 69.4 7.72 36

Rs. 50000-100000 66.7 33.3 0.64 3

128 338 100 % 466

Overall listenership 27.5 72.5 100 % -


2.1 Age, Education &Occupation: prime drivers tounderstand listeners

While understanding the reach of Lokvani and identifying listeners it is noticed that primarily age, education and occupation are key differentiators of respondents in terms of their listenership. Half of the respondents are in the age group of 21-35 years, out of which 31.3% are Lokvani listeners. Only 37% respondents are in the age group of 36-50 and age group 50-60 only represents 12% of respondents in this study. While 25% of mid-aged respondents are Lokvani listeners, only 17% of the respondents in the age group of 50-60 are Lokvani listeners. This is an interesting trend to identify that young farmers are more Lokvani listeners than the mid aged or older population of the community. Young population in the age group of 21-35 are more adoptive to the new age knowledge and may be more prone towards accepting change reected on usage of Lokvani as one of the tool to gather knowledge than others (Table 2.1).

The listenership becomes more interesting, if we factor the education of the respondents and there is a clear trend of higher the education more the listenership. Irrespective the number of respondents in a particular education range, the data indicates that illiterate respondents are more averse to listening Lokvani than the literate and highly educated respondents are. If we see almost 50% of the post graduate respondents are Lokvani listeners, while only 8% of illiterate respondents are Lokvani listeners. Listenership trend increases with the increase of education level of respondents (Table 2.1). This is a clear indication of education as the tool to drive the change and both level of education need to be linked with the knowledge sharing to address the issues and bring the change in the society.

With age group and education, if we bring the nature of occupation 78% of respondents are directly or indirectly related to agriculture (land owner/ land less farmers and agricultural labourers). Only 22% of respondents are non-agricultural workers (shermen and other occupations like kirana store owners, drivers etc.). This is interesting to note that only 30% respondents directly or indirectly associated with agriculture are Lokvani listeners while shermen and other occupation groups (56% & 33% Lokvani listeners respectively) listen to Lokvani that respondents associated with agriculture (Table 2.1).

These three factors can be clubbed together to notice the trends that Lokvani listeners are primarily

educated young population of the community than the older age group and lesser educated groups among the selected villages of the community. The tendency of changing primary occupation from agriculture to tertiary sectors like government, private sectors, small business, local trade, driving etc. leads to less listenership among the respondents directly or indirectly relating to the agricultural works (Table 2.1).

2.1.1 Gender and family income as a factor in Lokvani listenership

Like the age group, education and occupation, gender and family income also has a major role to play in determining the respondent's listenership habit. Though this is quite evident that agricultural activities are primarily male centred and female supported activity in rural India, being an agricultural focused community radio Lokvani would draw more male listeners than female listeners. Though there are total of 70 % male respondents and only 30 % female respondents but the percentage of male listeners outnumbered the female listeners (Table 2.2). Out of total male respondents, 33% of them are Lokvani listeners and only 14 % of total female respondents are Lokvani listeners.

Like education and occupation, it is also interesting to note that people of more afuent groups with higher family income are more Lokvani listeners than the people from lower economic groups. Among the total respondents with the family income up to INR 5000 per month only 23% of them are Lokvani listeners. However, it is to be noticed that with gradual increase in family income the share of Lokvani listeners do increase gradually (Table 2.2).

Most interesting insight of this section is that with higher socio-economic-education proles in the community leads to more awareness towards the activities they are involved in and that resulted into more Lokvani listeners. This is a clear case of not only information access but role of socio-economic-education groups to utilize the knowledge accessed by different mediums.

Table 2.1: Age, Education and Occupation

Table 2.2: Lokvani listeners profile and diversity in terms of gender & income

2.2 Contextualisng Lokvani in Multi-Channel Information Flow

2.2.1 Access to other medium of Information: Lokvani listeners vs. non-listeners

In the multi-channel information society, other than Lokvani respondent in the given community have access to other channels of communication. However, we have not observed through this study about the consumption pattern of respondents through other channels of communication other than Lokvani. However, this is evident from the data that Lokvani listeners are most conscious information consumers of the community. Even if the percentage of Lokvani consumers are 27.46% but they are most active in connecting through other channels of communication. Close analysis of Lokvani non-listeners found that out of total Lokvani non-listeners 54.4% of respondent still live in a media dark period without any connection to any of the available media channels (Table 2.3).

A closer look at data and it can be found that out of total Lokvani listeners almost 85% of the respondents also consume information or entertainment through Television channels, which is followed by newspaper 85.2% and what's app 44.5%. This is an indication that Lokvani listeners are not only connected through multi-channel communication networks but also their newspaper readership suggests that they are the most literate groups of the community. Only 11.7% of Lokvani listeners are exclusive Lokvani consumers and dependent upon the information aired through the Lokvani and are not connected through any other communication channels. Lokvani consumers are not only the literate groups of the community but their Facebook (35.9%) and WhatsApp (44.5%) access also suggest that they are technologically also more connected to the global world (Table 2.3). With this data set, it is safe to assume that Lokvani listeners are the most socio-economic-educationally afuent community than others. Even if Lokvani connects to a smaller group in the community but they are the right community to start the information network which needs to capitalise further.

2.2.2 Lokvani Listeners community's priority of communication channels for agriculture related information

Previous section indicates about the information rich network of Lokvani consumers, which needs to be further, proved for their priority of communication

channels in terms of consuming agriculture related information. As Lokvani primarily is aimed at addressing issues related to agriculture and farming community of the society this is important for the study to identify how the Lokvani listeners prioritise communication channels when it comes to specic information need relating to agriculture. Table 2.4 highlights some of the crucial issues raised in this section.

To address the prioritisation of communication channels when respondents were asked to rank the Lokvani in a rank range of 1-5 for providing quality agricultural content, it was found that Lokvani is quite preferred channel for the Lokvani listeners as almost 62% of respondents mentioned this as rank 1 or 2 in terms of providing the quality agricultural content. Only around 18% listeners listed it as rank 4 or 5. This is a clear indication that Lokvani listeners consider that this community radio provides quality agriculture related content over other.

On the contrary, this was also asked for other communication channels and next to Lokvani (39.8%), TV stands at most preferred communication channel for providing quality agricultural content with 31.3% Lokvani listeners ranked TV as number one channel for consuming agricultural information. TV was followed by newspaper (14.8%), WhatsApp (10.9%) and Facebook 3.1% respondents ranked them as number one communication channels for quality agricultural content respectively (Table 2.4). The listener's community is primarily dependent upon Lokvani and TV for quality agricultural content and knowledge. To make it more integrative, both Lokvani and TV content needs to be observed closely and an integrative model can be developed.

Lokvani listener Lokvani non-listener Total % Total N

Other Sources of Media

None 11.7 54.4 42.7 199

Newspaper 61.7 29.0 38.0 177

Television 85.2 41.7 53.6 250

Facebook 35.9 14.2 20.2 94

WhatsApp 44.5 14.5 22.7 106

Total % 27.46 72.63 100%

Total Number 128 338 - 466

*Multiple responses applicable

Percentage Number

Lokvani rank as source of information in terms of content quality in agriculture

Rank 1 39.8 51

Rank 1 21.9 28

Rank 1 19.5 25

Rank 1 9.4 12

Rank 1 9.4 12

Total 100.0 128

Ranked number one source of information in terms of content quality in agriculture by Lokvani listeners

Newspaper 14.8 19

Television 31.3 40

Facebook 3.1 4

Whatsapp 10.9 14

Lokvani 39.8 51

Total 100.0 128


Table 2.3: Community Consumption of Information from Different Media Channels

Table 2.4: Available Media Channels among Lokvani Listeners as a source of agricultural information

Type of programs aired & listened by respondents

Gender

Total % Total N

Male % Female %

Agricultural information 78.7 68.4 77.2 98

Culture/Folk related content 46.3 68.4 49.6 63

General awareness 33.3 31.6 33.1 42

News updates 55.6 52.6 55.1 70

Total 108 19 - 127

Multiple responses applicable

“We usually listen to the radio when we are working,

sometimes news, bhajans, and music (FGD- 1 conducted at Dhamlej among the women

community).”

86.2% male listeners prefer agricultural shows while female listeners prefer both agricultural

(89.5 %) as well as entertainment shows (68.4).

“I do not have time to listen to the radio. Earlier when I was studying I used to listen, but now I am so busy farming that I do not get the time. If I have ten to

fteen minutes of time we spend it on YouTube. Radio was once a means for entertainment for people and

was an exceptional thing. But now with the new technology, computer world, and this world of smart

phones and internet, people have moved on to internet. That's what I personally think.” Said Sarpanch of one

of the selected villages for the study.


2.3 Programmes types and listenership of Lokvani

In previous sections, we have witnessed that, there is a clear dependency among the Lokvani listeners for information related to agricultural contents. Listener's community is more information networked than others are. However, this is also important to observe and map the different content types aired through the Lokvani community radio. Table 2.5 highlights the different programme types aired by Lokvani and response of Lokvani listeners.

As indicated by the table above, this is pertinent to identify that along with the agricultural content Lokvani listeners are also well tuned with Lokvani for the content related to entertainment, general awareness and news updates. This indicates that there is a huge scope and potential for Lokvani to tap the audience requirements of the community to become the most trusted communication channel of that locality. This is been observed irrespective of any gender.

As suggested by the data mentioned in the Table 2.5, both 78% male and 68% female have given importance to agricultural information they consume through the Lokvani. When it comes to the culture and folk related content, females (68 %) outnumbered males (46%) in terms of listenership. However, for general awareness and news updates both male and female listeners are almost equal in terms of percentage of listeners. Nevertheless, this is important to note that percentage of Lokvani

listeners valued the general awareness and news updates are quite high (Table 2.5).

This is being projected as Lokvani is the community radio station meant for the farming community of the locality and primarily expected to deliver information related to agriculture. However, it has been airing other content related to entertainment, news and cultural content as its secondary focus but most of the listeners considers this as an important medium for their daily dose of entertainment, news and cultural content updates. This would be one of the opportunity for Lokvani to create a strong listener base by widening the range of its content without compromising the basic objective of the community radio station. Needless to mention that more trusted listeners of the community radio, more information networked it is and that would work as the dividend to capitalise the prime objective of upliftment of farming community in the locality.

Table 2.5: Lokvani Programme Types and Listeners Association with Programme Aired by Lokvani

2.4 Time measurement and mapping of listener's engagement with Lokvani

Most of the analysis given in above section indicated the importance of Lokvani for the agrarian community of the locality. It has also explained how Lokvani has been instrumental for a selected listener's group for creating an information network particularly in agricultural sector. There is no doubt about the dependency of listeners on the communication channels like Lokvani and how this platform successfully connected with a specic group of consumers in the locality through the specic and desired content. That needs to be strengthened further. Table 2.6 indicates the intensity of the listener's tendency on Lokvani in terms of time they invest on Lokvani for consuming the desired content. This will further intensify the content connectivity and content dependency of consumers through the platform of Lokvani.

As Table 2.6 indicates above, 59% of the respondents among the Lokvani listeners listen to Lokvani every day and 33% listen to Lokvani at least once every week. This not only indicates the Lokvani listener's engagement with the community radio station but also depth of the content consumption when around 60% listener's everyday listens to the programmes aired by Lokvani. There is no stark difference between male and female listeners in terms of their regularity of Lokvani consumption (Table 2.6). Which itself is signicant indication of the dependency of the listener's on this particular communication channel. To prove this further, the second part of the table indicates approximate hours of Lokvani listenership and 46% of respondents of the listeners community indicated that they listen more than 6 hours in a week. More than 6 hours in a week stands for average of one hour every day, which is a great time engagement comparative to any other medium of information consumption (Table 2.6). This weaves the story of not only connectedness to content provided by Lokvani but also amount of time listener's invest in consuming the Lokvani content.

2.5 Conclusion

This section primarily explored the consumer connect to the content of Lokvani. Some of the primary observation of the section indicates the large section of the locality are still under media dark category, which is a huge potential for Lokvani to capitalise and strengthen the network.

However, the strength of the Lokvani is its listener's community though in terms of percentage, it is a small section than non-listeners but they are not only well connected but also well invested throughout the Lokvani's programme. There is no major difference between male and female listeners of the Lokvani programmes. The striking observation of this section is how Lokvani is the most preferred medium of information gathering among the socio-economic-educationally afuent community. This can be generalised in terms of global information consumption and consumption patterns of India as well. Finally, the observation towards the listeners interest for content other than agriculture is also quite interesting to note and this needs to be capitalised further by the Lokvani community radio station to strengthen the network further and deepen within the community.

Frequency of listening Lokvani

Gender

Total % Total N

Male % Female %

Daily 58.3 63.2 59.1 75

Weekly 32.4 36.8 33.1 42

Fortnightly 3.7 0.0 3.1 4

Once in a month 1.9 0.0 1.6 2

Around a year on some occasions 3.7 0.0 3.1 4

Hours spent per week, on an average, on Lokvani

Less than 5 hours 54.6 47.4 53.5 68

6-10 hours 41.7 52.6 43.3 55

10-15 hours 1.9 0.0 1.6 2

15-20 hours 1.9 0.0 1.6 2

Total % 100.0 100.0 - 127

Total 108 19 100.0 -


Table 2.6: Listener's engagement in terms of time spent for listening Lokvani programmes

Content usage,Impact &

effectiveness of LokvaniChapter 03

Level of satisfaction with the content of Lokvani

Gender %Total % Total N

Male Female

Highly satised 22.9 5.3 20.3 26

Satised 57.8 84.2 61.7 79

Neutral 17.4 5.3 15.6 20

Dissatised 1.8 5.3 2.3 3

Total 109 19 100 128

Opinion about making further improvement on Lokvani's programme Content

Strongly Agree 14 10.9

Agree 66 51.6

No Opinion / Can't say 34 26.6

Disagree 14 10.9

Opinion about usage of the aired content and right implementation of the content.

Strongly Agree 15 11.7

Agree 56 43.8

No Opinion / Can't say 49 38.3

Disagree 7 5.5

Strongly Disagree 1 0.8

Total 128 100.0


3.1 Content Consumption, Usability & Impact

In previous chapter, we discussed about the Lokvani's connectedness to consumers and community and their engagement with the content aired by Lokvani. There was clear distinction about the Lokvani listeners and non-listeners and engagement of listeners with the Lokvani content. This chapter will primarily focus on content consumption, levels of satisfaction, content usability, effectiveness of the content and nally end with the reason of not listening to Lokvani by the non-listeners group within the community. The objective is to clearly identify the usability and effectiveness of the content to take the work of Lokvani further in strengthening the farmer's community. This will not only help the community to gain the maximum from farming but also help them gaining maximum economic benets from the occupation. This chapter is primarily divided into three major sections. First section deals with the general listeners and their levels of satisfaction with the content aired by Lokvani. Second section, directly talks about the farmers community (64.84%) of the total listeners and effectiveness of the Lokvani in their day-to-day farming activities and how directly or indirectly Lokvani affected their family income and economy in general. Finally, the chapter ends by exploring the reason behind the non-listeners dissociation with Lokvani.

3.2 Listeners satisfaction of Lokvani Programme and Content

Post reviewing the facts of connectedness through the Lokvani programme contents and before getting into measuring the direct or indirect impact of Lokvani, it is pertinent to understand the levels of satisfaction among the listeners on the programme content. The table below indicates that out of total Lokvani listeners most of them indicated that they are satised with the content delivered by Lokvani. Though this is quite expected as we are, talking about the Lokvani listeners so most of them continue to be a listener of Lokvani indicates that they are more or less satised with the content. However, in the later part of the chapter we will discuss about the reason for not listening Lokvani by present non-listeners in the community.

Table 3.1 indicates that 20% of total Lokvani listeners respondents are highly satised about the content aired by Lokvani, whereas 61% expressed their satisfaction and 15.6% are neutral about this

and did not express anything about the satisfaction level of their content consumption through they are regular listeners of the Lokvani. Only 2.3% of Lokvani listeners are not satised with the content aired by Lokvani and our recommendation chapter highlights some of the issues and concerned raised by Lokvani listeners about the content they consume through the community radio. Those insights are primarily from the qualitative part of the study.

With the level of satisfaction card from Lokvani listener's there is always a scope for improvement and making it better. Just to understand how many people feel that there is a scope for improvement even if they are satised with the present content, Table 3.2 will explain that the number of people has a strong opinion about improving the content of Lokvani. The nature of improvement required is captured through the qualitative responses from the eld and being highlighted in the recommendation chapter of the report.

The table mentioned above raises two important questions, rst one highlights the opinion of Lokvani listener's for further improvement of the content and second one talks about the content implementation by the Lokvani listeners. Most of the listeners are primarily agreeing for some kind of improvement in the Lokvani's programme. Though only 10.9% listeners strongly agree for the improvement of the content but more than 50% of respondents agreed for improvement in the Lokvani's content. Out of total listeners respondents 26.6% of respondents are neutral and have no opinion about this but it's interesting to note that 10.9 % of total listeners respondents are quite content about the programme aired by Lokvani (Table 3.2).

Along with the listeners, opinion about content improvement this is important to understand that almost 50% of the listeners respondents feel that there is right usage of the knowledge shared by Lokvani and Lokvani's content is implemented in the right direction. Though around 38.3 % of listeners have no opinion about the implementation of the content aired by Lokvani. People disagreeing or highly disagreeing about the Lokvani's content implementation is very small and some of the reason of non-implementation of Lokvani's programme is captured and mentioned in the recommendation section of the chapter.

Table 3.1: Listener's level of satisfaction in Lokvani's content aired

Table 3.2: Listener's opinion on Lokvani's content aired and further improvement

3.3 Effect and Impact of Lokvani information on Farmer listeners of the community

After the macro analysis of the respondents in previous chapter, we have been discussing about the Lokvani listeners, their engagement and usage of knowledge, this is important to get a micro look at the beneciaries of the programme directly involved in farming and agricultural related activities. Though the percentage of farmers among the Lokvani listeners are 64.83% but they constitute an important segment of the study by considering the objectives of the Lokvani programme and also the intention of the community radio station. The primary objective of the community radio station is to touch the lives of community members in general but to help the lives and livelihood of the farmers and agricultural communities in particular. Considering the prime objective of Lokvani this is pertinent to note the impact and effect of Lokvani in lives and livelihood of the farmer listeners.

3.3.1 Knowledge consumption, usage and output

The table 3.3 and subsequent tables highlight the direct impact of Lokvani in the lives of farmers. Primarily the impact is considered in terms of specic knowledge on agricultural practices they gain through the community radio station and how directly or indirectly this affects their families economic conditions and increase in family income.

Table 3.3 highlights three major things, which directly, effects the knowledge upgradation of farmers, changing agricultural practices and has a direct effect on the family income of farmer listeners.

As indicated in table 3.3 around 80% of farmer listeners agreed that Lokvani programme beneted in enhancing their agricultural knowledge, out of which 22.9 % are strongly agreeing for this and 56.6% are agreeing for this. While only 18% farmer listeners have no opinion about their knowledge improvement and 2.4% are not agreeing with this (Table 3.3). Change in knowledge by consuming information directly affects the practice of the knowledge and which is evident through this data captured from the eld. Quite similar number around 80% of the farmer listeners have agreed that Lokvani programme knowledge has helped in changing agricultural processes and further increases the agricultural produces. The spiral effect of knowledge, usage of knowledge and increase in productivity is visible in the information captured through the data

highlighted in Table 3.3.

Finally, raise in agricultural productivity is directly proportionate to the increase in family income and economic condition of the family. Around 71% of farmer listeners agreed that the consumption and usage of agricultural knowledge through the Lokvani programme positively affected their family income by increasing the productivity in agriculture. Only 18% of them are neutral and 1.3% are not agreeing with this.

Therefore, we can safely conclude that the knowledge shared by Lokvani has upgraded farmers knowledge in the community, helped them in practicing those knowledge and getting visible output in agricultural productivity and family income.

3.3.2 Specic knowledge of agricultural process with technology upgradation

While diving deep into the knowledge accumulation and usage the study explored the details about the knowledge, knowledge usage and effect of technological upgradation is one of the key drivers for the agricultural productivity. Table 3.4 highlights the specic impact of tools and techniques introduced by Lokvani in the local agricultural practices.

Three major changes happened to the local farmers community in their agricultural practices that are upgradation of technology, usage of relevant genetically modied seeds and usage of appropriate fertiliser. While attempting to understand each one of them this is noticed that almost 90% of the farmers either strongly agreed (32.5%) or agreed (55.4%) that they have received relevant information for technological upgradation in turn increase in farm produces. Quite close to the technological upgradation aspect 73% of them either strongly agreed (20.5%) or agreed (53%) that Lokvani provided information on relevant genetically modied crops and which is quite relevant to that. Almost 85% of farmer listeners either strongly agree (24%) or agreed (61.4%) that they have learned the usage of appropriate fertilisers through the Lokvani's programme and helping them further increased in crop productivity (Table 3.4).

Lokvani Effect on Farmer Listeners Strongly Agree

AgreeNo

Opinion / Can't say

DisagreeStrongly disagree

Total

Lokvani programme beneted in enhancing and using knowledge through agricultural processes.

22.9 56.6 18.1 2.4 0.0 83

Lokvani programme knowledge helped in changing agricultural processes and further increase in agricultural produces.

18.1 51.8 22.9 7.2 0.0 83

Directly affected and changed economic condition of the family through agricultural development.

13.3 57.8 18.1 9.6 1.2 83

Lokvani Effect on Farmer Listeners Strongly Agree

AgreeNo

Opinion / Can't say


Total

Relevant information received on the usage and change in technology to harvest crops in a better way

32.5 55.4 3.6 8.4 0.0 83

Relevant information received on the usage of genetically modied seeds enabling the harvesting of crops more efciently.

20.5 53.0 15.7 7.2 3.6 83

Relevant information received on the usage of fertilizers and further increased in crops.

24.1 61.4 4.8 7.2 2.4 83


Table 3.3: Use and Effectiveness of Lokvani programmes among the farmer listeners of the community

Table 3.4: Specific Impact of tools and techniques used in agriculture in last five years

Economic impact of Lokvani on Farmer Listeners

Strongly Agree

AgreeNo

Opinion / Can't say


Total

Relevant information received on nearby market information, Mandi prices and demand forecasting.

9.6 44.6 21.7 16.9 7.2 83

Directly helped in increasing family income among the agrarian community

16.9 49.4 26.5 7.2 0.0 83

Lokvani information indirectly helped through different means in generating revenue for the family

13.3 45.8 28.9 12.0 0.0 83

Reasons of not listening to Lokvani (non-listeners) and its gender distribution

What are the reasons for not listening to Lokvani

Gender %Overall

Total Number

Male Female

Not specied 7.2 23.1 12.7 43

No time 38.0 34.2 36.7 124

Airing time does not match schedule 6.3 1.7 4.7 16

Not able to understand 4.5 2.6 3.8 13

Transmission difculty 4.1 7.7 5.3 18

Content is not suitable 3.6 1.7 3.0 10

Other/No Knowledge 42.5 41.0 42.0 142

Total Number 221 117 338


3.3.3 Lokvani as the tool of economic upgradation in the farming community

Translation of relevant information into knowledge and knowledge into productivity and productivity into appropriate monetisation is the key to success of any communication or information channel. Particularly when we talk about a tool like community, radio the ultimate objective is to using the knowledge for the upliftment of the community and society by enhancing socio-economic status of concerned population. Glance through the table given below will update us how Lokvani helped the farmer listeners community in realising their dreams increasing farm productivity and ultimate fuelling their family income.

Increase in productivity is not the ultimate objective of the community radio station like Lokvani. In most of the cases we have noticed that even after increasing productivity farmers remain distressed because of being unaware about market situation and getting the right price of the produces. In number of newspaper, stories tells us every day how distressed farmers put their farm produces like potato, tomato to garbage because of failure in right market linkage. While we have asked the farmer listeners about the market information, Mandi pricing and demand forecasting by the Lokvani almost 59% of them either strongly agreed (9.6%) and agreed (49.4%) to this. Though this is substantially lower than other segments like technological knowledge etc. but this is a quite encouraging gure to get. Needless to mention that Lokvani needs to work on this to make it more relevant and strengthening the programmes. As market linking is the key to the ultimate success and monetisation of agricultural outputs when this is asked that how directly these information helped in increasing the family income almost 56% strongly agreed (16.9%) or agreed (49.4%) to this. This is also echoed when it was asked about indirect benet of Lokvani programmes and information helping their family income (Table 3.5).

This completes the knowledge cycle of Lokvani programme from knowledge dissemination, knowledge access, consumption and usage and nally monetisation of knowledge by increasing family income.

3.4 Reason for Lokvani non-listeners to exclude themselves form the information network

This is not the question about listening or not listening Lokvani, rather this raises the key question of apathy of community members to be a part of

the information network. As non-listeners constitutes almost 70% of the total respondents, this is important for us to end this by understanding the reason behind non-participation of the initiative, which fuels the knowledge economy of the society. Following table explains why people don't listen Lokvani though it proved to be benecial for them.

As indicated in the table above along with many other minor reason non-listeners cited that they don't have time to listen Lokvani, which constitutes almost 38%. However, the knowledge gathered from the eld pointed out that this is rather unaware about the required knowledge than the non-availability of time is the major factor for non-listenership. This is also reected as one of the reason for non-listenership as almost 42.5 % of respondents agreed that they don't have knowledge that how this will help their agricultural productivity, hence apathy to be a part of the information network and investing their time for that. Along with these two major phenomena, small sections of the non-listener respondents do feel that they don't understand the programme content, some of them raised the issue of content suitability among other factors disclosed in the qualitative interactions and highlighted in the recommendation section.

3.5 Conclusion

The purpose of any communication channel is not only disseminate the information rather closely observe who are the consumers of the information, how the information is being received, consumed and translated to knowledge. This chapter attempted to capture the knowledge and information about the Lokvani and how it impacted the lives of listeners and particularly the farmer listeners. Farmer listeners are the prime target group of the Lokvani and in spite of limited reach to farmer listeners this is gratifying to note that how this has touched lives of many farmer listeners in multiple ways. Listeners in general and farmer listeners in particular express their opinion about the importance of the knowledge shared by Lokvani also it is evident that how this has improved their socio-economic condition in the society. Going forward the challenge of Lokvani is not only improving the content as per respondents opinion but also converting the non-listeners into listeners with right advocacy, documenting success stories and promoting the knowledge capital in the given society.

Table 3.5: Lokvani's direct impact on the economy of agrarian community of the locality

Table 3.6: Major reasons of not listening to Lokvani (non-listeners) and its gender distribution

Gaps,Recommendations

& Way ForwardChapter 04

4.4 Connect- Platforms/Mediums of Communication (Issues of Infrastructure)

This is the major challenge and I would say the biggest challenge for the Lokvani Radio. This needs to be studied carefully and addressed with appropriate measures.

4.1 Overview

Radio could be easily termed as the earliest mode of information and entertainment available for people. The early use of radio dates back to the time when it was used by marines to exchange Morse Code. The 21st century has seen use of radio as a mass media that is used for disseminating news, playing lm songs and largely as a medium for advertisement. In rural India, radio has been well proven as a tool that brought many a social reforms, changes in behaviour and development in livelihood. Consumer, Communication, Content of a Community Radio Station: A study of Lokvani delved into group of listeners, messages aired and the type of programmes. In depth study of Lokvani done in 15 villages with 539 respondents has brought out following conclusions and recommendations:

4.2 Basic Premises of Communication: Content-Connect-Consumer

i. Content- What we think we need to deliver & What Consumers think need to be delivered

ii. Connect- Platforms/Mediums of Communication (Issues of Infrastructure)

iii. Consumers- Whom we think as our Consumers and Who are our Consumers and issues of Availability (Platform/Medium Related), Adaptability (Connect to Content) & Acceptability (Applicability of Content)- 3A policy for consumers.

Any Communication initiative needs to full these three Cs & 3 As of consumer to complete the cycle of content creation to content consumption to content application. Field Gaps of All above Explained 3cs & 3as of Lokvani & Way Forward

4.3 Content (this is not the major challenge for Lokvani)

The Content is really rich and appropriate for agriculture; few gaps identied through eld interaction.

Gaps Recommendations

1. People most of the time feel the content is external to their knowledge and top-down in nature (fear of externality).

2. Missing trust on the content, as none of them is user generated or bottoms-up (farmers or any other stakeholders' integration in the process of content creation).

3. Usability of content is most of the time missing as this is being treated as ACF work than something they own it for themselves.

4. Most of the time Lokvani content is linear and monotonous.

1. Content needs to be created within the community and ACF – Lokvani team needs to be the facilitator only.

2. Not only live cases of the community needs to be selected but community members need to be trained and involved in the content creation.

3. Along with xed content, contextual and updated content needs to be the part of Lokvani. For example, unseasonal rain & crop failure or a specic crop hazard in one of the villages also need to be considered as the part of the Lokvani radio content.

4. This should be non-ctional with real name, name of the village etc. to be integrated with the community radio content.

5. Element of entertainment and music should get some place in the Lokvani content and village function or public celebration should be integrated with Lokvani content.

6. Community RJs should be promoted.

7. Monthly/Quarterly radio engagement should be created where small gatherings can be hosted by Lokvani (may be village wise)


1. Household ownership of independent transistor is a rare phenomenon.

2. Existing independent transistors are primarily found in public vehicles like auto rickshaw, tractor or local buses. This is primarily for the purpose of entertainment so people listen to whatever FM frequencies are captured by the transistor.

3. Household or individual access to radio is through their feature or smartphone.

4. Feature phone owners are not bothered about listening to radio because primarily they are not much mobile literate or they keep it only for the purpose of voice calls. Smart phone users do not bother to listen to radio through their phones because of their access to other sources of entertainment like Whatsapp, YouTube etc.

5. Women in this community are primarily TV consumers and particularly GEC consumers.

6. This has been observed that many households have single mobile connectivity & chief wage earner have the central authority on the phone.

7. Radio is primarily considered as the medium of entertainment whosoever has knowledge and access to radio.

1. Listenership should be promoted with the right access to radio/transistor.

2. Radio literacy should be created with appropriate reward reinforcement mechanism so people can think about accessing Lokvani through their feature or smart phone.

3. Like the e-chaupal model, Lokvani should create radio access points in the community with only Lokvani stations in village shops/temples/clubs or places of gatherings (some branding exercise can happen around this in every village with a catchy name for this).

4. People do spend lot of time in different public spaces of the village that should be capitalised to make the hub of community radio.

5. This will not only give access to Lokvani but will also encourage discussion on the issues discussed through Lokvani which can be initiated to further usage of knowledge.

6. Small village committees of likeminded people and youngsters can be created to coordinate this event and anchor the show. This will be the driving force to listen the content. For example, if on a particular day 30 minutes is dedicated to discuss the problems of a particular village through one of the villagers, it will trigger them to listen to the show.

7. Radio access needs to be ensured through rewards, motivations, involvement & sense of ownership.

8. Alternative platforms need to be used for content delivery along with the community radio like Whatsapp, Facebook delivery with pictorial presentations etc.


Table 4.1: Gaps & Recommendation of Lokvani Content

Table 4.2: Gaps & Recommendation of Lokvani Consumer Connect

4.5 Consumers are the key to success of the communication channel

Whom we think our Consumers, who are our Consumers and issues of Availability (Platform/Medium Related), Adaptability (Connect to Content) & Acceptability (Applicability of Content)- 3A policy for consumers. n.


1. No consumer mapping has done before the Lokvani initiative.

2. Not sure about who are our consumers and categorisation of consumers.

3. Missing link of consumer connect with the content through the platforms

1. Once point 1 & 2 are ensured we are going to get the listeners base for capitalising the Lokvani usage and content.

2. Further challenge is to convert listeners to users with nal acceptability and scalability of the Lokvani.

3. Accessibility to Adaptability and Acceptability is the biggest challenge in convert listeners to consumers to users

4. Multiplatform access point of creating consumer connect

5. Personalised rewards and creating a consumer culture of Lokvani usage

6. Integration of allied areas with agriculture at the core for creating strong user base.

7. Brief news bulleting from different sources like newspapers etc. about local happenings.

Broader Recommendations

1. Brand Lokvani needs to be created physically (Community Radio Points)

2. Brand Lokvani in the minds of consumers through brand engagement in different activities of villages not only specic to agriculture

3. Involvement of school kids as a driver for creating Lokvani listeners. A specic programme can be created through each school and where awards can be declared through Lokvani and student Radio Jockeys host small programmes.

4. Brand engagement – Use of Lokvani for community functions, community needs and community interactions

5. By keeping agriculture as the core, allied activities need to be integrated Lokvani programming

6. Clear consumer segmentation with detailed outline of access points with customised content can create a Lokvani consumption culture

7. Integration of content, connect & consumer is key to the success of Lokvani

Annexure 1

29 | Consumer, Communication and Content (CCC) of a Community Radio Station: A Study of ‘Lokvani’

Table 4.3: Gaps & Recommendation of Lokvani Consumer's Universe

Distribution of CRS villages distance wise

Sr. No.

Name TRU Taluka Approx. Distance from KVK (Km)

Category -I (up to 7 Km)

Category -II (8-12 Km)

Category III (13 Km & above)

1 Rangpur Rural Sutrapada 15 Category-III

2 Pipalva Rural Sutrapada 14 Category-III

3 Timbdi Rural Sutrapada 12 Category-II

4 Pransli Rural Sutrapada 9 Category-II

5 Bhuvavada Rural Sutrapada 10 Category-II

6 Gangetha Rural Sutrapada 8 Category-II

7 Kadsala Rural Sutrapada 14 Category-III

8 Bhuva Timbi Rural Sutrapada 5 Category-I

9 Moradiya Rural Sutrapada 4 Category-I

10 Solaj Rural Sutrapada 6 Category-I

11 Barevla Rural Sutrapada 17 Category-III

12 Singsar Rural Sutrapada 16 Category-III

13 Matana Rural Sutrapada 5 Category-I

14 Rakhej Rural Sutrapada 8 Category-II

15 Thordi Rural Sutrapada 16 Category-III

16 Dhamlej Rural Sutrapada 12 Category-II

17 Kanjotar Rural Sutrapada 10 Category-II

18 Kodinar Urban Kodinar 4 Urban, could be excluded

19 Sandhnidhar Rural Kodinar 16 Category-III

20 Arnej Rural Kodinar 8 Category-II


Sr. No.





21 Girdevli Rural Kodinar 14 Category-III

22 Sugala Rural Kodinar 15 Category-III

23 Sindhaj Rural Kodinar 8 Category-II

24 Fachariya Rural Kodinar 6 Category-I

25 Anandpur Rural Kodinar 4 Category-I

26 Pedhavada Rural Kodinar 3 Category-I

27 Kadvasan Rural Kodinar 2 Category-I

28 Vadnagar Rural Kodinar 2 Category-I

29 Devalpur Rural Kodinar 4 Category-I

30 Govindpur Bhandariya

Rural Kodinar 12 Category-II

31 Chhachhar Rural Kodinar 13 Category-III

32 Adpokar Rural Kodinar 14 Category-III

33 Kareda Rural Kodinar 15 Category-III

34 Sayajirajpura Rural Kodinar 16 Category-III

35 Inchvad Nani

Rural Kodinar 7 Category-I

36 Gohil ni khan

Rural Kodinar 6 Category-I

37 Dudana Rural Kodinar 3 Category-I

38 Ronaj Urban Kodinar 6 Category-I

39 Mitiyaj Rural Kodinar 8 Category-II Category-III

40 Fafni Moti Rural Kodinar 12 Category-II

Annexure 1



Sr. No.





41 Malgam Rural Kodinar 15 Category-III

42 Devli Rural Kodinar 7 Category-I

43 Chauhan ni khan

Rural Kodinar 6 Category-I Category-II

44 Barda Rural Kodinar 8 Category-II

45 Mul Dwarka

Rural Kodinar 8 Category-II

46 Panadar Rural Kodinar 9 Category-II

47 Pipli Rural Kodinar 9

48 Damli Rural Kodinar 9

49 Kadodara Rural Kodinar 10

50 Pipalva Bavana

Rural Kodinar 11

51 Panch Pipalva

Rural Kodinar 16 Category-III

52 Chhara Rural Kodinar 15 Category-III

33 | Consumer, Communication and Content (CCC) of a Community Radio Station: A Study of ‘Lokvani’

a study of ‘lokvani’...table 3.3 use and effectiveness of lokvani programmes among the farmer...

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