Ma. Victoria Cabrera-Balleza

Isis International-Manila's engagement in radio started after the Women Empowering Communication Conference (WECC) co-organised by Isis International-Manila with the International Women's Tribune Centre and the World Association for Christian Communication and held in Bangkok, Thailand in 1994.

One of the recommendations at the WECC was for Isis to conduct a study on the status of women's radio programming in the Asia-Pacific region because at the time, there were no studies undertaken on the status of women working in the medium and the images being portrayed of them.

In 1996, Isis held meetings with representatives of Thai women's organisations and Philippine-based women's groups and other NGOs who were into radio production to discuss the idea of a research and training project on women in radio in this region.

Enthusiastic responses prompted the organisation to push through with the project and led to the conduct of a research on women's radio programming in 10 countries - Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, The Solomon Islands, Fiji, and New Caledonia.

Research objectives

The research had the following objectives:

1. Examine how women's groups in the Asian and Pacific region make use of radio as a communication tool and consequently as a tool for empowerment;
2. Assess the needs of women's organisations in relation to radio projects and programming: and 
3. Gather materials that may be used in developing training modules on radio production, broadcasting, marketing and management of radio programmes as well as the use of ICTs for radio.

Research findings

Following are the general research findings:

1. There is a resurgence in the use of radio in the countries surveyed - Despite television's dominance of the broadcast media from the 1960s through the 1980s, changing lifestyles (longer work hours, traffic jams, etc.) have pushed TV primetime to 9:00 p.m. instead of the usual primetime of 7:00 p.m. This earlier primetime has now been reclaimed by radio contributing to its new popularity.
2. There is a market for radio programmes targeting the women audience - This has been confirmed by both individuals involved in the production of such programmes as well as by management representatives of radio stations interviewed for the research.
3. There is a need for a (Asian and Pacific) regional network of women in the field of radio. One of the key reasons cited by the respondents was that it would serve as a venue for sharing strategies for sustainability and exchange of experience. 
4. There is a need to upgrade the skills of women involved in radio production - However, the training that will be developed in response to this need should carefully take into consideration the particular needs of women in the participating countries.
5. Next to funding, the other oft-repeated problem of women's radio programmes is the a lack of broadcast materials on women.
6. Radio's effectiveness as a broadcast medium is attributed to women - In the Philippines, for example, a listenership survey indicates that there are more female listeners than male: 58.5 percent versus 41.5 percent. Radio's popularity as a medium lies on its accessibility, affordability, and the fact that is overcomes the literacy barrier.

Actual radio broadcast

In 1998, Isis had its pilot broadcast over DZRM, a government radio station in the Philippines. Utilising a combination format of radio drama and talk show, the programme featured nine episodes on different issues concerning women including women's images and portrayal in the media, domestic violence, prostitution¸ incest, trafficking, migration, HIV/AIDS, reproductive rights, and food security.

Training for women broadcasters

In the same year (1998), a pilot training for women broadcasters in the Philippines and Thailand was conducted. The training consists of:

1. hands on workshops on core broadcasting skills such as interviewing for radio, recording, mixing, and editing that are conducted in both analogue and digital systems;
2. discussions on current women and media issues; and 
3. discussions and exercises on producing gender-sensitive radio programmes. 

In 1999, a similar training was piloted in Fiji participated in by women broadcasters in that Pacific island country. In 2000, another training was held in Bangkok, Thailand and was attended by 15 women broadcasters coming from the following countries: Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Laos, Mongolia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, East Timor, and Australia.

These experiences in the conduct of training made us realise the value of having our own training space because in all of the training we conducted, there had always been limitations set by the lack or absence of appropriate venue. Almost all of the radio facilities we have used or visited are not constructed as training laboratories. This led us to a decision to construct the Isis radio studio. This studio which was designed as a training laboratory is housed in Bahay ni Isis (The House of Isis) which has an adjacent lecture/conference hall and a dormitory.

Completed in 2002, the Isis radio studio was the venue of Soundcheck, the most recent training that Isis organised for women broadcasters in the Asia-Pacific region. Compared with the previous training, Soundcheck is more advanced as it was a trainers' training. The participants were equipped with skills that will enable them to echo the training to other broadcasters in their respective countries. It was attended by 16 participants representing Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Papua New Guinea.

Strategies

Following are some of the strategies that Isis employ to ensure feminist spaces in radio:

1. Networking - As in any medium, continuing networking is a crucial step in ensuring that our stories are used by mainstream radio. Years of experience have shown that forging alliances with media is not a one-shot deal but involves a long, arduous but nonetheless fruitful process. In Isis, we have been continuously working on expanding and consolidating our networks of women broadcasters in Asia-Pacific. We have created <apwim> an electronic work space that enables women broadcasters to share and exchange not only broadcast materials but also programming strategies. We also invite them to discussions, training, fora and other activities that we organise.
2. Production of broadcast-ready materials - Writing for print is different from writing for radio. Our press releases will have a better chance of being used for broadcast if they are written in a format being used by broadcasters. Audio formats are also useful for some broadcasters. This may come in the form of interviews, voice clips, radio features, music or drama. The important thing is to find out first what format will be useful for the particular programmes you are trying to reach out to. Different programmes have different format requirements. In Isis, we have a project called Women's Media Team that generates radio materials on women's issues in the form of live interviews and radio features. A total 33 radio productions in the form of live radio interviews, guestings, and radio features have been produced by the team members in the three occasions that the project has been implemented. The productions were in English, Spanish, Filipino, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, and Chinese.
3. Guestings - Again, like other media practitioners, broadcasters are always in need of resource persons. Often, however, they don't have the time to research and reach out to as many resource persons or interviewees as they want. They resort to interviewing whoever is easy to reach. However, this must not be taken as a reason to not improve on our work. We need to ensure credibility at all times. During the implementation of the WMT project, team members were required to set up radio guestings for women experts on particular issues (e.g. violence against women, racism, media and ICTs, health) that the team members are covering.
4. Actual programming-Isis has piloted a weekly women's radio programme in 1998. Produced in Filipino, the programme took a drama cum discussion format. Some of the issues tackled include violence against women, trafficking and prostitution, food security, media and ICTs, and reproductive rights. Isis plans to produce another weekly radio programme within the year.
5. Compilation of Women's Music -A collection of Asian women's music was produced in compact disk and cassette tape formats. The project features 16 songs from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Laos, Philippines, and Australia. English text translations and annotations are also provided. The compilation project is an offshoot of the training in radio production for held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2000. The collection hopes to add to the diversity of music by and about women that is a more positive projection of women's images. It is also aimed at providing exposure to women into "alternative music" that tends to be ignored by commercial radio stations.
6. Training of women broadcasters - Isis also conducts continuing training for women broadcasters that tackle not only technical issues of production but also techniques and strategies in gender-sensitive programming. So far, two regional and two-national level training have been conducted since 1998. The training have also proven to be good networking opportunities not only for Isis but for all the participants as well. 

The Isis agenda

Isis-Manila's engagement in radio is in line with our institutional agenda to:

1. Create alternative spaces and channels for women to communicate and network with each other;
2. Further promote radio as a communication medium for women; 
3. Explore possibilities for convergence of radio and the other media such as print and the new ICTs; and 
4. Develop a critical analysis of how the different information and communication mediums impact on the lives of women in the Asia-Pacific region.