Ghana radio stations getting to know their listeners
What is your most preferred radio station? At what times do you listen to radio? And what topics are you most interested in hearing on the radio?
If you’re living in one of the Ghanaian cities and towns with broadcasters participating in the new Our Radio! project, somebody might come to your doorstep to ask these questions. Audience research is underway.
A total of 1700 interviews are being conducted, two to three hundred in each of the regions where one of the nine radio station partners in the project is located.
Trained research interviewers have a questionnaire with around 50 questions for randomly selected respondents designed by the research organization Pragma Solutions. It was tailored to the needs of the radio stations by station managers at a research workshop held in May.
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Our Radio! – working with radio stations in Ghana
“Our Radio!” is a cooperation project between the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), DW Akademie and the Ghana Independent Broadcasters’ Association (GIBA).
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A small, great story
The surprising outcome of a documentary workshop by DW Akademie’s Asia division
The best stories can be found on the street. That’s a well worn saying but it’s true – at least in the eyes of a documentary filmmaker. Some of DW Akademie’s trainees discovered one of those stories waiting in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
She’s the “sweet soup seller” and you can’t miss her. She sets up shop outside the broadcasting center and we always see her during our workshop breaks. She packs everything she needs for her “mobile restaurant” in big baskets balanced on a bamboo pole – typical for Vietnam street vendors. Her specialties are sweet snacks and desserts …
It’s more than obvious that the staff at the state TV broadcaster VTV loves her sweet soya broth, green and brown beans cooked in sugar, mango puree with ice and homemade lime custard. At lunchtime her colorful plastic stools quickly fill up and her numerous pots overflow with ingredients. The customer-service concept behind the portable dessert bar corresponds to the well-established western coffee shops and fast food chains in the country: you can have your goodies on the spot or for take away – in a handy plastic cup with a spoon and small bag.
We decide that this hardworking, talkative woman is perfect for one of our hands-on exercises. On the second day of our “Short Documentaries” workshop some participants spend an afternoon observing her with the camera. So far, there’s no storyboard or script: participants have to shoot simple actions in short sequences: A mango puree with ice in three cuts.
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Action learning in Laos
DW Akademie trainer Daniel Hirschler sends this report from a workshop in Laos.
As a trainer, I like working with what I call “action learning settings”. This basically means designing the workshop in a way that learning happens in a good mix of experiencing something and then talking about it and reflecting upon the experience.
Workshop designs are like recipes for cooking: It’s not just the amount of the ingredients that counts, it’s also their quality. And as with any recipe, things can work out perfectly, but they can also go terribly wrong. So for a trainer, going into an action learning workshop can be fraught with tension. Will things work out? What if they don’t…?
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Asian and German experts make sound archives accessible for journalists
Journalists who want to add archived sound material to current affairs stories usually have one big problem: how can they find relevant material in a broadcaster’s archive?
For the keepers of these archives, it’s a challenge to catalog sound material so that it’s easily accessible to journalists. And if the material is on tape or analogue disks, the archive workers also have to find ways to restore and digitize the carriers. Tapes deteriorate easily – especially in tropical climates.
These are key issues that Heidrun Speckmann and Nguyen Pham Hoa Binh (free media consultant in Vietnam) discussed with an international audience at the German Embassy in Hanoi on May 8th, 2012. Heidrun Speckmann has been working as CIM integrated expert and DW Akademie’s Media Archive Developing Consultant at Radio The Voice of Vietnam (VOV) since September 2009.
At the German Embassy, the two archive experts presented their long-term consulting projects aimed at modernizing the sound archives of Asian broadcasters. These projects are financed by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
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Le management des radios burundaises
Une semaine de cours de management organisée par la Deutsche Welle Akademie pour les responsables de stations radio : il était notamment question de multiplier les stratégies qui poussent les annonceurs à acheter des espaces publicitaires auprès des quinze stations de radio présentes au Burundi. Erik Houinsou, formateur spécialisé dans le développement des ressources humaines, s’est concentré sur deux grands dossiers : comment mettre en place une meilleure répartition des tâches au sein d’une entreprise audiovisuelle et comment assurer une meilleure écoute critique des programmes pour en booster la qualité ?
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Myanmar: Heading towards freer media
After decades of censorship, Myanmar is aiming to democratize its media system. In cooperation with UNESCO, the government recently arranged an international media conference. DW Akademie was there.
“I would like to see you all again – in a country with a free and democratic media,” said Ye Htut, Director General of Myanmar’s Ministry of Information, as he said goodbye to the 250 participants attending the media conference in Rangoon.
Until recently, a statement like that would have been unthinkable. “I’m experiencing Myanmar as very open in an impressive way. The atmosphere in this remarkable conference is honest and very sincere,” reports Helmut Osang, DW Akademie’s coordinator for media development.
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Atelier des journalistes sur fond du coup d’état au Mali
Les chances pour que l’élection présidentielle au Mali se déroule de façon démocratique étaient bonnes. Après deux mandats, le président Amadou Toumani Touré n’avait même pas essayé de se porter de nouveau candidat. C’est environ cinq semaines avant la présidentielle que notre séminaire a commencé. Il portait sur la formation de journalistes radio pour la couverture du scrutin.
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Training Malian journalists during tense political times
The DW-AKADEMIE workshop on election reporting in Bamako is taking place during a time of real political uncertainty in Mali. Already there had been questions about whether the government was adequately prepared to hold the elections. And then in January, Tuareg rebels started attacking towns in northern Mali and that conflict has been going on ever since.
The first round of the presidential elections is scheduled for 29 April – about six weeks from now. But Mali doesn’t feel in full election mode yet. With all the potential problems that might arise people are wondering whether the elections will be held on the scheduled day. Political parties aren’t campaigning as aggressively as you might expect. People aren’t discussing the elections with as much passion as usual.
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Appel à candidatures pour des journalistes marocains
Rédiger des reportages intéressants, actuels et en direct, préparer de manière attirante des sujets pour auditeurs et lecteurs: former des journalistes radio et online dans tous ces domaines – tel est l’objectif d’un projet commun de la Fondation Konrad Adenauer et de la Deutsche Welle Akademie. Nous invitons des journalistes marocains à participer à une formation journalistique à Tanger (du 7 au 17 mai 2012) qui aura lieu parallèlement à une conférence sur l’environnement: “Couverture Médiatique d’une Conférence sur l’environnement et changement climatique au Maroc”.
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