Even though Mafeteng Community Radio Station is regarded as the first community radio station in Lesotho, the first community radio broadcaster was established by the National University of Lesotho, with the aim of serving students and communities around Roma, Maseru where it was situated (Ramakhula, 2009). However, in 2005, UNESCO, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)-Lesotho and the Mafeteng Community, represented by the Mafeteng Community Multimedia Association, established the MCRS (Lesotho Communication Authority, 2011). The station was established with the purpose of supporting community development through its programming, thus, it aimed to broadcast educational, entertaining, and development radio programmes. Recently, there seems to be more community radio stations emerging in Lesotho. MCRS was granted a broadcasting license in August 2011 (Lesotho Communication Authority, 2011).The community radio was established with the objective to expand the media space in Lesotho. Also, it was established to fill the gap left by the state and commercial media in Lesotho and to reach the local population(MISA-Lesotho, 2006).
Despite its long history in Kenya, community radio there still faces some challenges with regard to sustainability. Community radio does not manage resources for day to day operations. As it has been mentioned earlier, the MCRS receives benefits of some kind from UNESCO, and sometimes from the Lesotho government too, but this differs according to regions. However, the support from those entities still is not sufficient to sustain the daily operations of the community radio station (Centre of Governance and Human Rights,
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University of Cambridge, 2012). Girard (2001) indicates that the other challenges facing community radios in other regions have a bearing on delivering messages to various segments that have not been attended to by either the commercial or public radio. Thus, it is clear that there are some limits to or challenges facing African community radio stations. Comparatively, however, it is still believed that the broadcasting system in Europe did not serve the community well when compared to Africa or Asia (cf. Tavhiso, 2009).
Future endeavours to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS to some extent depend on adequate communication with and messages and knowledge possessed by people. Awareness and education programmes only will be successful if there are continuous education and awareness programmes available to people to empower them to take measurable actions to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and related health problems acquired through the sexual act and related behaviour (Lesotho UNGASS Report, 2006-2007). Despite high levels of awareness and education, HIV infections still rise because of Southern African practices, among others, including multiple and concurrent partnerships, poverty, unemployment, and insecurity and intergenerational sex (National AIDS Commission, 2006).
Based on the above reported findings by UNAIDS-Lesotho, it is clear that communication has an essential role to play in any action that aims to improve health and combat health issues. It is difficult to deliver messages to promote healthy choices without communicating; the media avoid awareness messages and knowledge about community development issues as much as possible (Parker, et al., 2006). HIV/AIDS is regarded as one deadly condition and without adequate communication and education procedures, HIV/AIDS holds an explicit threat to the community (USAID, 2011). Therefore, communication plays a vital and irreplaceable part in the methods of care, prevention, support and HIV/AIDS treatment. Hence, community radio, like other media outlets, must convey quick-witted and
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constructive life improvement messages to the community and nation by providing, for example, health awareness information (Howard, 2009). In addition, community radio also can make a substantial contribution in the fight against HIV/AIDS while giving people the necessary knowledge on how to deal with the epidemic with knowledge and understanding around how they respond (Myhre and Flora, 2000; UNAIDS annual report, 2004).
1.12 CONCLUSION
This chapter has provided an overview of community radio definitions by various authors. Not only definitions, but also the characteristics and principles of community radio stations have been discussed. Most importantly, it has highlighted the matter of the community radio station as means of communicating, educating and creating awareness regarding HIV/AIDS. Different approaches that may be utilised to assist in curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS have also been incorporated in this chapter. Lastly, it has also elucidated how community radio has emerged in African regions. An overview of the chapter is that community radio, like other media can play an important role in educating and creating awareness around HIV/AIDS. Nonetheless, community radio cannot function effectively if it does not consider the community in which it is working. The community aspect in community radio plays an important role in achieving the mandate of such a community. Even though community is defined or perceived differently across the world, its mandate is to serve the community. Based on the analysis it clear that countries still face challenges regarding HIV/AIDS, but community radio can play a major role in educating people about and creating awareness around HIV/AIDS.
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CHAPTER THREE:
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 3.1 INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, two theories are discussed that were used for this study to contextualise the question of HIV/AIDS awareness and education in Mafeteng community. The two theories that were employed for this study are McCombs and Shaw`s agenda setting theory, and Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere. The chapter is devoted to a discussion of how the study reached the conclusion about whether the community radio has the ability to create awareness and educate a community about HIV/AIDS related issues. Particularly, the aim of the theories is to explore how selected MCRS programmes incorporate HIV/AIDS education and awareness in their programmes. This is because, from an agenda setting theory viewpoint; media are considered to set the agenda for the community, while according to the public sphere standpoint, media are perceived as the public sphere where the community may express their opinions and views. Therefore, the public sphere viewpoint assisted the researcher to see how MCRS permits the listeners to express their views and participate in HIV/AIDS programmes, and their perception towards those programmes.
An entire deliberation of both agenda setting and public sphere theories is provided in this chapter. Finally, both agenda setting and public sphere frameworks are contextualised in relation to community radio and HIV/AIDS awareness and education. These theories were selected because McCombs and Shaw`s theory, according to which agenda setting was initiated, concerns media`s ability to set the agenda for the listeners. While Jürgen Habermas’s theory deliberates on the matter of media as the public sphere or platform where a community can come together to express their concerns.
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