Broadcasting Women

The Advancement through Interactive Radio (AIR) project focuses on a new approach for increasing the status and empowerment of women in developing communities, with wider application to the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development. AIR enables women, who are the primary economic driving force in community development, to "talk back" to the community radio station, in order to better facilitate participation as well as demand and produce information that contributes to their advancement. Women are frequently excluded from the access to, and benefits of, Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD), which negatively impacts both womens and community development. Community radio, enhanced to provide the means for listeners to communicate with broadcasters, represents a potential way to address this exclusion. This research makes the case for further ICTD interventions that are focused on women and community radio, while addressing key research questions about gender, voice and empowerment.