Development on-air: women's radio production in Afghanistan

Abstract

This case study investigates the launch of a women's radio station in Herat, Afghanistan, in October 2003. It follows four women journalists’ struggles in balancing the demands of a highly conservative culture on the one hand, and the objectives of their Canadian journalism trainers on the other. By discussing how the radio station was forced to accede to the male-centric norms in Afghan radio production to avoid being labelled unprofessional, the study concludes that gender and media development must be conceptualised more carefully to present an effective challenge to gender inequality1.

This article is dedicated to Shaima Rezaee, Fahim Ihsan, Rahman Qul, Ajmal Naqshbandi, Shakiba Sanga Amaj, and Zakia Zaki, three male and three female Afghans who have chosen journalism in Afghanistan at the ultimate personal cost.

This article is dedicated to Shaima Rezaee, Fahim Ihsan, Rahman Qul, Ajmal Naqshbandi, Shakiba Sanga Amaj, and Zakia Zaki, three male and three female Afghans who have chosen journalism in Afghanistan at the ultimate personal cost.

Notes

This article is dedicated to Shaima Rezaee, Fahim Ihsan, Rahman Qul, Ajmal Naqshbandi, Shakiba Sanga Amaj, and Zakia Zaki, three male and three female Afghans who have chosen journalism in Afghanistan at the ultimate personal cost.

1. This study was supported by Oxfam International, MIT Wilson Awards, and the Mellon-MIT Inter-University Programme on Non-Governmental Organisations and Forced Migration. It is a revised and adapted account of research discussed in Kamal (2005).

2. Names and details have been altered to protect the identities of the people in this article.

3. Under the Taliban, TV was banned, printing presses destroyed, and the only legal broadcaster became the Voice of Shari'at (formerly Radio Afghanistan), which broadcast religious and Taliban announcements from Kabul. The Northern Alliance operated their own radio and TV in the region they controlled in northern Afghanistan.

4. Not included in this count are numerous small unofficial rural radio stations and print media which broadcast pro-US military programming from US military bases around the country, billed as ‘a weapon in the war on terror’ (Hammersley 2006).

5. While post-Taliban improvements in women's status have been far from even, one area of success has been women's inclusion in parliament: Afghan women now represent 27 per cent of the National Assembly and hold one sixth of the seats in the Upper House in Afghanistan, making Afghanistan a leading country globally in terms of female representation in the legislature (IRIN 2005).

6. IMPACS is a registered not-for-profit charitable organisation committed to strengthening the voice and profile of civil society organisations in Canada and internationally. Its work has included projects that build local media capacity through the training of media practitioners by media practitioners, and supporting peace building and elections journalism in areas such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Guyana. Please note that IMPACS filed for bankruptcy effective 21 March 2007, and at the time of writing the future status of the organisation is unclear.

7. Canada had, at the time, the largest contingent of personnel serving in Afghanistan as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission.

8. See Kamal (2003) for an account of Radio Sahar's launch.

9. This event, which I have reconstituted as a ‘mental snapshot’ from my journal entries and field data, occurred at Radio Sahar in October 2003. All quotations from this point forward are my English translations of Dari quotes from women at Radio Sahar.

10. Radio Sahar mixed in-house radio programming with pre-packaged shows developed and distributed by media development organisations. It was often expected to air pre-packaged shows produced by an essentially unrelated women's production unit in Kabul that was sponsored by IMPACS to produce radio programming by women for women. The themes in the pre-packaged shows were often influenced by western IMPACS trainers and staff, for whom political coverage and the electoral process were of consuming importance. Further, the women's radio production unit in Kabul produced programming that was recorded on CDs and distributed to all the radio stations across the country. As the Kabul radio programming unit had no control over final broadcasting decisions at radio stations, they were forced to produce for a split audience. While trying to serve their final female audience, they also adhered to local concepts of journalism or areas of interest that they felt would raise the likelihood of their programming being broadcast in the first place. Their material thus had to be filtered to please western funders and urban, educated, usually male Afghan radio station managers to increase its chances for broadcast. The IMPACS Kabul radio production unit's CDs had the highest possibility of being broadcast on IMPACS’ women's radio stations. As indicated by Shamila's rejection of one of their political CDs, however, Radio Sahar often set aside the women's radio programming sent to them by IMPACS in Kabul as irrelevant or uninteresting for the women in Herat.

11. Mental snapshot, Radio Sahar, October 2003.

12. Mental snapshot, Radio Sahar, December 2003.

13. Chapter 8 ‘Prohibited Publications’, Afghanistan Law on Mass Media, enacted April 2004.

14. Mental snapshot, Radio Sahar, December 2003.

15. Pashto is often considered more prevalent in rural Afghanistan than Dari, which is more usually associated with learning and literature.

16. According to Walter Ong (1988), people in primarily oral societies – or societies that are unfamiliar with writing – think and express themselves differently from literate societies in fundamental ways. Ong relates such differences to the need in oral societies for communication to be relevant and memorable, whereas print societies can refer back to written texts and hence express themselves less redundantly and in a more linear manner.

17. See Kamal (2004) for a study of women's radio listening habits in rural areas and their difficulties in understanding radio broadcasts.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Kamal

Sarah Kamal is a media specialist who has conducted independent research in Afghanistan since the summer of 2001. She is currently engaged in doctoral studies as a Trudeau Scholar at the London School of Economics, UK