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COMMUNITY MEDIA
PARTICIPATORY LEARNING MANUAL
(Tools for personal and community empowerment)
Notes for Manual Users.
Overview of course
The Participatory Learning method can be used to introduce the
whole array of topics considered necessary to community media
training, the how of media, dealing with the standard, mainstream-type
training which covers technical proficiency, journalism and production
issues. They can also be used to introduce the why of doing community
media, dealing with media literacy, capacity building and empowerment.
Participatory Learning is predicated on the idea that at all times,
people learning about technical or production issues, should also
learn about the alternative community media approach to information
exchange, community building and personal empowerment.
These Learning exercises are based on the idea that most people,
without knowing it, have amassed a great deal of experiential
knowing. Participatory learning seeks to make such tacit knowledge
explicit, both to the participants themselves and to all those
involved in these Sessions.
For example, they aim to encourage participants to move beyond
media theory, to a more practical realm, where they can make sense
of media products and learn how to manipulate them to tell a different
story.
An important part of Participatory Learning is to give participants
an opportunity to apply analytic methods to these media products
through participatory exercises and games. The purpose of this
approach is to encourage each participant to become their own
media analyst, both in terms of being a community broadcaster
and as a consumer of other forms of media.
This critical awareness should be a feature of each Learning Session,
including the technical and administrative sections. The administrative
sessions are based on the notion that most people can budget,
analyse and plan, and also do that, consciously or not, on a day-to-day
basis. Part of the empowering dynamic involved lies in encouraging
participants to recognise the extent of their existing life-skills,
and in encouraging them to confidently put this knowledge to work
for themselves and their community, through an imaginative use
of Community Media.
The Manual has sought to combine several learning approaches.
For example, by retaining in the Handouts, the print media's ability
to sustain quite complicated theoretical passages. While also
acknowledging that many people don't care to read long texts,
by devising simple, interactive group exercises that deliver the
core message contained in each Session.
Each exercise should attempt to incorporate the following components,
by being:
· Tactile.
· Collaborative.
· Cerebral.
· Problem-solving.
· Creative.
· Inclusive.
· Challenging.
· Team-building.
· Learner-centred.
The Manual currently contains five Modules, and offers some sample
exercises in each. These Modules are identified as categories,
and numbered as Sessions. They can be mix n' matched to suit individual
circumstances. Each Session contains Trainers Notes, Exercises
and a Handout.
Some general points about these exercises:
• The material in this Manual is devised to provide an interesting
way to introduce community participants to the theories and history
of the media and its technologies.
• To make them curious about the unequal distribution of
information technology across the world and between rich and poor
in their own country and aware of the impact of media messages
on them and their community.
• To enable participants to gain critical awareness, team-building
skills, communally relevant technical and production skills and
the ability to use this information creatively.
• You can also devise interesting or intriguing titles for
the exercises, some examples are offered.
• The Modules are not organised as a 'set text'. There is
no correct way to use them. It may not help to use them in a strictly
linear fashion. Dip into the Manual as you require, and adapt
the exercises to suit yourself and your group.
• Certain exercises may not suit a particular group at a
given time, while on other occasions; an untried Session may be
just the tool you require for a particular workshop. Try them
all over a period of time.
• The modular nature of the Manual allows you to add both
additional Modules and to continually refine the Sessions in each
Module from your own personal experience.
• The material in the trainer's notes provides a starting
point only; you will need to enlarge on it from a local perspective.
Or from further reading and reflecting on the topic.
Summary
As mentioned earlier, there are many training methodologies dealing
almost entirely with mainstream media training, the how of media,
these we could term 'Conservative Analysis Techniques', or CAnT.1
Whereas, this course seeks to link the why with the how of media
and we could term this approach 'Radical Analysis Techniques',
or RAnT.2
These complementary strands of learning should be interwoven during
the course. Hands-on production andcritical analysis are two halves
of a whole media education programme. Having experienced this
approach, participants should have a much more rounded understanding
of community media. This would provide a competency process
and an empowering process that can become mutually reinforcing,
with empowerment creating new uses for media, and technical skills
providing spaces for advancing empowerment.
The Participatory Learning approach ensures that media training
would no longer be seen as merely a competency issue, but as a
process.
The ideological approach of this methodology has the potential
to emphasise creative and active involvement, rather than passive
receipt of information. It would ensure that the learning process
is responsive and relevant to the local context.
The interactive nature of the learning material would ensure that
it built on the existing knowledge of the participants and involved
them in generating new learning experiences.
The general outcome should be the creation of community media,
operated by competent, socially motivated local people. Media
literacy would come to be more than just a set of techniques,
--and become a measurement of the nature of the relationship between
community radio people, their community, and the world as they
perceive it.
Contents Note: Some modules (e.g. legal) are peculiar to Ireland.
You can use the basic shape of the module but you will have to research
relevant local information.
Concept Note: This participatory approach and many of the working
ideas are inspired by my friend jesikah maria ross. Other elements
are drawn from the Popular Education approach pioneered by Paulo
Friere.
Layout Note; the Manual is designed to show a 'SESSION' section
at the top of each A,4. page. For example, the first module starts
with SESSION 01. TRAINER'S NOTES. Adjust for any slippage before
printing.
1 Cant: Language peculiar to a profession.
2 Rant: Theatrical, forceful language.
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