Tadesse Abebe, M: Community Radio in Ethiopia

Radio is a friendly mass medium to use and in reaching people as a communicator. Particularly in countries like Ethiopia, where most of the people are too poor to buy modern electronic media and illiterate to read newspapers, the best alternative is radio. Radio transmission in Ethiopia has not covered the entire country yet. more over, even though there are more than 70 spoken languages within the country the total languages used by the main radio channels are not more than eight. Hence, not reaching the entire people and broadcasting in only eight languages raise doubts about the essence of providing contents that could be locally relevant and useful to the different communities. To narrow this gap and develop participatory communication, the establishment of community radio in different parts of the country is of paramount importance. The study,thus,identified directions to lay out the requirements to meet the operation of community radio and hinted effective means to tackle challenges that may crop up now and then in its development process. Therefore, the book renders a token help to a group concerned with the promotion of community radio in a country.