Exploring community radio in Unquillo, Argentina
The same story can be told in a million different ways. Sometimes this is a result of being human and having personal bias. While on the other hand, we can intentionally manipulate the story in order to make people think a certain way. In recent years, the majority of media in Argentina has been dominated by the larger publications, such as Clarin and La Nation. These monster publications are run by the national government.
José Cabrera, the broadcaster and director of Nativa 88.3, said the widespread encirclement of these publications is problematic. They prevent the citizens of Argentina from having a critical sense of current president Mauricio Macri’s policies.
However, press freedoms aren’t necessarily strained in Argentina. Argentina ranks 50 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index. Nobody is being killed for being a journalist in Argentina, but considering how important the press is to a country, this centralization of media can become deceptive.
Nativa 88.3 is a radio station based out of Unquillo, Cordoba, in Argentina. Unquillo is located 28 kilometers northwest of Cordoba City, the capital of its providence. According to the 2001 census, Unquillo’s population is about 15,000.
This station is essentially a collection of voices from the community, literally. If you’re a member of the community, and you’ve got something to say, this radio station wants to hear from you. The radio station relies on voices from the community to speak up and be responsible for the content the radio station broadcasts and the citizens want to hear.
When a citizen has a concern regarding the community, he/she can easily express it to the radio station and even suggest a solution to the problem. Cabrera said that these issues often surround every community issue. This includes transportation, social services, economic, etc.. He even mentioned that through this model, the concerns of the citizens are able to reach public officials. Sometimes they were even able to solve the problems
The radio station is extremely easy to access. Anyone can contact this organization. You can go to the contact page to leave a note on this website. Other platforms to contact the station include WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and email—there’s even an address for snail mail, if you’re feeling nostalgic enough to take a pen to paper.
Not only is this station accessible to the public, but they are quick to respond. The radio station will typically reply within the hour on Facebook Messenger. You can expect to speak to someone a little lower on the hierarchy of station, but you are even able to reach the broadcaster and director Jose Cabrera, himself. This serves as a direct line to the radio station.
Also, you can scroll through the Facebook page and get a sense of the events that are important to this community. It’s a wide range of things like music festivals, protests, electricity issues and even a missing dog. That news was important to someone in Unquillo. All of these pieces of news are derived from issues discussed on the radio and notes that were sent in.
There seems to be a constant battle between telling the hard news and the happy news. Too much bad news will tear a community down. The problem with too much fluff is that it isn’t real. You might expect a community radio station that focuses on community issues to be more serious, But wait! There’s more…
The Wordpress website outlines the programming of the radio station. You can start the day with a little Native Folklore music by tuning into the station. Sometimes they have programming where University Teachers will come and talk about the state of the community. There’s children’s programming, too. They even play some classical music on the weekends.
What is particularly admirable about Nativa 88.3 is that a lot of the news is coming from the community. There’s this wonderful relationship between the community and the radio. According to Nativa 88.3’s Wordpress, the objectives of their main program include: “Promote local information, enrich the daily lives of citizens, establishing links through the dissemination of actions, increase motivation for public participation, spreading interest issues and listeners, and encourage the construction of participatory audiences in a democratic society.”
Radio stations in Argentina are not censored by the government by any means. It seems as though they are working to upkeep their rights. Cabrera said, “We work hard to defend the right of our citizens.” The work this radio station does remind me that people should have the right to honesty in their news. While we still have bias, sharing voices seems to be the best thing we could do.
Speaking to the journalist about his work with the community was inspiring. The way community participation is described it seems almost ideal in a sense the way the voices of the community were heard. The effort that this community puts toward its radio station in Argentina does reminds us of our own civic duties here at home, wherever home is for you. In a democracy, we must remember how much power we have.
