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Media and Digital Technologies for Mixed Methods Research in Public Health Emergencies Such as COVID-19: Lessons Learned from Using Interactive Radio–SMS for Social Research in Somalia

Johanna Riha, Claudia Abreu Lopes, Naima Abdi Ibrahim, Sharath Srinivasan

Journal of Mixed Methods Research, volume 15, issue 3 (2021), pp. 304-326

"Radio shows which invite audience participation via short message service (SMS)—interactive radio–SMS—can be designed as a mixed methods approach for applied social research during COVID-19 and other crises in low and middle income countries. In the aftermath of a cholera outbreak in Somalia, ... more

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Mediated Sociability: Audience Participation and Convened Citizen Engagement in Interactive Broadcast Shows in Africa

Sharath Srinivasan, Claudia Abreu Lopes

International Journal of Communication, volume 14 (2020), pp. 2985-3006

"This article examines what drives audience participation in interactive broadcast shows, with implications for the democratic potential of these shows as spaces of citizen engagement and public discussion. It makes three contributions, the first two to audience and media studies and the last to pol ... more

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Public participation and social accountability in Kenyan counties: A pilot study using interactive radio in Siaya

Sharath Srinivasan, Stephanie Diepeveen, Khadija Mohammed, Edgar Otieno

Nairobi; Cambridge: Africa's Voices Foundation; Urban Institute (2019), 34 pp.

"[...] this pilot study in Siaya County sought to assess what makes for more effective public participation in Kenya. In contributing to a timely policy concern about how to best meet the imperatives/aspirations of devolution, it sought also to address the limited empirical evidence in scholarship a ... more

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Africa’s Voices Versus Big Data? The Value of Citizen Engagement Through Interactive Radio

Sharath Srinivasan, Claudia Abreu Lopes

In: Voice & Matter: Communication, Development and the Cultural Return

Oscar Hemer, Thomas Tufte (eds.)

Göteborg: Nordicom (2016), pp. 155-171

"We draw on insights from a two-year research project, Politics and Interactive Media in Africa (PiMA), and the related applied research pilot, Africa’s Voices, which worked with local radio stations in eight Sub-Saharan African countries. We examine the social and political significance of new op ... more

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The Power of Publics: Competing Imaginaries of the Radio Audience in Kenya and Zambia

Sharath Srinivasan, Stephanie Diepeveen

Cambridge: University of Cambridge Centre of Governance and Human Rights (2016), 23 pp.

"With the liberalisation of the airwaves and the rising use of mobile phones since the 2000s, call- and text-in shows have become popular and lively features on broadcast media in Eastern Africa. Amidst expanding possibilities for listeners to speak and contribute to live radio broadcasts, new ways ... of imagining the position of the audience emerge. The audience is not simply comprised of passive listeners of publicly broadcast information, but actively engaged in contributing and reacting to what is aired. Yet the nature and political potential of the ‘audience-public’ is not straightforward. Interactive radio and TV shows are not just introducing specific audience members into the discussion, but who they are, what they represent, their influence and contribution to the space are uncertain. As audience members engage, those who manage and shape the broadcast must imagine, interpret and respond. Each participant in the discussion –whether listening, or involved in the station – producing, hosting, etc. – must come to terms with the nature of the interaction, Who is engaged? How should they respond? What are their reasons for being engaged and how might the introduction of this indeterminate audience-public relate to their intentions? Given the plurality of subjectivities, information, roles and intentions of those involved, the audience and why it matters can be imagined in multiple and competing ways. This paper interrogates how different actors involved in the radio broadcast imagine and respond to audience participation, and how these imaginaries become politically significant. This paper draws predominantly on interview and observation data on the perspectives of station hosts, guests and frequent callers of selected media houses and interactive broadcast shows in Zambia and Kenya. It examines the dynamic, plural and conflicting ways in which the audience is being reconstructed as an active ‘public’. In so doing, it shows the centrality of the imagined audience in the construction of the broadcast as a ‘public’, specifically how the indeterminate audience becomes the basis for competing imaginaries about power, authority and belonging. The political significance of the ‘audience-public’, it is argued, lies in the very fact that multiple and competing imaginaries are at play, which are invested in by actors pursuing diverse ends and thereby create tangible political effects." (Abstract) more

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Protecting the Right to Life of Journalists: The Need for a Higher Level of Engagement

Christof Heyns, Sharath Srinivasan

Human Rights Quarterly, volume 35, issue 2 (2013), pp. 304-332

"Journalists play a central role in fostering a society based on the open discussion of facts and the pursuit of the truth, as opposed to one based on rumor, prejudice, and the naked exercise of power. As a result, journalists are often literally in the line of fire and deserve special protection. T ... more

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Threats to the Right to Life of Journalists

Sarah Elliott, Mona Elbahtimy, Sharath Srinivasan

Cambridge: Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR) University of Cambridge (2012), 23 pp.

"Journalists as a category of individuals are subjected to special risks of physical violence that amount to serious risks to their right to life. The current scale of threats to the lives and killings of journalists is a serious matter of concern. It shows an erosion of the rule of law and democrat ... more