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Designs, devices and development: audience research as creative resource in the making of an Afghan radio drama

Andrew Skuse; Marie Gillespie

Participations, volume 8, issue 1 (2011), pp. 132-153

"This essay analyses the role of audience research as a change agent in media development interventions in Afghanistan. It analyses how audience research in transnational contexts involves a complex set of intercultural negotiations and translations that contribute to the enduring relevance and sust...ainability of the highly popular Afghan radio soap opera New Home, New Life. This is a ‘development drama’ that has been broadcast across Afghanistan since 1993. It is based on BBC Radio 4’s The Archers and produced by BBC Afghan Education Projects (BBC AEP). Audience research has been vital to forging a dynamic relationship between the creative teams who make the drama, the donors who pay for it, and the audiences who consume it. The article addresses three broad themes. First, we outline how data gathered in formative audience research, prior to the creation of the drama, provides the creative team with the dramatic raw material for the radio serial. The extensive qualitative data gathered by Afghan researchers in local milieux is translated so as to enable culturally diverse teams of writers and producers to ground the serial narratives in the lived experiences of its audiences, and to introduce multiple local perspectives on development issues. Second, we show how evaluative audience research, data gathered in the postproduction phase, plays a key role in providing critical audience interpretations of New Home, New Life’s dramatic themes. In so doing, it creates feedback loops that allow audiences to become active participants in the ongoing creation of the drama. The research designs and devices, developed over the last two decades to document the changing life-worlds of Afghan citizens-cum-audiences, are part of an ongoing set of transcultural encounters that contribute to strengthening the social realist appeal of the drama and to calibrating how far any given storyline can be pushed in terms of cultural propriety. Third, we examine how during periods of military conflict, when routine audience research becomes dangerous or impossible and audience feedback loops are disrupted, the writers and producers have to rely on their own personal and political experiences, often with unpredictable ideological consequences. We draw attention to the limitations and challenges of making dramas for development in highly charged politicised and postcolonial contexts. While, development dramas may be a cheap and effective way of dealing with certain informational needs, such as landmine awareness, they cannot redress social and structural inequalities or, as Western donors wish, eradicate opium cultivation." (Abstract) more

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Social networking, social media and complex emergencies: an annotated bibliography

Andrew Skuse; Tait Brimacombe

Adelaide: Applied Communication Collaborative Research Unit (ACCRU) University of Adelaide; Australian Civil-Military Centre (ACMC) (2013), 70 pp.

CC BY-ND

"This annotated bibliography compiles both peer-reviewed literature, typically sourced from academic journals, as well as a range of opinion and technical resources drawn from agencies that have a humanitarian mandate. It is important to note that this annotated bibliography does not seek to present... more

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Local information networks: social and technological considerations

Seema Nair; Megan Jennaway; Andrew Skuse

New Delhi: UNESCO (2006), 82 pp., illustr.

ISBN 81-89218-08-5

"This publication aims at understanding the nature and importance of various configurations of social and technological networks in community settings that combine to form a Local Information Networks (LIN). In this study LINs are conceptualised as comprising of two very different elements: one soci... more

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Lexicon of global melodrama
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Heike Paul; Sarah Marak; Katharina Gerund; Marius Henderson (eds.)

Bielefeld: transcript (2022), 400 pp., 91 illustr.

ISBN 978-3-8394-5973-7 (pdf); 978-3-8376-5973-3 (print) CC BY

"Welcome to the world of melodrama—and to the melodramas of the world. This book introduces nearly one hundred cinematic masterpieces from various periods and different cultural contexts—ranging from early Hollywood to emergent and popular Bollywood, from Latin American and New German Cinema to ... more

Designs, devices and development: audience research as creative resource in the making of an Afghan radio drama

Social networking, social media and complex emergencies: an annotated bibliography

Local information networks: social and technological considerations

Lexicon of global melodrama Top Insights

Lexicon of global melodrama
Top Insights