This study is an exploratory assessment of the role of private radio stations in promoting participatory democracy in Lesotho. It seeks to describe the current situation of the role of radio in the country, including levels of rural development programming and community participation. There are eight private radio stations operating in the country. The emergence of the liberalised airwaves created an opportunity for people to have access to information, hence promotion of participatory democracy, though problem of freedom of expression and speech and absence of media policy hinders positive effective participation in issues affecting both journalists and society. The study will use a survey within the purposely selected media professionals to assess how citizens obtain and use information to make informed political choices as well as to measure the influence of private radio stations on political knowledge, attitudes and behavior. The field research will take place in the capital Maseru, where all the private radio stations are based. This will enable the researcher to draw inferences about the role of private radio stations and participatory democracy in Lesotho. The study explores changes that have occurred following the emergence of liberalisation of the radio airwaves in Lesotho from 1994, from almost a century of state owned and dominated national radio station. The central argument in this study is to establish if liberalisation of the airwaves in particular has a significant impact on the democratisation process in the country. Given the country’s limited literacy rate and historic role of broadcast media in Lesotho as a source of all major official information, private radio stations occupies a central role of mobilising and debating issues of national concern. The study, therefore, concludes that the emergence of the private radio stations in Lesotho has increased community participation in political and current affairs. The coverage of radio in the country and its pluralistic character suggest that the private radio stations will remain a crucial broadcast medium of communication in Lesotho, especially for the rural people whose access to television and print are inaccessible.

This dissertation seeks to identify the elements that inform the model for competing message propagation systems in a restrictive environment. It pays attention to message propagation by sanctioned and clandestine radio stations in pre- and post-independent Zimbabwe. This dissertation uses two models of message propagation in a limiting information environment: Sturges' information model of national liberation struggle and Chatman's small world information model. All the message propagation elements in the Sturges and Chatman's models are present in the broadcast texts analyzed. However, the findings of this dissertation indicate that communication in a restrictive information environment is designed such that its participants make sense of their situation, and come up with ways to solve the challenges of their small world. Also, a restrictive information environment is situational, and message propagators operating in it are subject to tactical changes at different times, accordingly altering their cognitive maps. The two models fail to address these concerns. This dissertation focused on message propagation in Zimbabwe because there is military belligerence involved in the information warfare. It therefore provides an extreme situation, which can help our understanding of more everyday instances of communication and interference of communication. Findings of this dissertation recommend the need to emphasize that information input, output and suppression are components dependent on each other; not discrete and independent categories of information activities.

So Ming Hang. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 218-227). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.v / Content --- p.vii / List of Table and figures --- p.xi / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction: the dilemma of RTHK and research questions --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Significance of the study: importance of the mass media and RTHK in the political process in Hong Kong --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Significance of the study: practical policy concerns for RTHK --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- The unstable financial situation of the public broadcasters around the world --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- "The political context of Hong Kong, which RTHK is situated" --- p.12 / Chapter 1.4 --- Research questions --- p.22 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review: The normative role of public broadcaster and their performance in actual practice compared with commercial broadcaster --- p.25 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.25 / Chapter 2.2 --- Public vs Private --- p.26 / Chapter 2.3 --- Theoretical defense for the public broadcasting: Market failure in broadcasting --- p.27 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Spectrum scarcity and failure of competition --- p.27 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- """Public goods"" nature of broadcasting" --- p.28 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Externality of the broadcasting as a media --- p.29 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- The incapacity of the audience --- p.34 / Chapter 2.4 --- Spectrum scarcity: Weakening rationale --- p.35 / Chapter 2.5 --- "Market Solution for the ""public goods"" failure: Advertising" --- p.36 / Chapter 2.6 --- Empirical studies: The public broadcasters may not be very different --- p.39 / Chapter 2.6.1 --- Information source/news source/guest --- p.39 / Chapter 2.6.2 --- Topics/Agenda --- p.42 / Chapter 2.6.3 --- Frames/Themes/Angle --- p.43 / Chapter 2.6.4 --- Other studies --- p.44 / Chapter 2.7 --- Theoretical explanation for the quite similar phenomenon between the public and commercial broadcasters --- p.46 / Chapter 2.7.1 --- Political economy perspective --- p.47 / Chapter 2.7.2 --- Sociological/Cultural approach --- p.48 / Chapter 2.8 --- Empirical studies: Public broadcaster make commercial broadcaster better --- p.49 / Chapter 2.9 --- Empirical studies: Public broadcasters still show its unique role --- p.50 / Chapter 2.10 --- Empirical studies: Public broadcaster may be different but pro-government (the presence of political pressure) --- p.52 / Chapter 2.11 --- The study on Hong Kong mass media and Public Broadcasting --- p.55 / Chapter 2.12 --- Summary --- p.60 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- The historical background and expected distinctive mission of RTHK in Hong Kong --- p.63 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.63 / Chapter 3.2 --- The basic structure and existing service of RTHK --- p.64 / Chapter 3.3 --- The historical development of RTHK as a public broadcaster --- p.66 / Chapter 3.4 --- The existing base for RTHK working as a public broadcaster --- p.71 / Chapter 3.5 --- Role of RTHK as a different broadcaster: claimed by RTHK and the government --- p.73 / Chapter 3.6 --- Role of RTHK as a different broadcaster: expected and interpreted by the public --- p.78 / Chapter 3.7 --- Role of RTHK as a different broadcaster: expected and interpreted by the pro-China camp --- p.80 / Chapter 3.8 --- Summary: High expectation on RTHK to act differently --- p.82 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Research method and design: The coverage of RTHK on 2004 Hong Kong Legislative Council election compared with the commercial broadcasters --- p.84 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.84 / Chapter 4.2 --- 2004 Legislative Council Election as a case to compare the public and commercial broadcaster --- p.85 / Chapter 4.3 --- The Radio broadcasting in Hong Kong --- p.87 / Chapter 4.4 --- Commercial radio broadcasting in Hong Kong --- p.89 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Commercial Radio --- p.90 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Metro Broadcast --- p.92 / Chapter 4.5 --- Research Method: quantitative content analysis with the help of qualitative analysis --- p.94 / Chapter 4.6 --- Hypothesis setting --- p.95 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Data Analysis I: The News bulletins in the 2004 Legislative Council Election --- p.101 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.101 / Chapter 5.2 --- Background --- p.101 / Chapter 5.3 --- The salience of the election coverage --- p.102 / Chapter 5.4 --- The themes of the election coverage --- p.105 / Chapter 5.5 --- The news source of the election coverage --- p.112 / Chapter 5.6 --- The sound bite sources and their duration of the election coverage --- p.118 / Chapter 5.7 --- Summary: RTHK quite followed the mainstream commercial broadcasters --- p.123 / Chapter 5.8 --- Case I: The nomination period for the election --- p.125 / Chapter 5.9 --- Case II: Ma Lik has been diagnosed as having cancer --- p.136 / Chapter 5.10 --- Discussion and Summary for the finding --- p.139 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Data Analysis II: The phone-in current affairs programme in the 2004 Legislative Council Election --- p.143 / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.143 / Chapter 6.2 --- Background --- p.143 / Chapter 6.3 --- The salience of the election-related discussion --- p.145 / Chapter 6.4 --- The topics for the discussion about the election --- p.150 / Chapter 6.5 --- The guest for the election discussion --- p.165 / Chapter 6.6 --- Discussion and Summary for the findings --- p.183 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Conclusion: RTHK provided limited alternatives in the coverage of 2004 Legislative Council Election by news bulletins and phone-in programmes --- p.187 / Chapter 7.1 --- Introduction --- p.187 / Chapter 7.2 --- Summary of the findings from the study --- p.191 / Chapter 7.3 --- Implication and discussion --- p.196 / Chapter 7.4 --- Limitation and further research --- p.202 / Appendix --- p.205 / Appendix I The original quotation used in different chapters --- p.205 / Appendix II Analysis Form for each story in the news bulletin --- p.209 / Appendix III Analysis Form for the phone-in current affairs programme --- p.213 / Appendix IV The election-related topics that discussed by the phone-in programmes in the study period --- p.215 / Bibliography --- p.218

This study is a comparative examination of approaches to talk radio as a genre on three Ugandan radio stations. The aim is to draw conclusions, from observations made about these stations, about the potential of talk radio to encourage public debate around social issues and improve democratic participation despite pertinent challenges in Uganda. The study first outlines a theoretical framework, which is informed by Habermas's theory of the media as a 'public sphere'. This framework is applied to an exploration of traditions of talk radio that have emerged globally in order to assess the potential of these traditions to play a role in contributing to the establishment of such a 'public sphere'. The study then goes on to discuss the historical development of radio in Uganda and the establishment of the current broadcast landscape. The focus is on the way in which this history has been defined by a struggle around public expression, in which government has repeatedly sought ways to control media as a vehicle for public expression. It is proposed that Ugandan talk radio has the potential to play an important role in ensuring broad participation in public expression. It is against this background that the study then describes and analyses the development of the talk genre at three Ugandan radio stations (each one an example of, respectively, a commercial, community and public service station). It is explained that staff on all three stations emphasise the importance of talk radio in encouraging participation, by their audiences, in the public debate of social and political issues. It is argued that, because of limitations that exist within these stations, none of the talk show teams fully realize the potential of the genre for participation in such debate. The picture that emerges is one of unequal access, with those sections of radio audiences in positions of privilege being further empowered, while those on the margins remain excluded from public discussion. The study finally recommends ways to improve public participation on Ugandan talk radio, noting the need to review government support, the problems of organizational culture within the stations, the need for more guidelines on practical arrangements around talk show production and the question of contradictions that exist at policy level.