TANZANIA: Tanzania Episcopal Conference Conducts Audience Research Workshop

Social Communication Directorate of Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC) has conducted ten-days’ workshop on Audience Research to eight Catholic community radio stations.

The radio stations that participated in the workshop which was held at TEC Kurasini Centre in Dar es Salaam from 8-17^th October 2018 included Radio Maria Tanzana, Radio SAUT which serve Lake zone community, Radio Faraja of Shinyanga Diocese which serves the Sukuma people, and Radio Mwangaza of Dodoma Archdiocese which serves communities in Central Tanzania.

Other Radio stations that participated were Radio Kwizera of Rulenge Ngara, which was established by Jesuit Fathers; Radio Tumaini of Dar es Salaam Archdiocese; Radio Chemichemi of Sumbawanga Diocese, which serves the Southern Part of Tanzania; Radio Mbiu of Bukoba; Radio Habari Njema of Mbulu Diocese, also serving the Southern part of Tanzania; and Radio Huruma of Tanga Diocese serving the community of Coastal areas of India Ocean.

At the opening of the Workshop, TEC Secretary General Rev. Dr. Charles Kitima appreciated CAMECO and Stem van Africa who provided the financial support that enabled the Conference to conduct the workshop to Community Radios in Tanzania. The

Church initiated the training to serve the particular community radios within Tanzania.

“As Catholic Church in Tanzania is celebrating 150 years of evangelization, we reflect and evaluate our core responsibilities and our purpose in the community. Our purpose is to serve human beings holistically, which means both physically and spiritually. And this is the reason why the Church established social services, including the media, to serve and reach out to the communities. Media is power and it helps to educate and evangelize the society in different ways,” Father Kitima explained.

“Today’s world has changed and we are talking about new evangelization. As the world changes, people have also changed. We need to know their taste, what are their needs are, and how to approach them. Therefore, it is my understanding that the media need to do a lot of research so as to come up with statistical data and analyze. This workshop has come when we are highly in need of change in our media, in terms of content and programing, due to intensive competition of media which makes most of our community radios lose audience and credibility,” he elaborated.

Father Kitima urged participants to be creative in designing radio content and programing so that they may respond to community needs. He advised the radio practitioners to do research and to analyze issues with an aim of promoting community development.

“If you do not know your audience you cannot know what to broadcast. You should know your audience with their classification and know their needs and interest, otherwise you will lose audience and you will not have impact in the society,” he pointed out.

The Workshop which comprised of 20 participants was facilitated by Dr. Nancy Booker, a lecturer at Agha Khan University in Nairobi-Kenya, and Mr. Denis Mpagaze, a lecturer at St. Augustine University of Tanzania.

This project is scheduled to have three phases, first phase is empowering the radio stations senior staff with audience research knowledge and is what the ten-day workshop was about. The second phase will be about practical work where each radio station that participated in the just concluded workshop will conduct its own audience research. The third and final phase will be an evaluation based on the outcome of the audience research.

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By Sarah Pelaji