Summary of Survey

Summary of Survey/ Basic training in Community Radio in Europe

In the con­text of the GRUNDTVIG learn­ing part­ner­ship MEDIA PARCITIPATION FOR ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP (2011–2013), a sur­vey regard­ing basic train­ing in com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tions was car­ried out. The sur­vey was sent to radio sta­tions in the coun­tries that were involved in the project. 

Between Feb­ru­ary 2012 and June 2012, 23 per­sons from 5 coun­tries have filled out the ques­tion­naire, about 20 radio sta­tions and insti­tu­tions are represented:

Switzer­land: Radioschule klipp+klang, Radio Bern RaBe, Radio Kanal K (Aarau), Radio X (Basel), Radio LoRa (Zürich)

Aus­tria: COMMIT (Com­mu­ni­ty Medi­en Insti­tut), Radio ORANGE 94.0 (Vien­na), Radio FRO (Linz), Radio Helsin­ki (Graz), FREIRAD 105.9 (Inns­bruck), Pro­ton (Dorn­birn), Freies Radio Freis­tadt, Radio op (Ober­pul­len­dorf), Freies Radio B138 (Kirch­dorf)

Hun­gary: Fed­er­a­tion of Hun­gar­i­an Free Radios, Civ­il Radio (Budapest)

Ire­land: Near FM (Dublin)

Ger­many: Radio Corax (Halle), Pi Radio (Berlin), FSK (Ham­burg), Radio Uner­hört (Mar­burg), Radio Frei (Erfurt)

Target groups and outreach of the trainings

All train­ings are gen­er­al­ly open to every­one who is inter­est­ed in pro­duc­ing a radio show. Many sta­tions men­tion a spe­cial focus on minori­ties and migrants as tar­get groups, e.g. Radio Helsin­ki: „Espe­cial­ly wel­come are cul­tur­al and eth­nic minori­ties and peo­ple who have lit­tle access to main­stream media due to dis­crim­i­na­tion“. Among the specif­i­cal­ly men­tioned tar­get groups are: school class­es, teams from NGO’s (Radio FRO), senior cit­i­zens and activists (Civ­il Radio), trainees of the news depart­ment (RaBe), interns of the radio (Radio Corax), school stu­dents (FREIRAD), orga­nized youth cen­ters (Pro­ton), pupils/students and bilin­guals from the region (radio op), queer/feminist com­mu­ni­ty, women, envi­ron­men­tal or social activists (Radio ORANGE). 

Trainees par­tic­i­pate on a vol­un­teer basis, with one excep­tion: Freies Radio Freis­tadt organ­is­es com­pul­so­ry tri­al lessons for stu­dents in coop­er­a­tion with local schools. 

The train­ings are usu­al­ly adver­tised by means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion of the radio sta­tions (web­sites, pro­gramme brochures, mail­ing lists, social media, spots in the radio pro­gramme), some radios adver­tise in local news­pa­pers. A lot of the radios men­tion per­son­al net­works, as well as pro­fes­sion­al con­tacts (e.g. unem­ploy­ment office, migrants’ organ­i­sa­tions, etc.) as impor­tant resources for recruit­ing participants.

Funding

In Switzer­land the train­ings are co-fund­ed by the reg­u­la­to­ry agency for com­mu­ni­ca­tion (BAKOM), in Aus­tria some of the radio sta­tions have sim­i­lar funds (RTR). Oth­er fund­ings men­tioned are: Depart­ment of Adult Edu­ca­tion, Euro­pean Inte­gra­tion Fund (Near FM), Medi­en­s­tiftung (Foun­da­tion for Media; FSK), youth wel­fare office in Sach­sen-Anhalt (Corax). In the case of near­ly half of the sta­tions, the par­tic­i­pants don’t have to pay any­thing for the train­ing or just a sym­bol­ic amount. Three radio sta­tions say that they ful­ly cov­er the train­ing costs with no fund­ing and also no fees for the par­tic­i­pants (Civ­il Radio, Radio op, B 138). In Ger­many the train­ings of two Radio sta­tions (Radio Frei Erfurt and Pi Radio) are not financed at all and the train­ers are not paid. Also at FSK, Civ­il Radio and Radio Pro­ton, train­ers work vol­un­tar­i­ly, at Radio op and at Near FM train­ers are often paid, but some also work vol­un­tar­i­ly. All oth­er train­ers are paid for their work. In gen­er­al there seems to be less exter­nal fund­ing in Hun­gary and in Ger­many than in Aus­tria, Switzer­land and Ireland.

Trainers

In Aus­tria, Ger­many, Hun­gary and Ire­land the train­ers are nor­mal­ly cho­sen by the man­ag­ing direc­tors or boards of the radio sta­tions. In Switzer­land the train­ers are nor­mal­ly cho­sen by the Radio school klipp+klang accord­ing to pri­or agree­ment with the radio sta­tion. Except for the intro­duc­tion to radio tech­niques train­ers are usu­al­ly from out­side, e.g. from anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty radio. This fos­ters exchange among com­mu­ni­ty sta­tions and has the advan­tage that the train­er isn’t a per­son in charge at the radio sta­tion and there­fore neutral. 

Regard­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tions, train­ers in most places have to be famil­iar with the com­mu­ni­ty radio sec­tor, Aus­tri­an and Ger­man radios require expe­ri­ence at the radio sta­tion where the train­ing takes place. Some sta­tions men­tion expe­ri­ence as a qual­i­fi­ca­tion, Radio Corax stress­es, that the train­ers must pro­duce shows reg­u­lar­ly, fur­ther demands are not spec­i­fied. At Freies Radio Freis­tadt the cours­es are held by train­ers from Radio FRO in Linz (Radio FRO took part in the foun­da­tion of FRF). In Hun­gary train­ers have to be good radio jour­nal­ists with good social skills. Train­ers at Near FM are cho­sen accord­ing to their skills and expe­ri­ence. For cer­ti­fied train­ings, train­ers are required to have the train-the-train­er certification. 

In Switzer­land, new train­ers are intro­duced by old train­ers. Once or twice a year klipp+klang organ­is­es a work­shop for the train­ers. Occa­sion­al­ly there are also train-the-train­er coach­ings as well as train­ing feed­backs after co-teach­ing a train­ing. In Aus­tria COMMIT and VFRÖ (Asso­ci­a­tion of Com­mu­ni­ty Radios) organ­is­es train-the-train­er work­shops. In Ger­many there are occa­sion­al train-the-train­er work­shops and/or activ­i­ties at Radio Uner­hört (organ­ised by Bil­dungszen­trum Bürg­er­me­di­en) and Radio Corax. Corax also uses infor­mal meet­ings to dis­cuss train­ings. The oth­er Ger­man sta­tions have no train-the-train­er work­shops, but they have long expe­ri­ence or a key­word list for the work­shop. In Ire­land train­ers are trained by exter­nal agencies. 

Frequency and duration of the trainings

At most sta­tions there are 5 to 8 train­ings a year, at Radio Helsin­ki, Radio op and Radio Orange – all in Aus­tria – there are 12 or more train­ings a year. At Pi Radio in Ger­many there are no basic train­ings, only a short intro­duc­tion to the stu­dio technique.

The major­i­ty of the train­ings (8) last between two and three days, five train­ings last three to four days. The total amount of train­ing hours is between 5 and 24 (aver­age 15).

Train­ing ses­sions last most­ly between 5 and 8 hours, Radio op, Radio ORANGE, Radio Uner­hört, Radio Frei and Near FM have short­er ses­sions from 2 to 4 hours. The sin­gle train­ing ses­sions usu­al­ly take place with­in a week, Radio op has a month in between.

After the train­ing the vol­un­teers have the pos­si­bil­i­ty to get help from the staff of the sta­tion, if need­ed. Most sta­tions men­tion that the vol­un­teers have to ask for help. At Radio B 138 vol­un­teers are accom­pa­nied more inten­sive­ly, because the train­ing last only 5 hours. At some sta­tions the pro­gram com­mit­tee or staff mem­bers feed­backs to the vol­un­teers. In Switzer­land, Aus­tria there is fur­ther train­ing avail­able in var­i­ous fields of radio jour­nal­ism, also Radio Frei Erfurt men­tions fur­ther train­ing units. Radio Frei Erfurt and FSK offer expe­ri­ence from oth­er vol­un­teers. At Near FM, new broad­cast­ers are required to vis­it four hours of oth­er live shows. 

The Trainings

Aim/Objectives

The basic train­ings aim to teach jour­nal­is­tic and tech­ni­cal basics so that par­tic­i­pants are able to pro­duce their own shows.

At Swiss, Aus­tri­an, Ger­man and Irish radio sta­tions it is impor­tant to empha­size the (jour­nal­is­tic) work in com­mu­ni­ty radios in com­par­i­son to dif­fer­ent­ly struc­tured radio sta­tions (com­mer­cial and public).

Civ­il Radio in Hun­gary there is an empha­sis on improv­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion­al skills as a whole.

Radio Helsin­ki and FREIRAD men­tion teach­ing skills in media law as an objec­tive as well.

Structure

The train­ing struc­ture varies from radio to radio depend­ing on the resources of the dif­fer­ent sta­tions. (Space, time, train­ers and mon­ey) Struc­ture might also depend on mis­sion state­ments, loca­tion of the radio and pre­vi­ous skills of the vol­un­teers. Find some exam­ples in the “Sum­ma­ry by country”.

Topics

Almost all cours­es con­tain the fol­low­ing top­ics: record­ing, edit­ing, stu­dio and pro­duc­tion tech­niques, media law, moderation/presentation of the show. A lot of train­ings include the top­ic research and interview.

The cours­es in Aus­tria gen­er­al­ly con­tain the his­to­ry of com­mu­ni­ty radio in Aus­tria. In Switzer­land, Ger­many and Ire­land the spe­cif­ic sit­u­a­tion of com­mu­ni­ty radio is treat­ed in train­ings as well.

Swiss radio sta­tions teach about the impor­tance of giv­ing feed­back to oth­er par­tic­i­pants. Hun­gar­i­an Civ­il Radio teach­es about free media tools (online tools, like blogs, face­book, netra­dio, etc.). Sim­i­lar­ly Radio FRO includes cross media as top­ic. The Irish Near FM teach­es about net­work­ing and pro­mot­ing one’s own programme.

Lesson learned check and evaluation

Most train­ings include pro­duc­ing a radio show by the end of the course. At B138 the trainees cre­ate a flipchart con­tain­ing the things that they’ve learned at the end of the course. Four out of five Ger­man sta­tions men­tion, that the result of the course will be seen, once the trainees go on air with their own show. 

The major­i­ty of the train­ings include an oral feed­back at the end to eval­u­ate the train­ing. The Radio school klipp+klang (Switzer­land) and four sta­tions (Radio ORANGE, Radio FRO, Near FM) also men­tion for­mal­ized feed­back-forms. ORANGE requests feed­back from for­mer trainees, once they have some expe­ri­ence in pro­duc­ing a show, to see if there are impor­tant ele­ments that were left out in the train­ing, and so con­stant­ly adapts the train­ing schedule.

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