Investigating rural Ugandan women's engagement with HIV and AIDS-related programmes on community radio: a case study of Mama FM's Speak out and Listen

• Main Author: Kigozi, James Musisi
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Rhodes University 2013
• Subjects: Community radio; AIDS (Disease) in women > Research > Uganda; AIDS (Disease) > Research > Uganda; AIDS (Disease) and mass media > Research > Uganda; AIDS (Disease) > Social aspects > Uganda
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001845

The purpose of this study was to investigate how rural Ugandan women engage with discussions of HIV and AIDS on community radio. It explored how this audience may relate such broadcast discussions to their own lived experience of HIV and AIDS. It is explained in the study that, while the Uganda government has an official policy of openly discussing matters of HIV and AIDS, health communication strategies still operate within a context where there is an underlying "culture of silence" that discourages openness about sexual matters. It is also pointed out that there are widespread gender disparities among rural communities, which severely limit women's ability to make use of health communication initiatives aimed at educating them. Against this backdrop, the study sets out to explore audience responses to a particular example of Speak Out and Listen, a weekly programme broadcast on Mama FM, a Kampala-based radio station managed by the Uganda Media Women's Association (UMWA). The study maps out responses to the programme by a particular group of rural women. It is argued that these research participants' comments confirm the importance, noted in literature dealing with health education, of drawing for content on what members of an audience have to say about their own lived context. It is proposed that, despite the existence of a 'culture of silence', the women's comments demonstrate an ability to speak with confidence about their experience of living with HIV and AIDS. Thcy are able, more particularly to discuss the constraints placed by gendered power relations on women's ability to draw on the educational content of programming that targets people living with HIV and AIDS. As such, the comments that such women offer represent a valuable resource for HIV and AIDS related programming. The principal conclusion of the study is that health communication initiatives such as Speak Out and Listen would benefit from facilitating conversations with their target audience about their lived experience of HIV and AIDS, and incorporating such discussion into their programmes