Community Radio for Sustainability in Rural Areas: Listeners’ Perception

Abstract

Community radios are very popular in many developing countries due to their development orientation. A partial least square based structural equation modelling approach is used in the research. 300 community radio listeners do a self-administered questionnaire survey. The variables are identified in a focus group discussion of the members of a community radio listener. Based on the multiple aspects of reliability and validity analysis the model is found valid. The current research finds that community radios can change attitude to sustainable development as well as enhance skills, therefore increase intention to take sustainable actions by the rural people. Rural people like community radios because of its unique characteristics unlike other mass media, which in turn enhance the acceptance of the sustainability communications aired by them. So, any sustainable development ideas can be diffused through airing participatory based communications by a community radio.

Keywords: Community radio, sustainable development, sustainability communications, structured equation modelling.