Social Uses and Radio Practices: The Use of Participatory Radio

Vargas, Lucila. Social Uses and Radio Practices: The Use of Participatory Radio by Ethnic Minorities in Mexico. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995. 307 pp.

Vargas teaches in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. A reworking of her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Texas, this book is largely an analysis of one radio station of the network run by the Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI) and an ethnography of its target audience, the Tojolabal Maya. "The stations combine Spanish and vernaculars in their programming, which includes local ethnic music, news programs, two or three hours daily of programs in which personal messages and institutional announcements are broadcast, and [a] series based on interviews with local people in which traditional health and agricultural practices are combined with modern expertise" (p. 11).

Carefully written, though not always terribly readable, this book focuses on what Vargas calls participatory (or community-oriented) radio and emphasizes how considerations of race, ethnicity, class, and gender influence the extent and quality of participation. Unfortunately the radio station studied is in one of the three cities, Las Margaritas, initially seized by the Zapatista National Liberation Army on January 1, 1994, just three years after Vargas's fieldwork there was completed. My understanding is that the radio station in Las Margaritas had no role in the uprising but that later it did broadcast messages from those seeking family and friends who had been displaced by the brutal reaction of the Mexican state. The political situation in Chiapas is so much different today that it is questionable how helpful this book is in understanding the current situation-though it may be helpful in understanding community-oriented radio in subaltern groups in general.

The research is divided into production, text, and reception. Chapter 2 contains a detailed account of Vargas's methods-with both the account and the methods being admirable. In Chapter 3 Vargas introduces the indigenous peoples of Mexico and writes about the radio's sponsor, the INI, which "has many times defied the privileges of local elites and exposed their wrongdoings, but more often than not, as a bureaucratic institution of the Mexican state . . . has served the interest of the ruling classes" (p. 43). Although the INI was created as a research center and is usually controlled by anthropologists, it frequently sponsors rural development projects.

Chapter 4 gives the history of the radio network and describes Radio Margaritas. Chapter 5 focuses on the people involved in radio production-their roles and their interactions. Chapter 6 examines issues of texts and programming. The study of the radio's reception focuses, of course, on the audience and is arguably the most interesting part of the book. Composed of four chapters, this part begins by giving a description of Tojolabal culture and the two villages studied. The next chapter revolves around listening patterns and focuses on music broadcasts. The last chapter in this section illustrates the influence the radio has on local information patterns by airing personal messages.

Chapter 10 points out that the radio station "was established in the Tojolabal region to counteract the modernizing pressures of Protestant sects" and that therefore "numerous aspects of the programming aim to revaluate old mores and traditions" (p. 207). Since the Tajolabals were already well aware of the deleterious effects of Protestantism, it is unclear whether the radio station had any added impact in this area, though Vargas does report that several interviewees spoke of "a renewed interest in old customs furnished by the station" (p. 208). Interestingly one of the prime uses of the radio was to get the time of day.

Chapter 11 summarizes the findings of the audience study and again warns, "Being a bureaucratic organization of the Mexican state, INI has a builtin structural bias toward keeping indigenous people in a disadvantaged position" (p. 241). In particular, "INI network's hierarchic, racist, classist, and sexist practices unquestionably hinder the efforts to involve grassroots participation. As expected, indigenous participation in the stations' programming has been allowed only in those areas seen as `cultural,' namely apolitical: music, storytelling, traditional health practices" (p. 242). Also, the radio presents a romantic view of indigenous cultures, and few indigenes rise to managerial levels in the radio networks. Indeed, the penultimate sentence of the book reads, "Sadly, however, my research also revealed concealed, almost invisible, but nonetheless mighty obstacles to genuine grassroots involvement in participatory radio" (p. 254).

The greatest value of Vargas's work is probably in her ethnographically examination of the actual practices of people in specific situations in the production and reception of the radio enterprise. This book can well serve as a model for future studies of community-oriented radio.