Community Multimedia Centres

Introduction

A Community Multimedia Centre (CMC) merges community radio – in some rarer cases community TV – and Community Telecentres in different ways and with different additional knowledge-focused activities such as libraries, literacy classes, community debate forums, etc.

UNESCO, who pioneered, advocated and described this convergence of media forms, defines CMCs as follows: “A CMC combines community radio by local people in local languages with Community Telecentre facilities (computers with Internet and e-mail, phone, fax and photocopying services). The radio – which is low-cost and easy to operate – not only informs, educates and entertains, but it also empowers the community by giving a strong public voice to the voiceless, and thus encouraging greater accountability in public affairs”. UNESCO definition and CMC portal.

While a general manual presents different aspects of CMCs – including evaluation, a 2005 directory lists and describes 48 of the more than 50 UNESCO supported CMCs on air and in the fibres at that time in some 20 countries and found in three continents.

The CMC, by integrating the radio (TV) and Telecentre functions, actively combines local contact and global contact, local content and global content, offering new possibilities for engaging a community in its own development. The added value of the community multimedia centre derives from the unbroken continuum of information and communication that it establishes: between the literate and the illiterate, between local, national and international languages, between the spoken and the written word.

Among the added value emerging from converging the community radio (TV) with Community Telecentres are features such as:

• Radio-browsing programmes: Presenters search the web in response to listeners' queries, and discuss, on air, the contents of pre-selected websites with studio guests.

• Multimedia databases for development: The CMC can gradually build up its own database of materials that meet the community's information needs.

• Open learning: The CMC exists to meet development needs in such areas as education and training, health and income-generation

Evaluation and Assessment of Community Multimedia Centres

While evaluation and assessment of CMCs must include a combination of entry points matching those of research on community radio (TV) and community telecentres, the framework here also needs to take into account the many possible shapes and forms as described in the general M&E. For CMCs it is strongly recommended to carry out a fully-fledged assessment of it and its environments as proposed below, due to the special nature of a CMC: owned and managed by a community and with objectives beyond those of airing news, but with community development and social change as an objective – oftentimes in fragile settings and thus with a need to mobilise partnerships to meet the day to day challenges.

• Enabling Environment
  • legal environment for community media and community ownership
  • supporting media organisations
  • networks of community media
  • availability of potential funding partners and sources

• Ownership, Management and Organisational Performance
  • the internal organisation,
  • the level of community ownership,
  • community involvement
  • internal democracy
  • management routines and procedures.

• Technical Facilities and Operations
• Production
• Content
• Sustainability Assessment
• Reception and Usage
• Community Impact