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Language Selector
[Song] Press „1‟ for the Hausa menu (in Hausa). Press „2‟ for the
French menu (in French)
Menus (Hausa and French)
[SFX] Welcome to the ―Listeners Line‖ for PDEV radio program audience
members… To listen to the comments and opinions from other audience
members, press ‗1‘… To leave a message, press ‗2‘… To return to the menu at
any time, press any key…
Content
(Clips of messages from audience members
responding to question posted on the ―Listener‘s
Line.‖ The clips are updated on a regular basis.)
Leave-a-Message
[SFX] You are on the “Listeners Line” for PDEV
radio program audience members… (The following
instructions change on a regular basis) Dear
listeners, after more than two years of broadcasting
the PDEV radio programs, what did you like the best
about our programs? You can respond to our
question after the tone. And to end the message,
hang up.
Figure 17: IVR system menu
The three ―listener engagement mechanisms,‖ taken together, demonstrate great effort and ingenuity on
the part of the PDEV media team to find ways to be as democratic as possible in including listeners. The
call-in shows are geographically and linguistically democratic in their broad appeal to listeners far from
the capital cities. Listeners can call their local radio station and express themselves in their language of
choice. For listeners who prefer to communicate directly with PDEV radio producers, technological
democracy has been established via the SMS-Text message capture and interactive voice response
systems. These systems allow low cost (or no cost) text messaging for those who can read and write,
and voice messaging for those who cannot. Once PDEV media teams manage to make the Frontline and
Freedom Fone systems entirely toll-free for the listeners, the ―final democratic frontier‖—the cost
barrier—can be addressed.
Conclusion
The ―ecological‖ nature of the PDEV media program design has resulted in a number of
interventions and activities that far exceed a traditional radio broadcast approach. Broadcasting radio
programs is pure diffusion—the one-way flow of information from capital to region, from ―experts‖ to
citizens. Traditional radio programs have certainly proven effective in increasing the amount and reach
of information on a given topic. In fact, mass media are unparalleled in their ability to reach remote
regions using a technology that is widely accessible and low-cost. Supplementing radio programs with
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