(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Conference on Media & Mass Communication Osaka, Japan
community engages with fights against the inequalities and injustices faced by the
marginalized groups.
This process of managing people’s lives through efficient management systems has
come to be known as ‘Healthism’ wherein roles and responsibilities come before
choice and power (Prudy, 1999). Within this process, people are made more
responsible rather than being empowered to deal with inequalities. Many excluded
people and communities feel being further marginalized through this process of
‘healthism’ and ‘governmentality’ as the government is seen shrugging off its
responsibility of providing a caring system and instead making people responsible for
staying disease-free (Clarke, 1995).
When seen in combination with racism and discrimination faced by the people
belonging to the marginlaised communities, the racial background of many minority
ethnic groups becomes ‘etiologically important in the development of illness’
(McKenzie 2003; Karleson and Nazroo 2002). However, the relationship between
health and ethnicity is not a simple one as many white people living in the inner city
areas, sharing a common geography with non-white groups, face similar problems.
The social conditions and place of living are as important as the ethnic background
and minority status when looking at the health inequalities.
Community radio- a common frame
Although identity formation is a contested and highly debated concept, it is very
much associated with peoples' rituals, cultural practices and traditions. Werbner
(2005:19) sees this association as a ‘mode of the transaction and relatedness’, as well
as a ‘discursive imaginary of selfhood, identity, subjectivity and moral virtue’.
Whether identity formation is the capacity to draw attention to the issues of
'representation' (Hall, 1997), or the tendency to gravitate towards a 'shared culture'
(Desai, 1963) or an expression of 'socio-cultural particularism' (Raghuram, 1999) it
needs tangible spaces and contexts where people can express their group and
collective aspirations.
The emancipatory use of media is believed to help in ‘collective mobilization’
through a decentralized and interactive process (Enzensberger 1974) with emphasis
on ‘communication’ rather than on ‘distribution system’ (Brecht 1983: 169). Within
this framework, community based media are seen to harness the ‘cultural identity’ of
local people, and facilitate their ‘participation’ (Servaes 1999: 88). This approach
allows the possibility of ‘context based approaches’ depending on ‘felt needs, and the
empowerment of the most oppressed sectors of various societies at divergent levels’
(Ibid: 271). Many scholars, mostly coming from critical perspectives, have underlined
the importance of small-scale media that ‘give voice’ to voiceless, and help facilitate
an informed debate. Historically, these media have evolved from the critique of the
state and the corporate uses of communication (Wasko and Mosco, 1992).
The debates over the role of communication in development has moved from
understanding communication as a ‘linear information transmission/diffusion process’
to support modernisation (Shannon and Weaver, 1949, Lerner, 1958; Schramm 1964)
to conceptualising communication as a process of ‘shared meaning’ that is inseparable
from the context; a process of resistance, empowerment and freedom (Boderave 1977;
Zimmerman and Rapport, 1988; Crush 1995). The dialogic process as advocated by
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