The Challenge of Representing Community: Designing Content in Radio Sagarmatha and Community Radio Madanpokhara

Community radio stations are a phenomenon that have swept over Nepal and have grown in size within the past two decades. Community Radio Madanpokhara and Radio Sagarmatha are two of the oldest community radio stations in Nepal and South Asia. These stations, however, face many challenges, and while they are doing many good things for their communities, the huge demographic of Nepal brings into question how community radio develops content that truly benefits the community. By comparing the methods that these two stations use to create content and by looking at the different factors that influence the content, this study attempts to do a quality assessment when it comes to how these stations include the community in the design of content, funding, and other types of participation. Research findings include data collected from employees from both radio stations, past employees, and people from other organizations that work closely with and are familiar with the issues community radios face. The analysis of this study shows that while these stations are doing many things well, both have areas that they have to work on in order to create better content with their communities. Academically and educationally, this study can be used both by Community Radio Madanpokhara and Radio Sagarmatha as a “check in” for their current situtaions. It can also be used by other community radio stations as well who may want to see how the challenges these two stations face can reflect upon the challenges they face in their own stations.