Critics of self-assessment often doubt its scientific approach, based on the premise that it can be motivated by conflict of interests, self-promotion which promote self-relevant information, not sharing all information and yet, draw favourable inferences. How can this be countered in the case of Community Radio?

Venu Arora argues self-assessment can help Community Radio Stations deepen their engagement with the principles of freedom of expression, equality, diversity and social justice, democracy, transparency, community participation and ownership.

Self-reflection is an important component of any effort towards improvement. In the context of CR in India, ‘improvement’ should be thought of as moving towards greater alignment with the core principles of Community Radio. The principles include freedom of expression, equality including Gender equality, diversity and social justice, democracy, transparency, community participation and ownership. The vision, mission, goals and objectives of every Community Radio station would ideally reflect these principles and strive for their realization through the practice of Community broadcasting. Overall the CR station needs to find ways of ensuring editorial independence and structures that enables it to serve the interests of its local community.

These principles can easily become just words with no meaning or may appear challenging from an implementation point of view in the absence of considerable internal deliberations that strengthen and bring clarity to every member of the Community Radio station with regard to the work they are doing: Why are they making the programs they are making? Why is the process of reporting or content creation what it is and how can it be participatory? How is participation defined and why is it important? How can diverse local voices be strengthened? What processes may be adopted to create greater transparency and community engagement on decision making with regard to the station’s operations?

In the initial days of reflection, the biggest role that self-assessment can play is to help Community Radio station teams deepen their engagement with these principles so that they can clearly articulate challenges and find ways to address those challenges in the long run. I don’t think if a station and its team desires to represent its community’s voices and represent its interests – how a self-assessment process can become what has been alleged in the question. The purpose of self-assessment is to find ways of looking at one’s work with the intention to seek out ways to improve. There is and should not be any motivation to misrepresent the challenges or gaps that emerge during self-assessment. If done well, the process will throw up new strategies, to achieve better alignment with the principles noted above in a locally relevant manner.

Author : Venu Arora

Venu Arora works as an Executive Director with NCR based Communication for Development organisation, Ideosync Media Combine