The Background and Need

The idea of founding a dedicated research unit that would provide the community media sector was first initiated by the National Community Radio Forum in 2002 when it approached the Freedom of Expression Institute to facilitate the establishment of a Community Media Policy Research Unit. This it did out of recognition of the fact that the sector lacked a dedicated think-tank to advance the interests of the sector in policy and legislative debates. The NCRF approached the FXI given the history of collaboration between the two organisations on policy, legislative, regulatory and research matters.

Despite the formal process of making submissions on policy and laws, the community media sector has not made the necessary impact nor the gains to ensure its influence in this area. In fact, the reality is that the sector tends to survive attending to day-to-day operational issues, leading to policy, lobbying and advocacy efforts being seen as external activities that are not integrated into the day-to-day struggles of the sector. These deficiencies ultimately impact on the long-term survival of the sector, which risks being marginalised in public fora by larger, more well resourced industry groups. If the community media sector is to ensure that it maintains and in fact strengthens its role locally and internationally, it needs to develop the capacity to lobby effectively, backed up by quality research.

On the basis of the above observation the following were identified:

# No professional dedicated policy research unit;
# Inadequate and patchy policy and regulatory impact;
# Minimum gains for community media in policy and legislative processes;
# Patchy participation in global media organisations and civil society;
# Lack of networking tools and resources to engage with community media locally and globally;
# Lack of an information and communication technology strategy for policy, advocacy and networking.
# Lack of informed communication with the regulator.

The Unit started operating on an ad-hoc basis in 2001. It was formally launched on the 27th July 2002 in Magaliesburg, at the NCRF Annual General Meeting.

The Principles

The following have been identified as the broad principles that should guide the work of the Unit:

# Pro-community media and pro-participatory, democratic communications.
# Promote the right to communicate, including the right to receive and impart information, as a basic human right.
# Promote community ownership and control of media through the provision of practical but well-informed policy research. Popularise the importance of community media in all relevant fora.
# Recognise the broad accountability of the Unit to the community media sector.
# Encourage and interact with international movements promoting community ownership and control of media.
# Build the community media sector on a non-sectarian basis.
# Production of policy research that eliminates class, race and gender inequalities in all media, including community media, and promotes the participation of historically disadvantaged communities in all levels of the media.
# To promote the role of community media in the transformation of South Africa society.

Operations and Focus

The Unit operates within the FXI. Whereas operating within the Institute there is a standing agreement between the two organisations (FXI and NCRF) that the Unit should enjoy independence from the two in terms of the conceptual framework within which it locates its research findings.

The Unit has developed five foci for its research. These are:

# Self-initiated research projects. These are projects that are conceptualized by the Unit after identifying gaps in research;
# Commissioned research projects. As a result of its growing influence the Unit gets approached by other organisations to conduct research and evaluation studies on their behalf;
# Policy interventions. The Unit provides both the FXI and NCRF with support to intervene in policy matters such as making submissions and presentations to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, the Department of Communications, the Government Communications and Information Services, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the Media Development and Diversity Agency and other statutory bodies;
# Policy support for civil society. This is the more recent addition to the work of the Unit. The Unit would be expanding its work to cover areas that are not solely determined by officialdom (such as the above-mentioned policy interventions) and move towards providing support for the ever-growing civil society movements that seek to offer alternatives to the current status quo;
# Publications. The Unit is committed to disseminating all the information that it gathers through its research. This it does through producing publications (mainly books) every year and almost for every research project.

Projects Undertaken by the Policy Unit

Since its inception, even before it was formally launched, the Unit has undertaken a number of groundbreaking studies that have had a positive impact on media policy studies and intervention in the country. The following are some of the studies conducted and presented at different fora:

• A Study on the Media Diversity and Development Agency; a report prepared for presentation to the parliamentary committee on communications;
  
• A Study on the Delays in the Licensing of Community Radio Stations;
  
• A Study on Advertising Trends for Community Radio;
  
• A Study on the SABC’s Public Radio Service and its ability to achieve its Mandate;
  
• A Feasibility Study for Community Radio Labour Programmes.
  
• A Short Study on Ownership and Control of Broadcast Media
  
• A Study on the Expansion of South African Media and ICT Industry into the SADC Region;
  
• A Study on the State, Size and Shape of the Community Radio Sector in South Africa
  
• The Evaluation of the Community Radio Labour Programmes, a project of the Workers World Media Productions and the labour federations Cosatu, Nactu and Fedusa