Argentinians Are So Sick of the Media, They're Inventing Their Own

The popularity of the podcast has skyrocketed in recent years, but minorities remain drastically underrepresented in the field, as with most media realms. Contemporary Black Canvas was created to help encourage people of color to participate, as well as giving minorities a platform from which to speak and a foot in the door of the industry.

The Mann Deshi Tarang Vahini community radio station aims to educate and broadcast important information, like weather alerts and COVID-19 resources, to rural areas in the country where access to information is often lacking. Listenership varies by region, but in some areas the radio station has over 100,000 listeners across more than 100 villages.

After an economic downturn, several community-based radio stations have sprung up, offering an alternative to commercial stations and allowing Argentinians, especially those in rural areas, the opportunity to come together and choose what they want to listen to and talk about. One organization called DTL! collective helps organizations set up community radio stations by providing a transmitter, antenna, and other hardware.

In Cuba, most access to internet is extremely limited. "The Weekly Package," solves this problem--carried by individuals who travel around on foot each week, it is a single, black market hard drive from which customers may download the content of their choice - telenovelas, news, movies, and more.

Sangam Radio is India's oldest community radio station as well as the first station run by women. Broadcasting two hours a day, Sangam plays recording of songs collected in the field, personal stories of community members, and community information.

A woman named MaiLy Do started a Vietnamese-language radio show in Oklahoma City after she realized on Sept. 11, 2001 that her family back home with limited English had no way of finding out if she was okay. Today the station broadcasts for 24 hours across the US and 40 other countries. It offers a voice to the Vietnamese-American population in Oklahoma City and is also essential in disseminating critical information to residents who have limited English skills.

In an effort to address a lack of broadband access, Indigenous communities are working together, and with local organizations, to acquire funding to bring internet access to their communities and close the digital divide.

To increase awareness of cervical cancer and the cancer-preventing HPV vaccine, Al-Ansar radio shares information about the disease, the vaccine and works to dispel speculation and misinformation about vaccines in general to those in underserved and hard-to-reach areas, as they’re often hardest to get vaccinated.

To make internet connectivity accessible and affordable across Africa, Dr. Harold Omondi developed “internet from the moon,” a technology that uses satellite dishes to communicate with transponders placed in the moon several years ago by NASA. The transponders can send and receive information and, since the moon keeps the same side of its surface pointed towards earth, the connection cannot be lost. Still in the piloting phase, the system currently offers free internet at Jomo Kenyatta University, where over 1,200 people login every day, and has another station in South Sudan serving 300-500 people daily.

Because of internet shutdowns, six friends created a bilingual newspaper to document and record the farmer protests in India. Thousands of farmers have been protesting for weeks about the government’s new agricultural laws. Since there are many older farmers and the government has blocked the internet, they give out free print copies of their biweekly “Trolley Times” newspaper with information on speeches, medical aid, and community kitchens. While producing the newspaper has become harder, they are able to print about 5,000 copies for the farmers.