ABSTRACT
The purpose of the previous chapter was to suggest, in rather general terms, that the approach there advocated, would tend to be associated with a high ratio of benefits to costs, relative to other attempts to use the Internet for the benefit of rural communities in developing countries. We now seek to situate this general hypothesis in the narrower context of community radios, with the aim of examining the concrete mechanisms through which the benefits of the Internet are conveyed to the local community in question. For this purpose we focus on the pivotal role played by the community radio station in its function as a gateway to the Internet for the community it serves. Let us begin with the Kothmale Internet Project in Sri Lanka, which, according to Girard (2001: 8) ‘is one of the best known examples of a radio station adopting the role of a gateway or community intermediary between its listeners and the Internet’.
