FIRE´s Internet Radio Station
An autochthonous creation by feminists in cyberspace.*
AC FIRE is a non profit, non governmental organization with a legal status in Costa Rica. Its Board is composed of 12 Latin American and Caribbean women, and AC FIRE founder and chief funder Genevieve Vaughan. It is produced by a permanent staff of 3 Latin American and Caribbean feminists, together with many volunteers.
Objectives:
AC FIRE is an international communications venue working to contribute to bring a wide diversity of voices to the world’s media. Its mission is to: amplify the voices and ideas of women; promote the human rights of women; connect multiple voices, technologies and actions; strengthen women’s and Third World media efforts by participating in networks, and in local, regional and global initiatives; generate individual and collective commitment to movement building and action; and produce high quality, non-sexist, activist programs in Spanish and English for radio and the internet.
AC FIRE disseminates women's voices in all their diversity and allows their perspectives to be heard by men and women around the world, crossing barriers of nationality, culture, race, geography and language, and gender. FIRE’s feminist perspective is not about ‘women’s rights’ it is women’s voices and perspectives on all issues. FIRE is not ‘for’ women; it is by and about women talking about every issue, for all. While it is international in scope and reach, it is mainly done from the identity of Latin American and Caribbean feminists who are FIRE´s permanent producers and directors.
Context:
The evolution of humanity is characterized, among other processes, by the need that individuals and collectives have, of establishing forms of interaction. We know that the first efforts of the newly born are a way of emitting sound in order to generate a space of communications. The spoken word, in any tongue, is a tool for dialogue since the beginning of life itself.
The right to information, the exercise of the freedom of expression and the human right to communicate through the media, access, the appropriation and use of the new technologies, all constitute, at the present, rights denied to the extensive majority of the women.
FIRE´s contribution is about the spoken word by women in the context of a civilization in transition where systematically:
· more women are integrated to productive activities,
· education is recognized as a means to fight the poverty,
· knowledge and information are at the center of the development,
· access to information is the motor of the economy,
· new technologies are instruments in the daily life of a high percentage of the human activity;
But also:
· women continue to be excluded from the right to the development,
· extreme poverty strikes one thousand two hundred million persons that live with one dollar or less per day.
· near 130 million children in the world, of which 80 million are girls, do not have access to schooling.
· educational inequalities still exist, with regards to quality, quantity and opportunities,
· information and communications networks are concentrated in a few countries (25% of the countries of the world do not have sufficient fixed capacity of lines for the development of the new technologies, since is calculated that in those countries, the capacity is barely one telephone per 100 persons.),
· only the 15% of the world population live the industrial countries, yet they have the 88% of the users of Internet,
· the population of only 55 countries, use 99% of the technologies of the information, as are services, applications and goods.
In the framework of this universal context, it is necessary to take advantage of the new technologies of the era to create spaces of interaction and communication that favor the breaching of the gap that configures today's world: the gap between the included and the excluded.
We need to transcend the present context, and to do it extensively, and that is the power of the role of radio in Internet. The development of our Web Radio in cyberspace showed us that the transience that characterized radio repeated itself in this new venue. However, Web Radio provided infinite possibilities for information and sound file storage that counteracted the apparent characteristic of immediacy, making interactivity an essential element where the news and information can be heard over and over again.
As of 1991 in Costa Rica, Feminist International Radio Endeavour (FIRE) was created in order to use radio to the fullest, as a resource to amplify the voices of the women worldwide. From within its feminist, Latin American and Third World identity, in 1998 this organization expanded its mission to include the creative combination of new technologies with traditional radio.
One of its main characteristics is that seeks to develop new forms of communications, contributing to change the flow if information in the world order, providing to the world order access to the voices and perspective of women through the combination of traditional radio and new technologies such as computers and telematic, in order to access a new concept of radio.
It combines conventional radio with Internet, and contains a strategy that transcends the users of Internet, to be multiplied in diverse formats of communication, through rebroadcasts in local radios, international shortwave radio, magazines, newspapers, electronic networks, Web pages, etc.
Internet provides the possibility of converting the computer into a transmitter of high frequency, at a more economic cost than traditional radio, to be combined with other venues of dissemination.
The strategy that integrates the construction of a radio station through the combination of new technologies with conventional ones from the perspective of women apparently constitutes the first project of this kind, owned and administered by women of the South.
FIRE is about an international radio that broadcasts a critical content that combines sound with text and images with colors with an innovative treatment of the information. This interactive concept of radio is the creative process of a group of women that learn day to day to take advantage of the technological resources, in order to open channels that enable conversations within the networks and that allow women to create new forms of inclusion and disclosure of issues and perspectives for the sake of advancing their own human rights and those of all of humanity.
FIRE’s Internet Radio Station.
Since it began webcasting in 1998, Feminist International Radio Feminist (FIRE) has designed its own concept of what a feminist – Internet – international - community – radio - station in the Internet can be. It combines the multimedia capability of the Internet in a radio format, that is, a format that has the oral language of women at the center, with a multiplying strategy as the backbone. ‘By all means connecting voices, technologies and actions, amplifying women’s voices worldwide’ became FIRE´s slogan as of 1998 when it substituted the world of shortwave radio broadcasting (1991-1998) for a multimedia approach to radio production.
Internet radio productions take four forms at FIRE: “on demand” monthy features, special coverage of and from events, webcast marathons on special ocasionas and womens PEACECASTS.
A. On Demand Monthly Features.
Thus, beyond being a site where FIRE acquires an identity in the Internet, FIRE´s web page is mainly a media venue where you can hear, see and read women’s voices about all issues. Monthly in depth features portray women’s perspectives about diverse issues, identities, cultures and countries. All the reports since 1998 can always be found in it, as they remain indefinitely posted.
The combination of text, images and embedded sound files for ‘on demand’ listening, form a unity where the oral voices of the women are centerfold. Texts that can easily be read on the air in any other radio to introduce, compliment and contextualize what women themselves say about a specific issue. Because of this combination, radio women in Latin America and the Caribbean have baptized FIRE´s Web Radio as “the visual radio by women.”
The Internet features are also turned by FIRE into written articles that are published every year in its magazine ‘Women’s Voices on FIRE’. Its objective is ‘to continue reconnecting with our shortwave radio listenership that accompanied us between 1991-1998. We also want to record on paper the oral language of women from our radio productions, and build new audiences that expand our Internet audiences, particularly those listeners of radio who do not have access to the Internet. While many of the articles included in this magazine issue are also available on the FIRE web page (at www.fire.or.cr), others are new, or are updates of the original Web features.
As of 2002, the voices of women on FIRE are also featured systematically for the local audience in Costa Rica were FIRE is based, via montly articles in the women´s newspaper La Pregonera.
By combining multiple sources of oral language including local radio, Internet radio, and shortwave, we were inspired to produce this magazine. We hope it will form part of libraries, documentation centers, desktops, classrooms, buses, kitchens, and homes, but primarily will reach the hands of those of you who have allowed us to accompany you, who have inspired us, whom we miss and whom we continue to learn from.
Example: see “Oil” in Case Studies
B. FIRE-PLACE Special Broadcasts.
Besides the monthly ‘on demand’ reports, FIRE organizes special webcasts from conferences and events where women come together to influence agendas at the local, national regional or international level. The FIRE-PLACE in Internet began in 1999 as a virtual radio station placed in the middle of any conference or meeting to open its microphones to women so that they can share with an international audience their news, reports, debates, sorrows and joys when developing advocacy and mobilizing skills and actions to influence agendas. Such webcasts are designed under a strategy of FIRE’s own creation in interaction with other women in media and media groups.
One example is the FIRE-PLACE at the Beijing + 5 UN process.
(box) "Voices Without Brackets" was webcast from the building across the United Nations in New York every day between June 4-9. Women guest producers from around the world hosted programs focusing on the role of media in relation to the 12 critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action. The special coverage had the collaboration of Women Action, a…
Sponsored by UNIFEM, Feminist International Radio Endeavour (FIRE) and the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Network of the World Association of Community Radios (AMARC) also organized three training sessions in Internet broadcasting for women and girls at the Special Session.
Through FIRE and CIMAC, the Beijing + 5 Latin American Regional Women’s Articulation developed a media initiative during the Special Session of the General Assembly of the U.N. It consisted of the creation of a regional electronic network of press releases based on coverage of the events in New York and on the FIRE radio broadcasts on Internet. They were sent out on a daily basis to a 250 e-mail list of networks of activists, communicators and journalists throughout the region. Receivers of the information multiplied the news in local radios, newspapers, magazines, television and women’s networks and organizations.
A previous experience in the coverage of the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Prepcom in Lima, Perú in February had begun to develop the innovative experience. The VIII Conference Regional Conference of the Economic Commission for Latin América and the Caribbean (CEPAL) constituted the Preparatory regional meeting for the Special Session of the General Assembly of the ONU in June: the Beijing + 5 UN evaluation of the implementation of the Platform for Action of the IV World Conference on Women.
FIRE covered the meeting in coordination with women’s communications organizations in the region, such as: ISIS Chile, Women’s Feature Service (SEM) Costa Rica, the Latin-American Press Agency (ALAI) Ecuador, Red ADA Bolivia, Flora Tristán and the Center of Communication and Information of the Woman (CIMAC) in Mexico. Together we develop the following media initiatives:
· Organized a Press Conference with 25 journalists that came to cover the official conference. In it, leaders of the Regional Articulation of Women presented to the media their assessment about the results of their own NGO meeting in preparation to influence the governments: “More Than Words…Mechanisms, Resources and Justice Towards the XXI Century,” thus receiving coverage in radio and written press in Peru and other countries of the region.
· Wrote daily features that were sent to media in the region, to place in our WEB sites and to send to women’s electronic networks in all the countries in the region.
· Covered the presentation of the statement of the women’s NGOs at the official UN Regional Prepcom and gave it the place it should have in media, as the expression of civil society in an official UN meeting.
· Drafted and distributed among UN delegates, governments and the media, a press release and document about our own assessment of Point “J” of the Platform which speaks about women and the media. We also asked the women’s caucus to lobby the media issue with their governments while we did media work with them.
· Flora Tristán wrote and distributed a daily electronic bulletin for the women’s ONG of the region.
The results of the media strategy is that the NGOs received coverage in the media, women in the region were informed throughout, and point “J” gathered visibility and was included in the final statement by governments, known as the “Peru Consensus”.
2. Another precedent to the Beijing + 5 coverage was FIRE´s participation in the global Prepcom in New York in March. FIRE covered the Prepcom in a joint strategy with the CIMAC of Mexico. ALAI, FIRE, CIMAC, ISIS-CHILE, SEM and Red ADA had agreed to include one of CIMAC´s journalists as part of the media team of the Regional Articulation Women’s NGOs.
The following activities were carried out:
Work with the Women’s Media Caucus:
· Influence in the women’s media caucus in its document to governments so that the issues and strategies of women’s media in the region would be included. The main contribution of FIRE to the language of the document was that of defining the criteria of the voluntary codes of ethics of the media, based on the international framework of the human rights. This focus allowed women in media to solve a critical problem in the debate: by placing the discussion in the human rights framework we prevent arbitrary codes.
· Another contribution included by FIRE in the language proposed by the Media Caucus for the official document was the reference to access by women to radio, and access to the allocation of frequencies, which was absent in the Platform for Action of the IV World Conference in 1995. The Women’s Network of the World Association of Community Radios (AMARC) had prepared to include it
· Another contribution of FIRE to the Media Caucus was that of inviting the women media practitioners of Asia, Africa and Europe to express its experiences in the daily webcasts done by FIRE from the International Women’s Tribune Center.
Work with the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Caucus:
On March 28 -first meeting of the Caucus – the media team was named: FIRE, CIMAC and ALAI. While ALAI organized the lobby work for Point “J”, FIRE and CIMAC did the media work of the Caucus:
· We committed the women activists to lobby Point “J” with their governments while we did the media work with them.
· We distributed daily the bulletin Women in Action in Spanish among the participants in the regional caucus.
· Wrote and distributed daily features in Spanish and English, distributing them among the women activists.
· Invited women from the region to participate in the daily webcasts on FIRE´s web radio between the 6 - 14 of March.
· We worked with the women activists members of their official delegations to commit them to support Point “J”.
Productions: CIMAC and FIRE produced and distributed daily features in English and Spanish that were sent to electronic directories of media in Latin América and the Caribbean and to women’s organizations and networks. Many were features in local radio, newspapers and electronic newsletters.
FIRE also covered numerous panel presentations by women and uploaded the sound files, pictures and introductory text for “on demand” listening.
Webcasts: With the use of simple technology for Internet webcast, FIRE did daily programs where women talked about the proceedings, thus creating their own news that could be picked up in their countries and in media at the UN. Two daily hours, one in Spanish and one in English were organized.
The experience was characterized by WomenAction, WomenWatch, United Nations Radio and UNIFEM as one of the most innovative and creative use of the new technologies in the hands of the women, allowing an international audience to listen directly to the activist present at the headquarters of the UN.
Special Coverage of the Special Session of the Un General Assembly Beijing + 5: Finally, between the 4-9 of June, at the UN headquarters in New York, FIRE organized a special broadcast. The FIRE-PLACE “Voices Without Brackets” did daily four hour webcasts from the women’s media center across the UN building. Half of the programming in Spanish and half in English, 60 activists participated in the endeavor, either as producers or interviewees
Each program dealt with one of the 12 critical areas of concern of the Platform for Action of the IV World Conference on Women in 1995 in Beijing, thus disseminating, in the voice of women, what each area of concern states, what has happened in the implementation of the issue discussed, what governments were debating across the street at the moment and what women in civil society have done to demand accountability of governments in light of what they signed on to do. The role of media in contributing to the advancement of the issue, or being an obstacle to its understanding was also included.
The FIRE-PLACE was organized by the FIRE staff with the contribution of the women’s regional communications networks, the Regional Women’s NGO Articulación, WomenAction, the International Committee of NGOs (CONGO), The Women’s Network of the World Association of Community Radios (AMARC), the International Tribune Center (IWTC), UNIFEM, HIVOS, REAL SERVER, AMERISOL, Genevieve Vaughan and especially all the producers, participants and the women’s movement.
More than 60 reception reports from all parts of the world were received for FIRE. One of the main characteristics of almost all the letters is that in them, men and women talk about what they did to re-forward, re-broadcast, re-publish and re-distributed the information in venues in their countries, multiplying the information through radio, press written, magazines, TV and in electronic networks beyond the beyond, like the airwaves themselves.
The FIRE-PLACE was also featured in other media while at the UN: AMARC´s PULSAR Press Agency, Australia Community Radio, Wisconsin Public Radio, United Nations Women’s Radio, Women’s International News Gathering Service, the newspaper WomenAction during the Beijing + 5 process and The Independent of Mexico, Ciberbrújas of AMARC, Radio France International, Radio Caracol of Colombia, France Press Agency, the electronic magazine Drum Beat, FAIR in EUA, etc.
Other activities:
Other activities carried out by FIRE during the Special Session of General Assembly of the United Nations "Beijing + 5 were the following:
· In a joint effort with the Women’s Network of AMARC, FIRE and CIMAC wrote and sent daily written features through electronic networks.
· Additionally, with the Regional NGO Articulación, FIRE created a special daily newscast. Under the name “Line of Impact” the special segment of the FIRE-PLACE, also feature in “Está Legal” in local radio in Costa Rica, women activists participating in the official debates came on the air every morning to share with the listeners the hottest news about the UN proceedings.
· In a joint effort with "Girls Scout International" and another with ISIS Manila, FIRE offered two training workshops in live webcasting. For the first time since it has been doing live broadcasts in radio or internet since 1991, FIRE produced a Training Manual in international broadcasting in the hands of women.
· FIRE also covered numerous panel presentations by women and uploaded the sound files, pictures and introductory text for “on demand” listening.
In this experience, FIRE´s Internet strategy came to full bloom. FIRE staff believes that this has been possible because of its communications strategy of combining “voices, technologies and actions”; also because of the way it links with other networks and their media strategies, under the concept of “interactive autonomy”; because the women’s movement insisting on having a voice of its own in the world; and FIRE staff insisting that women should own their own venues, while interacting with others. It has also been possible thanks to funding agencies and philanthropists that have believed in it.
C. Webcast Marathons on Special Dates.
As of the year 2000, FIRE began to develop another kind of webcast, also of FIRE’s own creation: webcasts marathons of between 12 to 25 hours of uninterrupted streaming. Under the name ‘Full Spectrum Against....’ the Marathons are organized is special dates of celebration and commemorations, such as International Day Against Violence, International Women’s Day, International Women’s Health Day, etc.
Women around the world are invited to send their material about the issue for broadcast by FIRE on that day, FIRE produces its own programs by inviting women to come to the station or call by phone to be interviewed, communicators and journalists are invited to listen in, record the sound files and write stories for their own venues or re-broadcast the sound files and reports in their own local radio programs around the world. Radio stations and other webcasting initiatives are invited to link live in a simultaneous way. The Internet audience is also invited to both listen in and write to FIRE and to the women they hear on FIRE, and especially to multiply the information they gather.
The concept with which FIRE has built these Marathons is three fold: feminist mobilization, thematic focalization and multimedia multiplication. Marathons are a contribution for women and feminists to mobilize to portray to a global audience, their voices about agenda setting, experiences and perspectives; they also become a feminist informational focal point about special issues (portal in sound); it also contributes to distribute the information and amplify the voices of women about the issues in an almost never ending multiplying effect (like the airwaves themselves) because it uses the webcasts, not as a venues alone, but as source for re-distribution to other media venues.
At the present FIRE has received many letters from activists, communicators, journalists and general audience that have listened to the marathons and have re-broadcast in their own language or written about the webcasts in newspapers, radio shown, electronic bulletins and newsletters or magazines.
One example is the 2th of November Marathon on International Day Against Voilence Towards Women in 2001.
(box) Marathon Strategy Links Women's Voices, Events & Struggles Worldwide
Broadcast on International Women’s Day, the FIRE marathon was produced in preparation for WCAR in South Africa, but also for the “2nd International Women's Global Strike," in the campaign "Voices Without Frontiers," organized worldwide by AMARC (World Association of Community Radios) from South Africa. The marathon also commemorated the UNESCO Campaign, "Women Make the News 2001."
As a result, this racism marathon, as in other FIRE marathons, served to link many different events and voices from all over the world with one common goal, building awareness and informing about the perpetration of unjustice towards women worldwide, and particularly minority, immigrant and indigenous women who disproportionately face racial and/or ethnic-based violence, sexual abuse/trafficking, and limited or no employment opportunities.
FIRE’s marathon disseminated voices of those women affected by unequal work conditions, and gave a voice to women who are engaged in the struggle against racims and other related forms of intolerance, and to women active in NGOs who work against these forms of discrimination. Likewise, the FIRE webcast offered media attention to related campaigns, pointed out the lack of presence of the mainstream media in supporting these actions, and focused on women’s voices and participation in the media worldwide.
As in their other marathons, this global link made by women, for women, in the hands of women with this racism marathon is FIRE's strategy for building awareness among women in order to understand that personal oppression is one of many global exploitations, which are linked in multiple ways (such as the link between sexism, racism, poverty, exclusion of women from political power and control over media and technologies). Thus these marathons are designed to empower women locally and globally into action.
Marathon Participants Emphasize Intersections of Multiple Oppressions
Feminists who spoke on FIRE's racism marathon emphasized the intersection of racism and sexism, among other oppressions. Sergia Galvàn of the Dominican Republic, and Lesley Ann Foster of South Africa both noted the critical importance of the upcoming World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) as an historic opportunity for feminists to organize around issues of oppression intersecting race and gender.
Caribbean Activist Identifies Critical Feminist Challenges at WCAR
Sergia noted that incorporating women's perspectives into the conference agenda is a critical challenge at WCAR because "historically it has been very difficult to make the connections between race, gender and ethnicity." She continued, "Another challenge for us is to get the governments to make true commitment and to implement what they are approving in that conference. We also need to move forward with these issues in the agenda of the civil society."
Although much work lies ahead, Sergia noted that "one positive step that we have already gained is that for the first time from the regional prep-com, discrimination on the basis of sexual preference is already in the agenda. I want to use this marathon to call on listeners to mobilize with us and support us so that the richness of plurality in our region expresses itself in the process toward the conference."
South African Activist Emphasizes Importance of WCAR for her Country
Lesley Ann Foster of South Africa emphasized on FIRE's marathon the importance of WCAR for South Africa, and women in particular in terms of the opportunity to mobilize around the intersection of race and gender issues.
WCAR Offers Critical Opportunity for South African Women to Mobilize Around Key Neglected Issues
Lesley noted that "the changes that are taking place in South Africa focusing on women and gender equality are enormous," much remains to be done. She described a recent large National Conference on the challenges of racism and racial discrimination faced by South Africa, but it unfortunately did not address the intersection with gender issues and sexism.
"What I found, as a woman and a human rights activist, is that there was no focus on the way in which racism and racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances impacted on women," said Lesley. "As a black woman who grew up under apartheid, I thought it was necessary to look at the intersections of gender, racism, racial discrimination, etc., within the South Africa context."
Lesley described to FIRE the commitment of women in South Africa to develop strategies and actions toward WCAR "related to our own lived experience." She announced plans for a national women's conference to be held in June that would tackle issues such as: "poverty; political participation; HIV/AIDS--which is a huge problem facing women at the moment; violence against women--because South Africa has the highest incidence of violence against women in the world; and culture and tradition....We have to look back to see how apartheid was institutionalized in order to exclude women--and black women in particular--from socio-economic areas, political participation, etc."
Although the new South African Constitution and Bill of Rights includes equality clauses, Lesley noted that the results of these laws remain to be seen. "For that we need a change of mind, and for all a change of approach of everybody within the society." And WCAR offers this chance, particular for women: "For us this conference is very important because it is going to say that we as women are not going to stand by and observe what is happening around this conference...We are taking control over the situation, we are engaging in reflections, discussions, research and analyses, to come up with a plan of action and a set of strategies, which will contribute to what is the decade of mobilisation against racism and that will give as an equal place in the political discussion."
Those, together with the voices of are still being heard and multiplied through other venues such as: the World Association of Community Radios (AMARC) Voices San Frontiers every 21st of March – International Day Against Racial Discrimination, BBC in conventional international radio, CIMAC Press Agency and El Independiente newspaper in México and FIRE´s own Web Radio through “on demand” files, among others.
D. Women´s PEACECASTS
Women’s “PEACECASTS” on FIRE were born on the immediate aftermath of the world crisis that emerged after the 11th of September 2001. It came into being from several existing ideas and projects to rise to the occasion. From an initial core of participants (FIRE, Women’s International News Gathering Service (WINGS) and Feminists for the Gift Economy FGE), the PEACECASTS were designed to involve many and varied women in discussion across boundaries of nations, groups, philosophies, and also languages. The final goal the project aims for is: Peace on Earth through realizing women's values.
Statistics…and study
OVERALL SUMMARY of hits and visitors to www.fire.or.cr
between 1998 and 2001 according to web server statistics.
|
|
1998 |
1999 |
2000 |
2001 |
Total |
|
Total Hits |
172289 |
165605 |
476321 |
567782 |
|
|
Average Hits per Day |
51 |
453 |
1301 |
1555 |
|
|
Ave Hits per Visitor |
8.9 |
15.6 |
13.7 |
7.4 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total Visitors |
1934 |
10609 |
34666 |
76773 |
|
|
Ave Visitors per Day |
5 |
29 |
94 |
210 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total Unique IPs |
960 |
4418 |
13044 |
30273 |
|
|
Visitors Who Visit Once |
659 |
3529 |
10891 |
25776 |
|
|
Visitors Who Visit More Than Once |
301 |
889 |
2153 |
4497 |
|
|
Number Visitors Bookmarked FIRE website |
0 |
|
567 |
965 |
|
New networks with a view toward the future
FIRE forms part of the Women’s Network of the World Association of Community Radios and of the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network. It forms part of the broad movement of women doing radio worldwide. It also coordinates with WomenAction, IndyMedia and MicroRadio.com, with many women´s communications organizations throughout the world and radios stations worldwide.
Los sectores involucrados:
1. Audiencia que escucha la estación radial en Internet, la cual es local, regional o internacional. Audiencia local que escucha la transmisión por radio de amplitud modulada.
2. Organismos de Mujeres que participan el la propuesta, sea enviando sus programas para difundirse, participando en talleres, intercambios y capacitaciones.
3. Mujeres en Comunicación y en Redes de Comunicación, que participan enviando programas, produciendo, capacitando o capacitandose.
4. Movimiento amplio de mujeres: por tener un canal de expresión y experimentación, liderado por mujeres, que garantice el ejercicio del Derecho a la Comunicación de los sectores más discriminados.
Radio emisoras y medios escritos y electrónicos de la región y del mundo, mediante REDES con las que coordinamos y envíos que distribuímos.
FIRE is funded by a combination of grants from different sources like; the Global Fund for Women, Shaler Adamas Foundation, Dougherty Foundation, Vaughan Foundation, Mama Cash, and HIVOS of The Netherlands. UNIFEM, WHO and UNFPA have funded FIRE for special activities. FIRE also receives the permanent support of feminist philanthropist and founder of FIRE Genevieve Vaughan. It also receives donations from listeners and friends. FIRE would not be possible without the work of the women and feminist movement who have also contributed in bringing FIRE and funding it to cover their activities.
The experience referred to previously provides evidence of the fact that it is possible to contribute to connect the experiences of women. That their right to communicate and to access new technologies can be achieved, allowing the validation of their oral expression, building a democratic communication, building knowledge, connecting voices, technologies and actions, transcending borders.
Why Internet?
"The tendency of concentration of what is called the "world data processing society" is given by the rich countries, by which the dissemination is not determined only by the changes in technology, but should be understood in the specific structural and institutional context". (Guillian Marcelle, Coordinator of the Gender Equity working group of the African Information Society.)
When the spectrum of communications is analyzed, there is little doubt about the power it withholds. Those who own and decide in the media have the power to define that is socially prominent and relevant, wiping out of the social setting extensive sectors of the population. For the next years, the right to the communicate of the so called "voiceless" will continue to be a right to conquer and for those of us who do communications, it is a commitment for the sake of the "humanization" of humanity in the collective process of communication
The right to a democratic communication faces elements of great concern:
· Ever more concentration of the ownership of media and its venues in national and international corporations.
· Unidirectional transfer of information and technology from North- South.
· The expansion of the digital divide worldwide that widens because of discriminations on the basis of race, class, gender, ethnicity and others, and between North and South.
· Politically pre-established ideological contents that are sexist, violent and that alienate people.
· Globalization of the economy, centered in the power of the information.
The accelerated advancement of communications, the fast development of the new technologies and the access to the cyberspace places us in the following challenge: will these advancements run the same fate of the radio spectrum, print media, etc., or will the excluded be able to benefited from them?
Advocating the creation of spaces of creativity and experimentation, appropriation and connection of technologies, voices and ideas, will allow communication and exchange to be pluralistic and democratic, as a viable option to develop in the regional and global context.
The role of new information and communications technologies in the world is ever more acknowledged because of the role they play in economics, politics, and the social and cultural spheres.
Recent studies show that access and use of new technologies runs almost parallel to the access and use of power in other spheres, becoming more and more pronounced in what begins to be known as the “digital divide.” In it, the social and politically excluded groups are facing the same fate with technologies, as the fate they have faced in regards to political, economic, cultural and social life.
According to the Economic Council for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Latin America and the Caribbean comprise 8% of the world population, yet has only 3.5% of the users of Internet…However, in 1999 the number of computers connected to the Internet in the region rose quicker than in any other region of the world, with 14 times more users, than those in 1995. (ECLAC, México City, April 2000.)
According to the United Nations Human Development Report of 1999 (pp. 62) women constituted 38% of the users of goods and services of the new information technologies in the United States, 25% in Brazil, 17% in Japan and South Africa, 16% in Russia, only 7% in China and barely 4% in it Arab countries.
These concerns affirm the need to consolidate media in hands and minds of women. Women aim to have more programs produced by them, but also to own media venues, as a legitimate right and a guarantee of continuity for their constructive insertion in the society at large.
With enormous concern, radio women are aware of the plight they face when their programs are put off the air in radio stations, and are forced to go from station to station, being always at the will of the owners. Their testimonies confirm the segregation and pilgrimage that they face as producers of radio programs, when the content of their programs transcends the framework of predetermined concepts and ideas of what is fit for the audience and the market. Communication venues in the hands of the women will prevent the arbitrary rejection that stems from sexism, and inequality in power relationships that places women´s programs off the air.
Why radio?
Latin American research about media has shown that radio has been, and continues to be, the most democratic media and the one that has greater credibility in the media spectrum. In a world where media is concentrated in less hands, and where these present almost only selected personalities in power, radio (and more recently in Internet) is where we can find more diversity of voices and owners.
Commercial, community, and educational radios coexist, and even in commercial radio, the purchase of space on the part of social groups beyond the politicians and the businessmen is more feasible due to the fact that it is cheaper. It is this diversity of voices, what has given to radio the credibility it has.
In relation to women, similar studies have provided evidence of the fact that radio is the closes media to them, due to certain characteristics:
· Radio is the media that listens to them, where they can find answer to their questions.
· The intimacy of radio makes women prefer it in order to express their ideas, because they can be hard without being judged by their appearance, but for what they have to say.
· While going about their tasks, be it at home or in the work-place, radio is company to women, both because it is small and can be carried around, but also because it is the one media that one can listen to while doing other things…and women are the busiest of the busy in today's world.
· Radio is the cheapest media, and the women continue being the poorest of the poor.
· Also because in radio, they may be speaking to thousands of persons at the same time, but they're direct interaction is with one person at the same time: the interviewer.
In relation to the gender gap in radio reception, where it is believed that women's radio programs are listened to by women only because they are only of the interest of women, according the recent and innovative Radio Reception Study carried out by FIRE with Puerto Rican journalist and researcher radio producer Norma Valle, the intimacy of radio also facilitates for men to allow themselves to listen to the women, even to the feminists, because they do not feel intimidated by them, due to the fact that they listen to women through an apparatus that that they control.
Why Radio in Internet?
If radio has been the closest media to the women, and in it the oral language constitutes the primary bond, this relation should be extended to the Internet.
The motives are various. Women have historically developed an oral culture that, without depriving us of the written word, has allowed us the transmission of knowledge, wisdom, alliances, etc. Written language has excluded the vast majority of women, in many cases, among other factors, because women have been deprived of literacy skills, and in others because reading and writting requires the undivided attention of women, yet when they remain the busiest of the busiest in the world.
State of World Population Report published this year by the United Nations Popuation Fund states that two thirds of children without access to education are girls and two thirds of illiterate adults are women. (UNFPA, 2001)
Statistics of the Global Women´s Strike state that women and girls do 2/3 of the world's work for 5% of the income and that 2/3 of this work is unwaged. (GWS, 2001)
Through oral language, women have maintained and shared the unofficial history of the evolution of humanity; that which if not registered would be lost.
It is in the words and voices of other women where we find ourselves, and maybe the most valuable thing about this proposal is that by giving a place to the voices of women, we continue validating them and their experiences, and also the most ancestral way of communicating, and at the same time the most disdained one, because it requires nothing else but the word, pure, simple, clear and precise.
When we surf the Internet, there is a tendency to stop there where we can see, hear and interact with the other. That is why chats, video conferences, forums and other forms of exchange have grown so quickly.
FIRE´s Internet radio conjugates the oral language with written language for those who cannot or do not want to hear, the visual image that recreates oral language, and other technical resources that allow is to multiply and amplify the voices and actions of women worldwide.
Another key dimension in FIRE´s strategy has bee the fact that it have promoted women as technicians, allowing them to use the controls and learn to do the technical work in new technologies, thus guaranteeing that they broadcast the voices even in the most adverse settings, be they technical, political or economic.
"A greater participation of the women in the use of the new technologies requires, not only access, but training also." (Strain & Griffin, 1997.)
It is a “multimedia radio” in permanent construction, where the oral language will bring its meaning to the information and communications technology in the process of exchange and navigation in the Internet, while at the same time allowing women to be there in that venue, both as producers and users of its resources.
Each day there are millions of conversations through the NET; adult and young people, women and men, people connected from within their homes, from their workplaces, in different parts of the world, whether they know each other personally or not, people that shares their language, multicultural people. They all have in common they seek to communicate and to be heard, and they are learning to use the new venue to do it.
Women can no longer wait to be called or invited to be included, this time it is our responsibility break though and occupy our place in the Internet, to raise our voices as citizens, mothers, daughters, and companions, and to broadcast to the world, transcending borders, sharing our feminist perspective worldwide in all its dimensions: the family, education, culture, economics, science, diversity…about what we now know, and what will come.
Impact of FIRE’s Internet Radio:
(based on a compilation of letters and e-mails received by FIRE as of June15, 2000.)
FIRE reaches listeners directly through its live broadcasts and multimedia web pages in Spanish and English, but also reaches wider audiences through its multimedia strategy which simply means that through networking with other media venues, there is a process of re-broadcasting, re-distribution and re-publication of its programs. These unique strategies are consistent with FIRE’s objective to “connect voices, technologies and actions, amplifying women´s voices worlwide.”
The international women’s movement and women’s media through their networks use the FIRE broadcasts and multimedia web features to inform themselves about various issues and events, through direct listening and reception but also by redistributing the information to other media networks, and republishing the content in other media such as websites, electronic and paper magazines, newspapers, radio and television stations. In addition, as feminist activists and journalists, FIRE has been featured in many media productions and outlets worldwide, focusing on their unique strategy of producing Internet radio from women’s perspectives.
A. Direct Impact Through Live Broadcasts and Multimedia Web Pages
Webcasts were conducted primarily in Spanish and English, with additional interviews in Portuguese, French, and Chinese, among others. Interviews were conducted live in the FIRE studio, or via phone from locations around the world, or were pre-recorded by FIRE staff and correspondents, or sent to FIRE by a variety of women’s media worldwide. In addition, FIRE produces and maintains a multimedia web page with monthly features in Spanish and English, featuring women’s perspectives on a variety of issues and events. Likewise, for many of these events, FIRE sends out press releases and written reports on its e-mail distribution networks worldwide.
Letters received from a variety of listeners, activists, and other media producers provide evidence of the direct impact of these Internet broadcasts and web features, both on participants in these programs and on listeners:
(From the Dominican Republic): Dear FIRE: We are the Church Women’s Foundation of Santiago de los Caballeros, in the Dominican Republic. We have been receiving the information that you have sent to us, and it is excellent. We are studying it, it is outstanding. Here we have been meeting and working with this material. You have really helped to motivate us in our work. A warm greeting from all of us, Ana Rosa Betances, Margarita Santos, Gilberte Marcoux, Dominican Republic.
(From Uruguay): Dear FIRE: We have been receiving daily your information, and appreciate it greatly. It is especially important and valuable for us because of our great distance from these (Beijing +5) activities. Please keep us on your mailing list. Thank you very much. Fondly, Leonor Rodríguez, National Commission of Follow-up, Uruguay)
(From the United Kingdom): Dear FIRE: Thank you! I heard the report about us (widows)! We are putting your website address on our website. You should also get in touch with Lesley MacKay of Widows of War Living Memorial who are doing a website about war widows. From Margaret Owen, Association of Widows in Development, UK.
(From Costa Rica): A big hug for the 8th of March, I have been thinking today of all the women who are working there. The information that you have been sending out is very valuable and useful for us. When you return to Costa Rica, I hope you will have lots of information about what occurred at the Beijing +5 forum. Here all is well, we are working to organize the next Feminist Encuentro. A big hug, Roxana Arroyo, Agenda Política de Mujeres, Costa Rica.
(From Denmark): Dear FIRE: You are welcome to broadcast 1-2 of my interviews (personal testimonies) in Spanish with Mayan Indians about violence and torture during 36 years of armed conflict in Guatemala. The interviews last from 15-30 minutes. You can listen to a short version on my website: www.para-nunca-olvidar.org. Yours, Lotte Holmen, Danish Radio journalist.
(From Venezuela): Dear FIRE: The information that you send out is stupendous. Each time I receive your e-mail, I send it immediately to the Youth Office of the United Nations in Venezuela and also in Mexico, among other groups. Many thanks for the information, and please keep me on your regular list. Thank you very much, Cristina Cansado, Venezuela.
(From the USA): I traveled more than 1,400 miles to attend the Feminist Expo 2000 in Baltimore, Maryland, not knowing what to expect. I knew little to nothing about the many women’s organizations that have empowered women and impacted their lives…because I was unaware of the women’s movement, I never actively did anything to help its progress and never would call myself a feminist…At the Feminist Expo, I was able to participate in a FIRE broadcast, which gave me the feeling that I was actually doing something to help dispel the false labels attached to the word feminist. Even if only one person learned something from that broadcast, or took a thought or an idea from it, the broadcast was successful. FIRE inspired me to examine what else I can do to educate people about feminism…From Melanie Schneider, Senior Journalism student, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois.
(From Chile): Dear FIRE: I am sending you by e-mail the campaign “Listen to the Women,” produced by Radio Tierra for the initiative by the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network. On Thursday the 23rd we uploaded the forum to transmit on Radio Tierra and CLADEM, at the following website: www.geocities.com/rtierra2000. There are a total of four audio files. Perla Wilson, Radio Tierra.
(From Colombia): Dear María and Katerina: The 1st of May is always a double celebration. From the perspective of women, the commemoration of International Worker’s Day complements very well the celebration of FIRE’s anniversary…The possibility that all women of the world can communicate in our own voice, about our own frustrations and also our own hopes and strengths, are possible due to the flame of the women of FIRE. Their work at Beijing +5 in March and May in New York have demonstrated this well. The voice of FIRE constitutes a voice for the women of the world, and as Latin Americans we feel very proud of them. With all my love, María Victoria Polanco, President of AMARC (World Association of Community Radios).
(From a Chinese journalist living temporarily in the US): I was a journalist in China. I took my experience as a journalist for granted. It was not until being asked (by FIRE) to talk about my experience as a woman journalist in China that I began, while preparing for the talk, to see that it was indeed a privilege to be in the position as a journalist from 1991 to 1997 to witness all the changes China went through…It was a very good feeling know that I indeed had observations and comments to share on issues women in other parts of the world would take an interest in. Though never thinking of women as different species from men, these experiences have helped me recognize that men and women have very different perspectives on political, economic, social and life issues….I am very pleased that I was involved, by participating in the Marathon Program (for November 25th) on FIRE, in the effort to promote women’s voices that has been traditionally and still is in many parts of the world under-heard and under-respected. Talk to you soon, Qiu Mei, (former journalist with China Radio International, Denver, CO USA).
(From Costa Rica): Hello FIRE, Thanks for the information that you have been sending to us, which we have been sharing with our colleagues here at the Arias Foundation. From Rosalía Camacho, Center for Human Progress, Arias Foundation.
(From Canada): Dear FIRE: This is great! Please send us the press releases and reports and we will distribute them to the entire list of the women’s forum so they can receive the news! Here we read it and are very much interested! Julie Beijing, International Coordinator of AMARC (World Association of Community Radios).
(From Mexico): Friends: I would greatly appreciate your putting my name and e-mail address on your list for FIRE in order to receive all of the information that you send out. It will be very useful in my community in the State of Mexico in the coordination of volunteer programs for women’s education in my region. Thanks. Gabriela Careaga.
(From Jamaica, regarding the FIRE coverage of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo in December, 2000): Hello FIRE, Thanks for this info. I was somewhat disturbed this morning about an early news item on Jamaica radio saying that the Tribunal has ruled that these women are not entitled to any compensation and that individuals cannot sue the state. Is this decision final and where do they go from here? Joan Belfon, Jamaica
(FIRE responded to the concern by interviewing Indai Sajor who is the lawyer from the Philippines who represented the Filipino comfort women in the Japanese courts and lost the case on the 6th of December. Indai, also a convenor of the Tokyo Tribunal, explained that the women were very disappointed, “but that is why the Tokyo Tribunal is important. It can put pressure on the Japanese government.”)
B. Re-broadcasting of FIRE Programs
Media producers worldwide record FIRE programs directly during live broadcasts, or download FIRE audio files from the multimedia features, then replay them in their own media, in some cases after translating them into other languages.
Letters received from many of these media producers offer testimony of the many ways that FIRE programs have been rebroadcast:
(From Switzerland): Dear María, Katerina and Nancy: I have seen the English translation of FIRE’s web page but I had to translate it to German, as we broadcast in German. Unfortunately because of the time difference, yesterday’s broadcast was too late for our women’s news program. But I will definitely use one of your reports for my next show in two weeks. Meanwhile good luck with your wonderful work. Bianca Migglioreto, President, AMARC Women’s Network.
(From Puerto Rico): Dear Friends in FIRE: It would interest me to use all that you have produced in Beijing +5, so please keep sending it. Plus could you please call my radio station here in order to do an interview with us for broadcast. Although we don’t yet have sound in the Internet, please keep sending us the material. Affectionately, Norma Valle, University Radio of Puerto Rico.
(From the USA): Dear FIRE editor: I read with interest about your radio programs. I’d like to get a list of the programs you broadcast, and find out whether it might be possible to obtain some of the programs for rebroadcast on the Equal Access channel for Africa, and possibly for Asia. We are currently looking for distance education initiatives on sustainable development issues with which we can partner for our radio channel…the information will be delivered via a new satellite broadcasting system launched by Worldspace Corporation, which has launched satellites over Africa, Asia and next year over Latin America. We particularly are interested in women’s programming, and your programs were recommended to us. Thank you. Kimberly Weichel, Equal Access, USA.
(From Peru): Greetings from Mónica Hurtado, assistant to Gaby Ayzanoa of Milenia Radio. We are starting a program on Fridays about the elections of 2001. Tomorrow we have the candidate Lourdes Flores Nano. Our radio will make audio summaries of the best interviews and we would very much like it if you would include these in your web radio page. We send out these dispatches 50 minutes after the end of the interview. Would this be possible?
(From the USA): Wow, thanks for the dibs on these broadcasts. MicroRadio.net should definitely kick into high gear for this 10-hour broadcast. FIRE has produced great programming that we’ve carried before during the World Bank/IMF Emergency Community Broadcast we did last April. I will talk wth TecSpectr and see if we can set them up with additional server space. I also hope the FIRE staff gets in touch real soon so we can coordinate. Gretchen, MicroRadio Network. (Note: MicroRadio later broadcast the FIRE Full Spectrum Marathon against Racism for March 8,2001, downloading it from the FIRE webpage).
(From Austria, regarding an AMARC international production for March 8, 2000): Good to hear from you…we thought the FIRE contribution could be part of the international 10-hour programme which will be divided into several thematic slots, to which the different regions are contributing programmes…the one you mentioned about the black women’s movement (in Latin America & the Caribbean) sounds interesting—can you give us some more details about this programme? One question for me is if we are aiming at a specific programme slot dedicated to (so called) women’s programmes/issues? To me it seems more important that there are contributions from a femnist point of view within all the different thematic slots and that women are involved in all aspects of the production on Johannesburg and Vienna.
(From Geneva, Switzerland) Dear FIRE: Thank you for your dedication to the cause! Where and when it is possible, please encourage media to signal their participation in your March 8th marathon through the web site. If they cannot, please encourage them to send an e-mail or fax to Iskra Panevska. If you have the time, please let us know approximately how many media participated in some way in the initiative (by name women to editorial management positions, by doing special features, etc.), we would greatly appreciate it. Have a good Women’s Day, and best wishes with the radio marathon against racism. From Belinda and Iskra, UNESCO, Geneva.
(From the USA): Congratulations on your remarkable International Women’s Day broadcast. We at Free Speech Television have been listening all day and we have linked to your website on the audio from our front page at: http://www.freespeech.org. If we can be of service to you in the future, please let us know. Again, thanks for your work! Brian Drolet, Director, Internet Projects, Free Speech TV, Boulder, Colorado.
(From Spain): Hello women: For the 8th of March we are going to organize a special program with music, interviews, debates and connections with other radio programs, lasting about 12-13 hours. We wish to coordinate this effort with your radio program at FIRE. From Radio Contrabanda, Barcelona, Spain.
(From Britain): Dear María Suárez, Thank you for explaining how FIRE operates on the phone today. It would be lovely to receive that article about the aims of FIRE. Are you funded by the UN? I am compiling a programme about women’s radio around the world and would love to include some tape recordings in English from your programmes. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to select some English audio from the last Marathon and your most recent programme/s…my programme is an hour long—and is essentially a compilation of the best English language radio programmes around the world….From Julia Rooke, BBC
(From the USA): Notice sent to FIRE: Preparing for Beijing +5: A production by Frieda Werden of WINGS (Women’s International Newsgathering Service), with production assistance by Karen Heikkala. Interview with Anne Walker, President, International Women’s Tribute Center, using audio interview by María Suárez, recorded from FIRE website.
(From the Dominican Republic): Dear Kata and Maria: We congratulate you on FIRE’s anniversary, because many times we have used the cassettes of Feminist International Radio Endeavour on our program, “Today’s Woman,” produced by MUPABI in the city of Santiago in the Dominican Republic. You have been a very important international source for us as we try to cover themes about women in our program. We wish you great success and congratulations as producers, innovators and activists who have been defending our space as women in media. From the women of Bienestar (MUPABI)—Zobeyda, Rosa, Mildred, Suso, Mercedes, Charo, Milagros and others.
(From the USA): Hello, My name is Chris Morry and I am with the Communication Initiative and we would be pleased to profile the event below on our site: FIRE’s FULL SPECTRUM on November 25th, International Day Against Violence Towards Women. Looking forward to hearing from you and sorry not to respond n Spanish. Chris Morry, Research Director, The Communication Initiative.
(From Ecuador): From Cuenca Ecuador, we are trying to make contact and listen to your program “Maratón a Todo Dar,” but it is not possible for us. We wish to see if it is possible to connect with you via our radio program, “Women in Radio,” which is at: www.ondasazuayas.com , and to see if you can get our signal and establish a connection on this special day when we are talking about the theme of women’s rights, with good public participation. If we aren’t able to connect, we sent greetings with much sisterhood for all the women and men who are participating with you in this marathon. Sandra López, Cuenca Ecuador.
(From Kenya): Dear María Suárez and all the women involved with FIRE, Just a quick note from FEMNET in Nairobi to wish you a happy 9th anniversary. The broadcasts of FIRE demonstrate so clearly the links of feminism with other liberation movements, and the increasing importance of making these links in these days and this context. Making those links begins with communications. And in this way, FIR serves as an inspiration to feminist communications groups around the world. We wish you well in your continued struggle and small and big successes! Warmest regards, Muthoni of Kenya.
(From the USA): Hi María and all: This looks fabulous! I’ll be out of town on November 25th but will “call-in” in spirit. I’m glad you were able to use Dalya’s “En La Casa” piece and we’re all also thrilled that you translated the Nigeria women into Spanish. Lisa Rudman, Women’s Desk, National Radio Project.
C. Re-publication of FIRE program content
Journalists worldwide use information from FIRE broadcasts and web page multimedia features for re-publication in their own media outlets. Letters received from a variety of journalists describe the variety of ways that they have used the program content from FIRE productions for re-publication:
(From Guatemala): I use the information from FIRE for re-publication in the electronic magazine, “Tertulia” and for distribution to individuals in Guatemala and other countries. I feel that the content is very good and is a good representation of the facts. I believe that it is important to address each one of the critical areas of concern (related to media in the Beijing PFA), and make an analysis by FIRE/AMARC…Maybe it would be possible to upload all of the information onto a web page in Internet, where it would be easily accessible to anyone who wishes to read it or to re-publish or re-transmit it to others. Excellent work! Laura Asturias, editor of “Tertulia” in Guatemala City.
(From the Philippines): Dear FIRE: The information you are sending is excellent. Please keep it coming, as we plan to keep disseminating it. From the reports coming in it seems like you are all veterans of hard work and the waging war of empowerment. I am confident we will emerge from this review with a clear reaffirmation of the PFA, governments with a clear mandate to continue trying harder, and a setback to the minority anti-feminists. Warm regards, Luz Martínez, ISIS, Manila, Philippines.
(From the USA):: Maria, would you like to contribute something to the book, FEMICIDE IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE? Your web feature piece, “Femicide in Costa Rica: A Gender-Based Crime on the Rise,” is excellent! If you could include a written transcript of the radio interview with Dr. Sagot this would be great. From Roberta Harmes, Periodical Coordinator, Tutt Library, Colorado USA.
(From Mexico): Dear FIRE: We are going to use the Spanish version of this article to publish in THE INDEPENDENT, a biweekly newspaper published in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Please send us the full names for CIPD, IV CMM and PAM, because people here don’t know the full names of these events. Thank you very much. Lucina Kathmann.
(From Japan): I am a man of Japan and I am in syntony (sic) with you, and I want to give you my support, I speak not very Spanish and not very English (sic), but I am recording this program then for my work that is in a newspaper. I send the report that I make. Jacky Moroto, Japan.
(From Spain): Dear friends: I wish to continue receiving all of the information you have sent out, to use in our discussions and publications of the women’s organizations in which I participate, Community Women of Madrid and the Women’s Group of Carabanchel (Madrid district). In the mainstream media here, I have not yet found such information (about Beijing +5), but only the material that you have sent to me. Thanks for your efforts. Greetings, Lourdes Hernández.
(From Mexico): CIMAC (Women’s Information Center) produced a special feature about the Mexican woman from Chiapas who was interviewed by FIRE in its coverage of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo (FIRE covered it from Costa Rica). CIMAC reporter Miriam Ruíz wrote the piece from the FIRE audio interview, which was then published on December 13, 2000, and distributed worldwide.
D. Publications and Productions About FIRE Activities
FIRE has been featured in several broadcast, print, video and online media outlets around the world, based on interviews with FIRE staff about their unique strategies of producing Internet radio in the hands of women. Likewise, FIRE has been asked to produce articles for publication in other media outlets.Examples of these publications and productions are described in the following selected letters:
(From Japan): Dear FIRE staff. We have a project making a documentary film about Costa Rica as a country without an army…particularly we would like to show the Japanese audience the function of a democratic society without an army. We often check FIRE in the Internet. I was very interested to read reports about women’s struggles and challenges for the autonomy, and could see the process of a democratic society in this nation….we are planning to be in Costa Rica the week of the 20th or 27th. I wonder if it would be convenient to come and visit FIRE while we are in Costa Rica. Sincerely, Ai Saotome (and I am woman).
(From Colombia): Greetings, Some days ago I listened on radio in Bogotá to an interview with María Suárez and I wanted to write and comment about it, but haven’t had the opportunity until now. I would very much like to know if you have some organization in Bogotá Colombia or if you have been thinking about an organization, and also I would like to know more about your organization. Attentively, Soledad Marin.
(From the USA): Dear FIRE: Hello! I read in today’s Duluth (Minnesota) paper about the wrap-up of the New York Beijing +5 conference, so perhaps by now you are home. Safely and happily I hope. One of my friends in Superior, Wisconsin, heard an interview with María Suarez on Wisconsin Public Radio with Jean Farraka. I missed it, unfortunately. Dianna Hunter, Duluth, Minnesota.
(From Colombia): Special greetings to all the women of FIRE from Radio Caracol of Colombia and our program “Viva.” We wish to talk with María Suárez or Katerina Anfossi for our program in Bogotá. Our broadcast schedule is 5:30 am-9:30 am, Monday-Friday…We would greatly appreciate your call during this time. Cordially, Norberto Vallejo, producer-editor of “Viva” of Carcol Estéreo.
(From the USA): Notice sent to FIRE: Enclosed is an audio production by Frieda Werden of WINGS (Women’s International NewsGathering Service) entitled, “Money and Beijing +5,” in which María Suárez of Feminist International Radio Endeavour in Costa Rica explains “the drama” of what the women’s movement in Latin America has learned about money, five years after the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. She gives special praise to UNIFEM (the UN Women’s Fund) for leveraging a small amount of funding to great effect in terms of women’s power at the negotiating table. The Beijing +5 conference will take place in June of 2000. FIRE Web site mentioned: www.fire.or.cr.
(From Britain): BBC’s worldwide shortwave radio network covered FIRE’s 2nd webcast Marathon, “Women’s Full Spectrum Against Racism,” by running an interview with Katerina Anfossi of FIRE about the marathon, every hour on the hour throughout March 8, 2001, which helped to draw audience to the concurrent FIRE marathon.
(From the USA): A video about FIRE entitled, “New Technologies, New Developments, New Voices in Internet,” was produced by Liz Miller, Salome Chasnoff and Bea Santigán of Chicago. The production features a live Internet broadcast by FIRE at the VIII Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encuentro in the Dominican Republic in 1999, involving several women media producers from the region.
(From Spain): Video production entitled, “Beijing +5—For women’s Human Rights: Actions, Not Words” by Kasui, with Mar Mash, Director; Oliva Acosta, Executive Producer; and Mar Mash and Salvador Martínez de Rituerto, Producers. Video about Beijing +5 featured FIRE’s live broadcasts from the United Nations in New York during the PrepCom in March, 2000.
(Forwarded to FIRE from New Zealand): Judith, Your recent WIN Magazine story about María Suárez Toro and FIRE was very much appreciated down here in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I read the story in entirety this week over the air on my weekly Millennium Radio Shown on the local community radio station, AM 1206 in Hamilton…Several years ago I had devoted a webpage to FIRE, along with other feminist and activist issues on my website in California…so it was nice to hear more about FIRE…to hear of their continuity and growth. From Millennium Twain, New Zealand.
(Forwarded to FIRE from the USA): To WIN Magazine: I am the Women’s World Editor at www.ELLE.com, the online edition of ELLE Magazine. We are going to reprint the WIN article, “FIRE in her Belly: Broadcaster María Suárez Toro, and other FIRE images, to illustrate the story (it would appear in our Profiles section). In exchange for use of these photos, we will provide a link back to your site….Thank you very much! Heather Stimmler-Hall, ELLE.com.
Conclusions:
Feminist International Radio Endeavour (FIRE) was broadcast on shortwave radio between 1991 and 1998. Since August 25, 1998 has been featured in its new interactive mode via the Internet. Even though the essence of the program remains the same, and the oral world of women remains its centerfold, FIRE staff has assumed the new challenges faced in tackling Internet webcasting.
However, in the process it has affirmed its commitment to maintain the oral language of women as the center, and to make new technologies an arena where women can be themselves, thus contributing to closing the gap between traditional and new technologies in an innovative, creative and effective way.
Launching women's voices into cyberspace has put a feminist radio program webcast from Costa Rica at the cutting edge of a new age of media technology. With this new media format, FIRE joins a new age of creative broadcasting, which is radically different from traditional radio because it is broadcast through a desktop computer hooked to the Internet.
The result is that it decentralizes the power to communicate because it doesn't require a fully-equipped radio station to broadcast, nor a license to use the airwaves. Furthermore, it can be uplinked from anywhere in the world.
FIRE--Feminist International Radio Endeavor--can now be heard in both Spanish and English over the Internet, in addition to its ongoing venues of radio and written press, focusing on women's perspectives on a variety of local, regional and international issues.
* The conceptual framework has been taken from Katerina Anfossi´s paper presented al the “Mixed Media” Meeting organized by Comunica in Tampa, Florida in September, 2000 under the title: “Women Transcending Borders.”
ZNet Articles