It is time for participatory media

1. The coincidence of the 100th day of the production of Radio Zamaneh with the publication of the last issue of the Time magazine introducing the person of the year is an interesting coincidence. The choice of amateur-contributed /participatory media producers as persons of the year by the Time magazine is really timely and a source of confidence for us who have started our work with the idea of promoting a radio based on the participation of citizen-journalists, and believe in a new era in media work. In the world of Persian media, Zamaneh was lonely so far. The meaningful choice of the Time is a boost for us as it reveals that the folks of Zamaneh have been timely in the choice of their idea and they are likely to undertake a historical role in the promotion of this idea in the Persian speaking world. It is a progressive idea and is in tune with the heartbeats of the media in the 21st century.
2. As the people enter into this realm of amateur, and often non-paid, production, a new order will replace old orders which will sooner or later conquer all media. More conservative groups shall consider this new order as a sort of chaos for a while. But what new idea or work has not been labelled as rebellious in the beginning? The clear example for this is the story of modern poetry in the Persian language. If we go through the life of Nima, the father of Persian contemporary poetry, we will be surprised how many people have called this great man a lunatic.

However, the 20th century has witnessed so many repeated unconventional events that the public nowadays do not go that far in calling the holders of new opinions lunatics. There is a higher level of tolerance towards new ideas now. The path Nima took was, in the true sense of the word, a democratization of the language of poetry. Since his time up to now, this central idea – which was the idea of the modern world – has flourished everywhere and reached the media now. Participatory media is a democratized media and the inevitable corollary of a process which began with the development of public education since the beginning of the 20th century.

The level of tendency towards new trends among Iranians and towards the most accessible amateur-based media, that is weblogs,(which places them at the fourth rank in the world) reveals a remarkable potentiality of the Iranians for embracing the process of democratization. Zamaneh is the product of this trend in Radio. That is why we say this is a Radio which learns from weblogs.

3. During the 100 days of its production, Zamaneh has practically proved that one can have radio production with an open system. We have not even seen more than half of our colleagues and we have only broadcast their reports and programmes on the basis of media value of their work. However, this point has to be rightly raised that not much has been revealed from what Zamaneh has had in mind or is capable of doing. The fact is that we are still in the beginning of our work and in order to implement and make operational our ideas, we need the cooperation and assistance of all those who believe in the idea of an amateur-participation-promotion radio and do not believe in the dichotomy of domestic and foreign radios and do not consider anything foreign as alien. There are so many things happening inside Iran which have become alien to us and abound are those familiar intimate things which are beyond the geographical borders.

As an example, I would like to mention only one point: “the sigtune” of Zamaneh (click on it and listen to it). This logo music is a unique piece of music which was born out of a set of ideas like all other characteristics of Zamaneh. For instance, this piece of music, so far as I am aware of, is the only sigtune of a Persian speaking radio which is written on the basis of modern elements but played with Iranian instruments. We wanted the sigtune of Zamaneh to be both modern and Iranian.

During this time, the pages of Zamaneh both in its radio form and in its online twin have been managed by well-know and unknown people. Those who are well-known and prominent have given a credit to Zamaneh which was necessary for a media which works beyond boundaries. For those who have been unknown, Zamaneh is their own radio to present their work in the friendliest and easiest way. No one has been famous from the outset. Nor shall anyone remain unknown forever. The truth is that those who are unknown are unknown because they are scattered. For this reason, Zamaneh acts as a centre to gather them around and give them the name they deserve, just like those people in the Time magazine who have been introduced as an example of ‘you’. Zamaneh is an open space for receiving new talents and new ideas or professionals who have been away or aloof from radio for whatever reasons.

A number of these friends have created our winter programmes which you will soon hear. I shall introduce these programmes in a separate post later.

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