Fourth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

The post Middle East and North Africa (MENA) uprising era marked increasing access to participatory news and media stories broadcasting. Citizens engagement in making and sharing news was not a novel phenomenon advanced by dynamic events, but it was an incentive that contributed in updating citizens about the upheavals in the whole region. Audience contribution was available through multiple tools among which community web radio made a distinctive approach that renovated the value of radio in mobilizing the masses. The last two years characterized one of the new silenced waves of rural protests that swept Morocco and introduced leading figures in mass mobilization. The main areas that witnessed those civil uprisings were El Houceima, Tinghir, Zagora, and recently Jrada in the north east of the country. The demands of the protesters were regularly addressing immediate social and economic developments that concretize real intervention to satisfy economic consumption in water, jobs, and equity of resources exploitation. With the rise of citizen participation in global politics, web radio opens opportunities for people to participate electronically. This study analyzes participatory reporting based on people’s involvement in Moroccan web radios. Using qualitative textual content analysis, the study looked at audience’s participation through eight web radios dedicated to social issues, religion, and economy. Due to the location and urgency of local politics, the study argues that people participated actively, vented their disappointments, and recorded their daily encounters through web community radio, by addressing topics of marginalization, water shortage, and ethnic underrepresentation.