Finding The Women's Voice

Sammanfattning: “There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women,” Kofi Annan (UN News Center, 2005). The empowerment of women takes different forms such as pursuit of education, participation in political activities and representation in leadership, equal employment opportunities and wages, access to health care and ability to make decisions on personal reproductive health, economic bargaining and decision making power and access to all public social services among others. Embedded in all forms of women’s empowerment is ability to voice their opinions, experiences and knowledge as a means to fully exercising their rights and civic duties. The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action declares the acknowledgement of “the voices of all women everywhere and taking note of the diversity of women and their roles and circumstances” (UN). The acknowledgement, production, exercise and building of women’s voice are themes that run through the discussions in this thesis. Using the metaphor of voice, this thesis asks and demonstrates how Mama FM - women’s radio - is working to facilitate and contribute to women’s civic engagement in Uganda. This research is grounded in principles of ‘sciences from below’ and ‘phronetic social science research’. Both principles emphasize the need to conduct research from the perspectives of the marginalized groups and institutions in society and in this case the women’s radio. The thesis draws on theoretical frameworks and previous research to situate its arguments and relevance of the study. The thesis made use of case study and content analysis of radio programmes as the methods to conduct the research. Case study and content analysis worked well together to uncover underlying matters of concern that manifested in the radio programme content. The combination of these methods produced in-depth and critical analysis of the issues that stood out during the radio programme review process. The findings of the thesis are covered under two themes: women’s voice and gender constructions of content. The results highlight sites of weakness for the women’s radio but also important strengths that justify its existence and need for sustainability. The strengths identified demonstrate the importance of having a women’s radio and inspire strategies to deal with the weaknesses for the improvement of its operations and structures. The arguments in the thesis not only focus on Mama FM as the women’s radio but open up debate towards broader discussions on subjects such as; feminism, gender, civic engagement, civic participation, media responsibility, economic market forces, all worth exploring when researching about the process of building and exercising women’s voice.