Day 2

Hemant began the session with introducing his organisation NOMAD which believes in re-appropriating technology from stifling corporate set ups and bring it in the public domain. NOMAD was born in during World Social Forum as an answer to World Economic Forum. NOMAD also works towards re-appropriating energy. One of the major issues during WSF is Linguistic Diversity saying people must have right to express themselves in their own languages. The WSF created 1 watt transmitters for the conference don at 1/30th of the cost.

Usage of technology that is available in public domain.

Referring to the article 'Capital vs Bazaar' by FOSS he said there are two ways of approaching technologies. Closed and Open-Capital and Bazaar. He said Open Source goes beyond LINUX. Open Source has to with open standards, open hardware. Open standards are applicable in almost all spheres including medicine, engineering etc. One cannot say that I have developed a technology that no one else can use. For eg html works explorer mostly and then W3C developed open source based html. Free access is the underlying principle. One can create businesses around open source. It is proper economics in which business is constructed on a different ethics.

He demonstrated open office.org. There were queries about MS Operating systems not being compatible with Open Source. A participant added an observation on using druple.com as content management service. Zaheer added that there have been issues in using open source. Another participant added that there is a need to constantly update the OS software.

Managing Audio and Radio

List of things for audio studio

1. Recorder: Audacity
2. Mixer: Alsa-system, ardour DAW
3. Mics
4. Audio distribution amplifier
5. Audio card
6. Editing Software: Audacity/ Ardour
7. Patch way: Jack
8. Audio Player
9. Telephone
10. Phone-in Consoles
11. Accoustics
12. Speakers
13. Headphones
14. Clock
15. Compressor
16. Audio Processor

From mic to mixing consoles (to converters/sound card) to monitor speakers

Fom Converter to storage/editing device

Manuals: Flossmanuals.org

Comparisons: Osalt.org/com

Portable Studio

From Converter to Audio Processor.

Audio Processor is the most important element.

Sampling Rate: This is proportionate to the audio content being used. For just voice it could be lower sampling rate of 1600.

Open Source uses Ardour 2 as an audio processor that plays, stores, edits etc. Another software JAMIN which has added applications like limiter.gate compressor and allows multiple plug ins.

Session by Prayas on Community radio+www

Web Publishing

There are two kinds of web presence: 1) Static and 2) Dynamic

Static: no separation of content, design and logic. Template is fixed. Content is changing. This arrangement of thing ensures that those things that do not required frequent changes remain the same.

Dynamic: full separation of content, design and logic. No fixed template

Internet: Sea cables, (national backbone) owned by ambanis and tatas and goes via Middle East and Singapore

Tools:

last.fm: Commercial venture. Social music platform. Allows artitists to upload their own track. Anyone can upload but listening is subscription based. Simlar sites are jamendo.com, magnatune.com,libre.fm, tempostand

wordpress.org

omeka.org: Local archive of audio, video.

opentape.fm: Quick way of sharing a mix of sounds

dokuwiki.org: It is a CMS and as opposed to wordpress you do not need a data base. So it is easier.

indexhibit.org

sites.google.com

dreamhost

radiost.ation.in

post lunch

These softwares can be used for :

Simulcasting

extended non onair coverage

archives

feedback

audio+video+text+

local community ecommerce

American Institute of Indian Studies (ARCE) is an organisation can be used for copyright and privacy issues

Archive and Research Centre for Music

www.underscores.com

Zaheer introduced participants to use of GRINS for potential community radio content creators.

Day 1 (11th May 2010)

Ram welcomed the guests and set the ball rolling by orienting the participants to the workshop. Ravina gave the opening remarks and thanked ekta and ram for putting the workshop together.Then she introduced FORD FOUNDATION to the participants. She posed questions about community radio and how technology can help leapfrog the process of broadcasting for development. She highlighted the idea of coproducing content, technological interface and how to increase the number of listening community. After the intro session Marek Tuszynski from Tactical Technolgy Collective started the sessions. He talked about his organisation that works to change information into action. He screened the film 'Ten Tactics' which dealt with stories where new media was useful in highlighting the abuses of power. He posed the question 'What are the most important channels of engagin for community radio?'. He also asked how much of radio is in radio. He gave a group exercise -write 5 major/key characteristics of community radio listeners