INTRODUCTION:

The fundamental role of the mass media is dissemination of information to a large audience simultaneously. Communication from the mass media reaches the audience through vehicles such as newspaper, television, radio etc. Audience have a range of media choices to choose from. Media consumption by the audience is based on their wants, needs, preferences, expectations etc. Emergency situations like disasters warrant a substantial coverage by the media on one side and desire to receive information rises by leaps and bounds from people undergoing the trauma¹ on the other side.

Natural disasters are calamitous events that result in damage of social infrastructure, community structure, deterioration of health on a massive requiring extraordinary assistance from outside the affected community.

Majority of the media effects researches focus on the urge, motives and consumption patterns of the audience for using the mass media. The role of mass media is crucial in respect of efficient dissemination of instantaneous information. During an emergency like a natural disaster the role of mass media is manifested as a powerful source providing the much needed situational information. Apart from providing mere information, mass media does more. It provides the much needed emotional support and establishes community ties and also facilitates social cohesion to the disaster affected². The present study will focus on the factors relating to the audience and their preferences and usefulness perceived by them in using the medium. The study will analyse the audience factors such as demographics like age, education, income level etc. and their influence on the media usage and perceived usefulness during a disaster situation like the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

(1) To trace the demographic background of the flood-hit Cuddalore community

(2) To examine the usefulness of media to the Cuddalore community during the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015 with special reference to Peridar Kaala Vaanoli CRS 107.8 MHz

(3) To analyse the media preferences of the flood-hit Cuddalore community post the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015:

The coastal districts of Tamil Nadu bore the brunt of nature’s fury with unimaginable heavy down pours and were reeling under water in the fag end of 2015. The downpours were so intense that the capital of the state was declared a national disaster zone^{3, 4}. The downpours lashed the state in three different spells. The first spell of heavy downpours commenced on 8^th of November, 2015 and flooded the state’s northern coastal district of Cuddalore. According the government records about 347 people lost their lives and a few thousands of cattle perished in the floods⁵. The majority of the casualties reported were from Chennai, Kanchipuram and Cuddalore districts. The combined reasons cited for the flooding were series of downpours on one side and poor water abortion capacity on the other side. 6 lakh people and about a lakh houses were affected due to flooding in the district³. Not only was that, more than 20,000 hectares of agricultural lands affected in the district³. The flood impacted the mobility of the people intensely; transport by road, rail and air came to a standstill. The communication infrastructure was no exception from the impact of the flooding. The intensity of the deluge was very high that it attracted spotlight in the international media radar by way of reportage in “The Guardian” a British National Daily⁴ and called for an increased disaster response and recovery. Effective disaster management tools were the need of the hour.

Media Uses during Disasters:

Media is considered as vital disaster management tools since they possess the ability to effectively transmit timely information to the affected lot, inform the people about approaching hazards, offer programmes that aide the disaster survivors to bear the onslaught of the disaster and also recover from them². Media is considered very important because to its ability to increase the disaster preparedness, facilitate disaster recovery and also change the attitude of people towards natural disasters^{6, 7 and 2}. According to Ball-Rokeach, 1985⁸ during a calamity like floods for instance media usage increases not only for seeking information but also for seeking release from stress and also to cope with emotional outages. Also, people stick to select trustworthy sources to gain knowledge and handle the situation⁹. In the wake of disasters, the mass media is found to be the dominant source of information¹⁰. Mass media is considered to be valuable sources of information for ages¹¹. Timely communication gratifies the thirst for information among the audience and establishes stability over the crisis situation¹ and thereby reduces the uncertainty that prevails.

Lack of information drives the people to become inordinately anxious of the crisis situation and the chances for the spread of rumours are high during such times¹². Media comes to the rescue by providing as well as receiving crucial disaster information, seeking and rendering humanitarian assistance, raising and spreading awareness of disaster associated health hazards, establishing and disseminating situational awareness, connecting people internally displaced due to the deluge and many more¹³. Media performs certain functions other than being mere provider of information. Media has a social utility function to perform by providing the necessary emotional support and companionship in the context of emergency situations like the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015. This clearly shows that media has a clear role to play in addressing disaster relief and rehabilitation.

Community Radio: Usefulness as a Disaster Communication Medium in 21st Century:

During emergency situations like a natural disaster an uncertainty prevails among the affected people; they are clueless of the situation and eventually become agitated and desperate for want of information¹⁴. There are umpteen choices of media platforms in the age of technological advancements and knowledge explosion providing instantaneous information. Irony is that many of those advancements do not come to rescue or offer any solutions for liberation during a deluge. A disaster communication medium needs to gratify the informational and communication needs of the people facing the wrath of the calamity. For the medium to be effective it has to be designed to serve the informational needs of the people in all four phases of a disaster viz. mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.

In the Indian context many community radio stations have stood as effective disaster communication media. Kalanjiam Saamuga Vaanoli was setup in a cluster of villages belonging to the Nagapattinam district to aid the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami affected people. The radio serves as a warning system apart from building resilient communities in the tsunami affected areas¹⁵. In the case of Uttarakhand Floods, 2013 community radio stations such as Mandakini Ki Awaaz, Henvalvani, Kumaon radio catered the flood- affected Uttarakhand people with free flow of information during the humanitarian crisis situation¹⁴. Community radio stations is popularly believed to give voice to the voiceless, by serving as an effective disaster communication medium it has also given power to the powerless since knowledge is seen as power during a calamity¹⁶. India has tasted the success in respect of employing community radio as a disaster communication medium. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) of India has planned to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a public charitable trust “People Power Collective” with a view to setup more number of community radio stations that educate people of approaching natural hazards and ways and means to deal with them¹⁷.One such community radio was the Cuddalore Community Radio christened Peridar Kaala Vaanoli. Itwas established with a view to serve the flood affected Cuddalore community in December 2015.

Peridar Kaala Vaanoli 107.8 MHz CRS:

Community radio and Tamil Nadu state possess a special place in the history. The state not only holds the pride of possessing the highest number of operational community radio stations in India¹⁸ but also saw the emergence of India’s first ever emergency radio “Peridar Kaala Vaanoli” 107.8 MHz (Tamil words meaning radio in times of extreme disaster). The community radio stood as a consolation during the spate to the residents of the Cuddalore community. The community radio was established with the efforts of Saranalayam Trust a non-governmental organization based out of Cuddalore - one of the severely affected area due to the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015. The community radio dedicated to cater to the immediate needs of the flood-hit Cuddalore community made sense. The radio was started with the notion of disseminating emergency warning messages, establishing a sense of connect among the community members and making crucial relief and recovery announcements all targeted at the flood-hit Cuddalore community. The bureaucratic legal procedures involved in issuing license for the community radio was leveraged from the government side realizing the dire need of an affordable community disaster communication medium post floods and relevance of using radio for effective disaster management in the South-Asian context. This paved way to establish the radio in a matter of just few day beginning from applying for a license till the formal establishment. The community radio is stationed at the District Collector’s office, Cuddalore.

Theoretical Framework:

With a view to understand the media preferences and usefulness as perceived by the flood-hit Cuddalore community, the study has been couched in Media Dependency Theory. During an untoward event like a natural disaster where lives of many are at stake, an individual’s desire to acquire crucial information increases drastically¹. Only with that crucial information one can take pertinent steps to safeguard oneself. At such a juncture, the disaster affected individuals become extremely dependent on the information mediated with which they become aware of the situation around them. The quench for information drives them to become increasingly reliant for information on one particular medium and this medium turns out to be highly influential¹. According to the Media Dependency Theory, audience depend on the mediated information to gratify their needs. Case in point: the dependency is not equal for all media. The dependency on media for want of information is determined by individual informational needs that keep varying from one situation to other^{19, 1}.

METHODOLOGY:

The study necessitates a quantitative approach to study and explore the variables identified to study the usefulness of Peridar Kaala Vaanoli an exclusive community radio established for disaster communication during the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015 and also verify if the media preferences of the Cuddalore community has changed in the post disaster scenario. A survey questionnaire was designed for the study and data collected through interview schedule with the flood-affected Cuddalore community being the respondents. Enumerators were employed for the purpose of collecting data from the respondents. Since the community radio Peridar Kaala Vaanoli is situated in the office of the District Collector, Cuddalore the people residing in and around the collector office were approached for data collection that includes areas such as Pennaiyar Road, Velisemmandalam, Devanampattinam, Gundusalai, Dhanalakshmi Nagar and Thayanguda. Majority of these respondents in the above mentioned areas either live on the river banks or in the high tide line (HTL) posing an increased vulnerability particularly to natural disasters like floods. The responses recorded in the complete questionnaires were only coded and considered for data interpretation in IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The questionnaire was carefully designed with a view to collect data in an organized and methodical manner using well defined concepts. Data collected from the respondents who were listeners of Peridar Kaala Vaanoli during the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015 were only considered for the study. The questionnaire included scales to measure the objectives proposed for the study. The scales used in the study were subject to reliability analysis for internal consistency. The Cronbach’s α of 0.766 indicates that the scales used to measure variables are reliable²⁰.

Data Analysis and Interpretation:

Demographic Background of the flood-hit Cuddalore Community:

Men were in majority (57.64%) among the respondents approached for the study with the rest being females (42.36%). The age groups of the respondents ranged from early teens till senior citizens and even above. Respondents were predominantly in the age groups of middle-age (27.09%), youngsters (21.18%) and early teens (18.72%). A notable lot of the respondents have undergone formal education (collectively 89.65%) with only a minimal of them not being educated (10.34%). Employed lot were more prevalent in the respondents considered for the study. Among them some were employed (10.34%) and some were daily wage workers (10.34%) with a preponderance of self-employed community among them (35.96%). The respondents were found to be equally to belonging to the middle (41.87%) and low income group (41.87%). The rest of the respondents were socially less privileged (16.26%). A staggering percentage of respondents (76.35%) reside in their own houses that are pucca (40.39%), semi-pucca (34.48%), thatched roof (16.26%) and huts (8.87%). Media usage and penetration is found to be deep-rooted in the respondents with traditional mass media (collectively 67%) taking the lead in comparison with digital media (15.76%) and a small group using both (17.24%).

PKV Usefulness in the Post Disaster Scenario:

The mean values of the accessibility of the community radio PKV were compared among the respondents with respect to availability of electricity post the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015. The α-value of t-test for equality means (with equal variance not assumed) is 0.383 (see Table1). The mean of the two groups of respondents are 4.57 and 4.38 respectively. The difference in the mean of the two groups is not significantly different and also indicative of the fact that it is more aligned to the group of respondents who experienced a major power outage post the floods.

DISCUSSION:

The respondents belonged to varied strata and age groups. Literacy was found to be augmented with a substantial lot of respondents having undergone formal education. Education has certainly helped the respondents to use their presence of mind in being situationally aware with respect to the gaining knowledge about the establishment of an exclusive community radio for emergency communication during the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015 in Cuddalore and in turn stay tuned with the same for harnessing timely information.The respondents were also found to be employed by self through small business enterprises. Such respondents do tend to use media both at home and their work place and their engagement rate with media will obviously be high. Media usage is deep rooted in their lives. During data collection for the study it was found that many of the houses and small business enterprises had atleast a television or a radio set in certain cases both. The respondents were also found to be using them extensively. The prevalent income groups among the respondents were middle and low and living in houses that are not fully secure and also do not have the capacity to withstand the onslaught of natural disasters. The respondents pose a greater risk or vulnerability owing to their socio-economic status. In the post disaster phase of the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015 people experienced a major power outage due to heavy water logging that did not spare the power stations. For safety reasons power supply was temporarily suspended to the flood affected areas. And when power supply is suspended the mobile phone towers start to cease from functioning. In the absence of two main essentials i.e., power and mobile phone tower communication is shattered. A handful of the respondents only had access to power supply due to the possession of inverters. During such a situation Peridar Kaala Vaanoliwas established and it catered content that was accessible, locally relevant, and simple and also fulfilled the emergency needs of the community. The timely emergence of the community radio to the flood affected Cuddalore community that too in the absence of power supply increased the dependency factor among the respondents and got them glued to the radio station in the aftermath of flood. The community radio has aided the flood affected Cuddalore community by reducing the uncertainty that prevailed during the deluge through effective and trustworthy communication. The usefulness of PKV as perceived by the Cuddalore community clearly reinstates the Media Dependency Theory that states that audience look out and rely on the mediated information to gratify their needs. In the case of PKV the medium’s mediated information has gratified the emergency needs of the flood affected Cuddalore community.

Television is found to be a preferred medium by the respondents. The preference is backed by a deep rooted peneteration of television through the earlier government’s scheme in which free television sets were distributed to the low income groups in the state. Also an advantage of television is that it is a visually appealing medium. PKV has been only a temporary medium that gratified the needs of the Cuddlaore community. The radio station was established only with a temporary license and also ceased from transmission months after the Tamil Nadu Floods, 2015. And so the community radio has not brought about any sea change by altering the media preferences of the Cuddalore community. A case in point in the study is that the preferences with respect to media has not change but the frequency and duration of usage have increased notably. People have become more media aware to stay in touch with instantaneous updates in the real world. Sustainalbilty of community radio in India is a issue we are still dealing with. Peridar Kaala Vaanoli has reinstated the issue of CR sustainalbility and calls for the much needed policy reccomendations.

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Received on 24.10.2017 Modified on 30.11.2017

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018; 9(1): 213-218.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2018.00038.4

		t-test for Equality of Means
		t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)	Mean Difference	Std. Error Difference	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
							Lower	Upper
Community Radio Accessibility	Equal variances assumed	.754	201	.452	.194	.257	-.313	.701
	Equal variances not assumed	.934	6.696	.383	.194	.208	-.302	.689

		t-test for Equality of Means
		t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)	Mean Difference	Std. Error Difference	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
							Lower	Upper
Community Radio Accessibility	Equal variances assumed	-1.996	201	.047	-.434	.217	-.862	-.005
	Equal variances not assumed	-2.297	6.592	.058	-.434	.189	-.886	.018

		t-test for Equality of Means
		t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)	Mean Difference	Std. Error Difference	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
							Lower	Upper
Community Radio Accessibility	Equal variances assumed	-2.324	201	.021	-.536	.231	-.990	-.081
	Equal variances not assumed	-2.829	6.670	.027	-.536	.189	-.988	-.083

		t-test for Equality of Means
		t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)	Mean Difference	Std. Error Difference	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
							Lower	Upper
Community Radio Accessibility	Equal variances assumed	-3.248	201	.001	-.842	.259	-1.353	-.331
	Equal variances not assumed	-2.795	6.315	.030	-.842	.301	-1.570	-.114

Paired Samples Test
		Paired Differences					t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)
		Mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
					Lower	Upper
Pair 1	Duration of Media Usage (Pre-Disaster) Duration of Media Usage (Post Disaster)	-.350	.918	.064	-.477	-.223	-5.429	202	.000