La radio universitaria como servicio público a la ciudadaníael caso de Uniradio-UHU

Abstract

A few years ago the university world changed with the intention of reaching the unity in higher education within the framework of European higher education. Graduate and postgraduate degrees have been adapted to new educative demands, allowing the introduction of new or renewed methodologies and resources which cater to such circumstances. It is understood thaFthe radio is a means of communication with a variety of educational purposes, and it is considered that the implementation of the university radio station at the University of Huelva is a potential resource that cannot and should not be ignored, especially if we take into consideration the projects realized in different countries and institutions, some of which will be mentioned in this paper. In the conceptual framework, we begin by explaining the idea of the radio as a mass media, and continue exposing the concept of educational radio. Moreover, the term university radio and its typologies are explored and, finally, a brief review of different radio projects in Europe and America is given. The main objective of this research/paper is to analyze the communicative model of the radio station at the University of Huelva, UniRadio-Huelva, to gain an insight into the operation and program of a radio station and thus be able to identify the fundamental characteristics of the radio as an educational medium t in higher education and the possibility of implementing it in higher education. This paper is a single case study of a university radio station at the University of Huelva, UniRadio-Huelva, and it is based on the qualitative and ethnographic research methods. The study conducted during seven years of the active life of the radio analyzes the radio and its content as a global project at the sound and documentary level in the form of a blog published on the Internet during this period. Moreover, in order to determine the extent of the involvement of the university community in the project, the radio station and program managers together with the expert were interviewed. In total, the sample contains 76 programs divided into two separate seasons, which has provided us with 72 interviews -with the program managers and the experts-, 40 active blogs and more than 230 hours of the analyzed radio material. With this amount of data, we have established an exhaustive categorization of codes for analysis, which has allowed us to organize the information more easily. As a result of the investigation, after the analysis and the discussion, there is an analysis of possible didactic, methodological, educational, sociological and innovative implications inside and outside the universitary educational community.