Radio, Women IDPs, and Women Journalists

Abstract This final chapter brings together the various threads in the book. It builds on empowerment theories already discussed and intertwines them with concepts of trauma, emotional labour, emotions and affect, and affective proximity by examining humanitarian radio journalism broadcast among internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Burkina Faso and the provision of practical responses to their information needs. It considers how women journalists at a radio studio cover the plight of women IDPs in Burkina Faso and the strategies they have used for the IDP women to gain a voice but also be listened to, all the while supported by a Western development media (radio) organisation and its funders. It first discusses the problems faced by women examined in previous chapters but now in extreme situations. It then examines how women journalists, by being both women and journalists, navigate social structures to gain access to and responses from the IDP women, and it finally investigates the approaches taken by a media development NGO radio studio to best communicate with their IDP listeners but also advocate on their behalf.