Chapter 14: Community Radio as an Enabler of Women's Empowerment in Kenya: A Systematic Review of Scholarly Evidence

Debates over gender and development are about how best to empower women to acquire the agency to exploit opportunities to meet instrumental and intrinsic needs as envisaged in Goal 5 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN Women, 2022). Despite the crucial role women play in society, such obstacles as information poverty continue to obstruct their development (Mulauzi & Sitali, 2010). Media, especially community radio, is considered central to addressing the information poverty of women because it affords them important spaces of self-expression and agency to address long-established mechanisms and processes of marginalisation, gender inequality, and inequity (Khader, 2018).

The dis(empowering) nature of such media as radio is evident in the choice of content, the framing of content, and the voices that publish that content. Whereas portraying women in non-stereotypical and unbiased roles is associated with their empowerment and positive perceptions of their issues and how they are perceived (Kabeer, 2005; Sullivan, 2011), stereotypical and biased portrayal serves to entrench discrimination. The accessibility and power of the radio as a critical knowledge site for information have triggered significant consideration of the medium as the public sphere that brings communities together and unlocks the unheard voices of women. Community radio stations, by virtue of their not-for-profit status and community participation (ownership), provide alternatives to commercial radio stations and broadcast the voices of those who feel discriminated against and underrepresented by mainstream media (Mhagama, 2016). Such platforms are ‘intimate media’, a term that I use here to flag how women can freely access information on such intimate topics as rape and domestic violence and discuss them in appropriate social spaces (like markets and listening groups) with their womenfolk (Heywood & Tomlinson, 2019).

Media’s role in fostering gender equality has been championed at international forums like the 1995 UN World Conference of Women in Beijing which initiated the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action to advance gender equality in selected areas of concern. In recognition of media’s significant impact in shaping the society’s understanding of gender equality, UNESCO (2024) has been supporting campaigns for gender-sensitive reporting and balanced coverage of gender issues. Debates on how radio empowers women mainly focus on how women use such platforms to access information, amplify their voices on issues that concern them, and enable their rightful participation in political decision-making (Rimmer, 2021; Tijani-Adenle, 2022). Media empowerment of women has also gained global scholarly interest in an attempt to understand how experiences with radio content production and consumption affect the decisions that women make (Rimmer, 2021).

In Kenya, women account for about 51% of the population, according to statistics from the most recent population census (Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2019). Kenya enjoys a vibrant media landscape, spurred by a liberalised media sector and widening democratic space, such that an average of 84% of urban and rural populations are exposed to radio broadcasts (Githaiga & Wildermuth, 2022). At the time of writing, there are 58 community radio stations, most of which are located in low-income peri-urban areas and use different local dialects to reach targeted audiences. Despite the growth of community radio, studies show that women still suffer from ignorance and discrimination. Such communication scholars from the Global South as Kassilly and Onkware (2010) have called for studies that problematise the community radio phenomenon from an African context to explore its enduring value for emancipating the underprivileged from information poverty. More than two decades later, however, there is still no synthesised evidence on how the emergence of community radio stations has impacted the lives of women in African contexts. This study addresses this lacuna by systematically reviewing scholarly articles on the role of radio in empowering Kenyan women, and its results will provide a robust body of knowledge on how this research domain has progressed and the areas of radio empowerment that have emerged to prepare the ground for future research.

Although the concept of women’s empowerment has lacked a common definition, increasing scholarly convergence points to a common thread that underlies its meaning – supportive mechanisms that foster self-belief, self-esteem, and agency in women to make informed choices and enable them to participate equitably (with men) in matters that affect them (Cornwall, 2016; Kabeer, 2005; Rimmer, 2021). The philosophy behind community radio is about according voices to the underprivileged and underrepresented in society. Such radio broadcasts are considered mouthpieces for, by, and about the community, and they arose from the need for an alternative voice to critique a monopolistic mainstream media that neglected social injustices against the marginalised. Studies on community radio foreground participatory communication as key to sustainable development. By allowing communities to co-create content, development is brought to traditionally ignored audiences. In other words, community radio enables members to participate as producers and consumers of content that they ‘own’.

Anecdotal evidence abounds on how community radio stations have helped address obstacles to women’s development across the globe. For example, the Aymara women in Bolivia established Radio Wiñay Jatha to advocate for the plight of their indigenous communities by providing a forum for the voices of the Aymara women to safeguard their culture and promote their human rights (Buckley, 2011). India has also spearheaded community radio stations to boost women. For example, the portable station Namma Dhwani has empowered women by showcasing their talent through their participation in producing content and raising awareness about sanitation, nutrition, and education (Nirmala, 2015). Other community radio stations and broadcasts have been recognised as important voices and information sources in women’s agricultural practices, disaster preparedness, and the promotion of women’s rights (Ngugi, 2015). Prasad and Deepak (2019) explored indicators of community radio empowerment among women in India and uncovered positive correlations between women’s community radio exposure and their political aspirations and business performance. In her thesis, Rimmer (2021) explores how lack of voice affects the empowerment of selected female radio volunteers in Northern England and positions community radio as a crucial site of feminist pedagogy and consciousness-raising that helps to validate women’s knowledge and fight the hegemonic tendencies of the white-male-dominated media.

Programmes from community radio stations have been cited as enablers of behavioural change to abandon practices like female genital mutilation and gender-based violence in countries like Somalia and Sudan (Arestoff & Djemai, 2016). Rwanda is a role model in women’s empowerment, and its community radio has been instrumental in disseminating educative programmes on gender equality issues (Niyonzima & Bhuju, 2021). Burundi’s Radio Ijwiry’Umukenyezi (Voice of Women) has been crucial to reviving the hopes of poor women after the country’s 2015–2020 civil unrest (Githaiga & Wildermuth, 2022). Women are targeted with content on agricultural productivity, peace messages, and women-led debates on human rights, and Agaba and Isabirye (2024) investigate how community radio helps fight those traditions that hamper women’s progress. The radio broadcasts catalysed positive change in people’s mindsets and social transformation of their respondents. The role of radio in economic empowerment of women was explored in a study by Usoroh (2021), who interviewed Nigerian women in Bogije, an outpost of Lagos, about how media formats like drama, talks shows, and interviews with prominent businesspeople impacted the women’s business decisions. Soyinka et al. (2022) examined the contribution of community radio to knowledge of gender issues using focus groups of women from Badargry, Lagos, and they confirmed that radio programmes facilitated lively debates around gender issues like the education of girls, reproductive health, and prospects of women’s election to political positions. In a similar study, Oduaran and Okorie (2019) found that 50% of female radio listeners in South Africa appreciated how community radio stations highlight the problem of women’s rights in South Africa. Fombad and Jiyane’s (2019) study of two community radio stations in KwaZulu-Natal also found that radio broadcasts were critical to information access for the women’s decision-making.

With no systematic reviews to explicate community radio’s impact on women in specific contexts and regions, this study focuses on Kenya. It analyses the peer-reviewed scholarly work to identify the characteristics of the studies (growth for the last decade, areas of research), the characteristics of the targeted women, and the themes of radio empowerment derived from their results. For this study, radio empowerment involves enabling women to acquire agency from an informed perspective through five response categories about the radio content, namely ‘information gained’, ‘awareness created’, ‘attitudes shaped’, ‘resources mobilised’, and ‘participation enabled’.

The four-step approach proposed by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses was adopted to identify studies for review (see Moher et al., 2015). This involves identifying initial citations from relevant sources (e.g. databases), screening citations using inclusion and exclusion criteria, selecting the most eligible citations, and determining the final list of studies to review. Articles were searched using the Google Scholar, Scopus, to Explore our top research interests.Academia.edu, AJOL, and Web of Science databases. For inclusion, articles had to focus on radio (or media) and women, be based on Kenyan women (in any region), be written in English, and have been published between 2014 and 2024 in peer-reviewed journals with full-text access. Grey literature (reports, news stories, dissertations, position papers, etc.) was excluded to avoid potential bias.

Boolean operators (AND/OR) were used to conduct string searches of different combinations of terms like ('community radio') OR ('radio') OR ('media') AND ('Kenyan women') AND ('women in Kenya') to screen titles, abstracts, keywords, and the full text of relevant papers. A few articles were manually identified through bibliographic chaining. Eligible articles (n = 17) were then downloaded for analysis. The thematic characteristics of the reviewed studies (e.g. key areas of radio and women coverage and radio empowerment themes) were identified through an inductive process of content analysis by reading them several times to enable coding of emergent themes. Two trained research assistants conducted the analyses with an intercoder reliability of 94%.

The average annual scholarly production was 1.7 articles. A time-series analysis since 2014 (Fig. 14.1) showed a peculiar research pattern: studies peaked only in the first two years (2014-2016), and there were no studies in 2017. From 2018, when three articles were published, there was a downward trend of research activity, culminating in only two articles between 2023 and 2024. Thus, the number of studies on radio and women empowerment in Kenya demonstrates a downward trajectory with research, gaining traction in the first four years (about 59% of the studies) but diminishing for the remainder of the decade. Decreased academic interest in radio could be attributed to the surge in new media technologies that has seen campaigns gradually move from traditional platforms to social media - where most audiences have also shifted, as suggested by such scholars as Cornwall (2016).

Studies mainly focussed on five areas of empowerment by community radio: health, environment, freedom of expression, political participation, and economic advancement. Seven studies (41%) investigated radio's role in addressing women's health concerns about such topics as family planning (Bosibori et al., 2018; Mulwa & Mathooko, 2014; Obuya & Emojong, 2024), abortion (Wahome et al., 2020), cervical cancer (Nyambane et al., 2015), general health information sources (Odini, 2013), malaria (Yaya et al., 2018), and free intrapartum care through the government of Kenya's Linda Mama programme (Mbatha et al., 2023). The next most researched issue was how radio contributes to women's political participation (18%), with studies focussing on radio and women's participation in electoral politics (Okinda et al., 2020), Muslim women's use of radio for political legitimacy (Mwinyihaji, 2012), and radio's influence on women's decision to vote (Okinda et al., 2020).

Studies also focussed on the contribution of radio to Kenyan women's freedom of expression and access to information for decision-making. For example, Muslim women's experiences of Islamic preaching on radio broadcasts (Ndzovu, 2019) and Kamba women's participation in Radio Mang'elete community debates (Sterling & Huyer, 2010). Two studies explored the role of information sources like radio in the dissemination of information about climate change (Kirui et al., 2014) and the gender differences in the preferred media for accessing climate information (Ngigi & Muange, 2022). The sample included only one article that directly focussed on empowering women economically, which assessed how Siaya women's fish businesses were boosted by radio content (Obilo & Vundi, 2018). Two articles assessed the general contribution of radio to women's day-to-day lives in the slums (Githaiga & Wildermuth, 2022) and in semi-arid environments (Mogambi & Ochola, 2015).

The results show that the work of the academic research community on radio and women's empowerment in Kenya has been focussed on health, politics, and freedom of expression issues. The bulk of the studies explore women's agency in exploiting the affordances of radio to disentangle themselves from health problems, marginalisation, and unequal access to opportunities. These studies align with emerging scholarly and policy debates geared at the full emancipation of women (see Conroy-Krutz, 2018; Fombad & Jiyane, 2019; Mhagama, 2016). Studies have also shown that health, environment, and politics take centre stage in global media coverage and research (Gatua et al., 2010; Nirmala, 2015). Like in other developing countries, these issues are the fulcrum of survival for women in Kenya such that they attract debate and academic interest, especially from those with a feminist approach.

Studies have well demonstrated the powerful impact of community radio's life-changing content and opportunities of participation for marginalised and disempowered people (Akhter, 2010; Fombad & Jiyane, 2019; Nirmala, 2015). The reviewed studies justify targeting women for various reasons. Some, which focus on public health, describe rural women as 'ignorant', 'illiterate', and 'with low decision-making power' on matters of family planning despite their higher fertility rate (Bosibori et al., 2018; Mulwa & Mathooko, 2014; Wahome et al., 2020). Some studies cite the annual Kenya Demographic and Health Surveys that attribute women's suffering to poverty, retrogressive cultures, and ignorance (Bosibori et al., 2018). Flagging the double tragedy of childbearing and poverty in hostile environments like semi-arid areas, one study foregrounded women as beasts of burden at the household level (Mogambi & Ochola, 2015). Others suggest that the women are 'information-poor' with little or no voice on their socioeconomic welfare to emphasise the urgency to leveraging such media as radio to empower them (Ngigi & Muange, 2022; Sterling & Huyer, 2010). Studies also categorise the women subjects as amenable to manipulation, misinformation, and underutilisation especially when their rights and equal opportunities are not well-articulated (Ndzovu, 2019; Nyambane et al., 2015; Odini, 2013).

The studies focussed on women in Kenya's regions that were described as malaria-prone, drought-stricken, Muslim-dominated, urban slums, rural, and in proximity to Lake Victoria. The studies focussed on slums around Nairobi: Mathare (Githaiga & Wildermuth, 2022), Kibera (Mulwa & Mathooko, 2014), and Kibra (Mbatha et al., 2023). However, one study (Nyambane, et al, 2015) targeted all women seeking health care at Kenyatta National Hospital within Nairobi city. The studies also examined rural settings in the western region in Kakamega (Odini, 2013; Okinda et al, 2020) and Kisii (Bosibori et al., 2018) and the semi-arid regions of the northeast (Mogambi & Ochola, 2015), east (Sterling & Huyer, 2010), and the Rift Valley (Kirui et al., 2014; Wahome et al., 2020) as well as Kenya's coastal region (Ndzovu, 2019) and Nyanza region (Obilo & Vundi, 2018; Obuya & Emojong, 2024). Two studies were based on desk review and did not focus on any particular region (Mwinyihaji, 2012; Yaya et al., 2018). One study (Ngigi & Muange, 2022) was a nationwide survey. It was evident that women from underprivileged regions formed the bulk of participants in the 17 reviewed studies.

Results demonstrate convergence with other studies that position women from impoverished backgrounds as the greatest beneficiaries and targets of community radio stations (e.g. Cornwall, 2016). Despite their role in family and community development, women largely remain invisible and voiceless due to lack of access to information, illiteracy, and subjection to retrogressive cultural practices that diminish their potential. Scholars argue that women's roles must be considered when evaluating the communication for development programmes since women are often more negatively affected by structural inequalities than men (Gatua et al., 2010; Heywood, 2020). Kenya has the largest slum in Africa, Nairobi's neighbourhood of Kibera, which potentially is attracting disproportionate research interest on how vulnerable women eke out a living and the role played by slum community radio stations in their socioeconomic empowerment.

Grounded coding was used to identify common words and phrases that define the empowering nature of radio from the results of the studies. Such terminology as 'confidence', 'awareness', 'knowledge', 'skills', 'promotion', and 'empower' among others were associated with women's experiences and perceptions of radio as tools of empowerment, irrespective of the nature of studies. These terminologies related to women gaining new knowledge (e.g. about health issues like cancer, contraceptives, and climate change); changing attitudes about health issues (like malaria prevention); gaining new literacies about family planning; giving feedback on talk shows on topics related to health, cultural inhibitions, access to information, rights, etc.; and boosting business from information heard on the radio. The aggregated studies uncovered three themes on how community radio has empowered Kenyan women.

This theme was a common thread woven through most reviewed studies. For example, women indicated that continued exposure to radio content raised their awareness, knowledge, and capacities to understand health issues like family planning options (Bosibori et al., 2018; Mulwa & Mathooko, 2014), their rights (Mogambi & Ochola, 2015; Mwinyihaji, 2012), and climate change (Ngigi & Muange, 2022) as well as access to business credit (Obilo & Vundi, 2018). Most studies reported more than 70% of their women respondents as attributing the acquisition of these skills to their regular consumption of radio programmes (e.g. talk shows), their trust in the radio for accurate details, and community radio stations' use of the local language to circulate messages. One study credited radio with having contributed new literacies on health awareness and disease prevention based on how the testimonies from the invited guests had encouraged about 86% of the women listeners to adopt healthier alternatives for family planning (Mulwa & Mathooko, 2014). In another, more recent study, slum women foregrounded radio as responsible for their awareness of their benefits under the government's Linda Mama programme that provides free pre-natal, natal, and post-natal services (Mbatha et al., 2023).

The power of radio to address information poverty among women was evident in studies that examined radio as a medium that provides easy access to reliable, detailed, and relevant information about climate (Kirui et al., 2014; Ngigi & Muange, 2022), malaria prevention (Yaya et al., 2018), and general health (Odini, 2013). In most of these studies, women credited radio messages for the informed decisions they took, the health risks they avoided, and the change in their attitudes towards health issues and weather. This positioned information circulated by the community as their power in decision-making. The ability of community radio to raise awareness and knowledge about issues affecting women in Kenya is consistent with studies that have examined how community programmes impart new agricultural practices in India (Nirmala, 2015) and sensitisation towards the legal rights of Niger women (Heywood, 2020) in addition to teaching voting rights to Turkish women (Akhter, 2010).

Studies, especially those focussed on women in politics, religion, and slums and semiarid areas underscored radio's role in helping women voice their concerns and opinions. For example, women credited listening to community radio for their confidence to engage in radio conversations on Ghetto Radio in the Mathare slums, on Ramogi FM in Siaya county, and on the Gima Dhano programme on Rameny radio in Migori. Through its regular updates, use of local language, and open channels of feedback, community radio afforded spaces for women to air their pressing issues. Some women in the northeastern region of Kenya confirmed the role of Serian Radio programmes in boosting their willingness to openly discuss joining elective politics and fighting practices like female genital mutilation, gender-based violence, and the denial of educations to girls among the pastoralist communities (Mogambi & Ochola, 2015).

The opportunity to participate in 'speaking about their issues' made some respondents believe they have become change agents. For example, studies on the Muslim women who serve as hosts and producers on Radio Salam and Radio Rahma positioned these women as role models in the fight against vices like drugs, female genital mutilation, and discrimination who used the radio platform to champion participation in electoral politics and exert their religious acumen by giving and broadcasting regular Islamic sermons (Mwinyihaji, 2012; Ndzovu, 2019). Most women (81%) in the study conducted by Okinda et al. (2020) also foregrounded the role of radio messages in their attitudes and intention to vote in the 2022 general elections. Through the Mang'elete community radio, Kamba mwethias (women groups) were able to use an interactive radio technology (AIR) to anonymously record and send their concerns to the radio station for discussions. The technology helped them to articulate their concerns, and hearing themselves on the radio increased their sense of agency in their overall empowerment (Sterling & Huyer, 2010). All the studies heralded the opportunity to contribute to content on radio through feedback as game-changing in women's struggles for equal and equitable participation in decisions affecting them.

The drive for inclusive participation of women in public and social affairs has gained currency. As the reviewed studies show, there has been a concerted campaign to use community radio stations to give agency to women and a forum in which to use their voices to confront long-standing barriers to their development. These findings support other studies (e.g. Arestoff & Djemai, 2016; Conroy-Krutz, 2018; Khader, 2018) on how women have become change agents, role models, elected leaders, and influenced policy action, thanks to their participation in community radio shows.

Although most studies did not expressly mention women's economic empowerment as an outcome of radio exposure, a few participants in these studies did credit their (or their children's) survival on being employed by as radio show producers and hosts (like Serian Radio in Samburu), on the promotion of their talent (e.g. Ghetto Radio in Mathare slums), or business (e.g. the Mtaani Show on Ghetto radio), and training opportunities to become DJs and video vixens (e.g. Serian Radio). Some women credited radio testimonies from successful businesspeople with their business's growth through credit, the purchase of equipment, and advertising (Githaiga & Wildermuth, 2022; Obilo & Vundi, 2018). These findings about the role of community radio in boosting the economic livelihoods of women supports the conclusions of Heywood (2020), Nirmala (2015), and Fombad and Jiyane (2019), who found that, as in the reviewed articles, women in Niger, India, and South Africa, respectively, benefitted from entrepreneurship programmes aired on the radio.

This systematic review is a pioneer effort at synthesising studies on community radio's empowering influences on Kenyan women as documented in scholarly work published between 2014 and 2024. It has pointed to the academic interest that community radio as a tool of women empowerment has generated and helps chart new research directions. The trajectory of the growth of the studies is modest, with increased interest in radio as an intervention in health, political, and environmental issues among women. Although only 17 studies were identified for review, the results demonstrate broad scholarly agreement about the place and promise of community radio in improving the welfare of Kenyan women.

As a population of study, most women were rationalised as vulnerable, marginalised, without a voice, and highly amenable to paternalistic exploitation thanks to retrogressive cultures and information poverty. Community radio is a formidable grassroots tool that can help raise awareness of the diverse issues affecting women, fight information poverty, and support the agency of women in charting their own empowerment. Data from the reviewed studies indicate that most women listen to the radio and prefer it as the most reliable source of information for addressing their varied concerns. These results expand the body of scholarly knowledge by contextualising them in Kenya, a country with a vibrant and rapidly expanding community radio network.

Researching the implications of community radio on women's empowerment is imperative, especially in the Kenyan context (and most of the developing world) because radio, with its integration with social media tools, gains currency as a tool to address gender discrimination. Continuous interrogation of questions around radio and the empowerment of Kenyan women in the age of digital communication and communities would give a more holistic understanding of how such 21st-century tools can be integrated to help boost community radio stations' potential to interact with more women. More empirical data are required to establish if participation has led to tangible stakeholder policy action and behaviour changes, and this should be investigated alongside the provisions of local, regional, and international gender empowerment instruments. For a more comprehensive picture of the situation in Kenya, future studies would incorporate more search tools and databases and analyse the methodologies employed, and cover a broader study period with larger sample sizes. Grey literature from reputable publishers on radio and women in Kenya would also add value to the scholarly results. Finally, women's empowerment as a fluid concept would benefit from studies that employ exploratory factor analysis to develop validated scales to measure it.