Radio and Television Programmes
Senior 6 · English (Languages)
Radio and Television Programmes
Lesson 1 of 4
30 min
Let's begin
A generation ago, a broadcasting station needed a transmitter, a licence and a building. Today every phone is a small one: one tap can send a voice note to hundreds of people before breakfast. This lesson reads a feature article about what happens when that power is used carelessly, learns a simple routine for checking information, and prepares a balanced talk on the influence of radio and television.
A feature article written for this lesson. The rumour in paragraphs 1 to 3 is an invented, illustrative case; the facts in paragraph 5 are real.
1 At twenty to seven one Tuesday morning, a voice note began to travel through the family and church groups of a small town. A calm male voice, which said it belonged to "someone who works at the water company", announced that the town's tap water had been contaminated overnight and that nobody should drink it for three days. By twenty past seven, forty minutes later, the shops near the bus park had sold every bottle of water they had.
2 There was nothing wrong with the water. At half past eight the water company posted a statement, and a local radio station read it on air twice before nine. The panic in the shops died down within the morning. The voice note did not. For two more days it kept arriving in groups whose members had missed the correction, forwarded each time by someone who meant well.
3 Why did it spread so fast? It was frightening: it concerned children and health. It was urgent: it told people to act at once. It sounded authoritative: it claimed inside knowledge. And it was effortless: sharing took one tap, while checking would have taken a phone call. Researchers who study misinformation keep finding the same pattern. What travels fastest is not what is true but what is strong.
4 A newsroom is supposed to work the other way round. A responsible journalist checks a claim with more than one source, says where each piece of information comes from, separates news from opinion, and publishes a correction when a mistake is found. None of this makes journalists perfect. It does make them answerable, which an anonymous voice note is not.
5 Rwandans know better than most what is at stake. During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the radio station RTLM and the newspaper Kangura spread hatred and directed killers. In 2003 the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in what became known as the "Media Case", convicted three men behind them of crimes that included direct and public incitement to commit genocide. The judgment established that those who use the media to incite such crimes can be held criminally responsible.
6 Using media responsibly does not mean trusting nothing. It means pausing before believing, checking before sharing, and remembering that the share button is a small transmitter. Each of us now owns one.
Definition
Key terms
The digital-literacy educator Mike Caulfield summarises good checking as four moves. Each takes less than a minute.
Applied to the voice note: Stop (fear is the signal); Investigate (who is "someone who works at the water company"? Nobody can say); Find better coverage (has the water company, the district or a radio station said anything?); Trace (where did the note start? It has no origin, which is itself a warning).
| Word (paragraph) | Word class | Meaning here | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| contaminated (1) | adjective | made impure or poisonous | noun: contamination |
| authoritative (3) | adjective | sounding reliable and official | Do not confuse with authoritarian (demanding strict obedience). |
| effortless (3) | adjective | needing no effort | suffix -less = without |
| answerable (4) | adjective | required to explain and justify one's actions | Compare Unit 2: answerability is half of accountability. |
| convicted (5) | verb | found guilty by a court | noun: a conviction; convinced means "persuaded" |
Prepare a four-minute talk: "Radio and television: do they do more good than harm?" Your talk must be balanced before it reaches its conclusion. Collect points on both sides.
| Positive influence | Negative influence |
|---|---|
| Reach people who cannot read, or who live far from towns, in their own language | Can spread rumours, propaganda and hate speech to many people at once |
| Education: lessons, health campaigns, farming programmes | Commercial pressure: advertising shapes what is broadcast |
| Entertainment that also teaches (drama, music, talk shows) | Passive viewing can replace reading, conversation and exercise |
| Public debate: phone-ins and interviews hold leaders to account | Sensational stories may crowd out important but slow ones |
Language for a balanced talk
Worked example
A balanced paragraph for the talk
"There is a strong case that radio is the most democratic medium we have: it needs no electricity grid, no literacy and no data bundle, and it speaks in Kinyarwanda to every hillside. This is not the whole picture, however. The same reach that carries a health campaign can carry a rumour, and Rwanda's own history shows how far that can go. On balance, the question is not whether radio is good or bad but who controls the microphone, and whether they can be held to account."
Notice the structure: claim with reasons, signposted turn, counter-claim with evidence, weighed conclusion.
Warning
Practice
Sources and credits
