Mobile platform revenue share model for citizen journalism in Sri Lanka

The research question is "can the mobile service platform revenue sharing model be catalyst to advocating a sustainable citizen journalism program in Sri Lanka?". The previous article on "audio content production and deliver is the first step to instigating citizen journalism" talked about the Sarvodaya initiative to build capacity in rural Sri Lanka for enabling a platform to hear the voices of the rural communities. Given the cost of mobilizing such an endeavor it is best to begin with audio productions.

I'm writing a research proposal that aims to use an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system with touch tone and voice through a normal phone call and Podcasts through a website (specifically WAP enabled) over the GSM mobile service platform. IVR would work over the voice channel but the dilemma lies in the Podcasts over GPRS. Given the coverage strengths in Sri Lanka it is debatable whether the Podcasts would work.

As in most cases the emphasis in applied research (or action research), besides answering the system robustness question, is answering the sustainability question. As a result it is hypothesised that a revenue share scheme would advocate for such system to live long. The revenue share model over the content business value chains (Joader, 2007) establishes a proportionate sharing scheme between the content-creators, content-owners, aggregators, vendors, and the network-providers.

There are already aggregators such as Kongregate, Youtube, Digital Journal, etc that provide platforms for content-creators to cash in for their creativity. In Sri Lanka the mobile operators are apprehensive to sharing revenue with service providers. The research intends to partner with a mobile operator such as Dialog Telekom who has the largest mobile market share in Sri Lanka and is investigating ventures that will use their technologies such as delivery of the news paper Lankapuvath over SMS and IVR.

The research design will look at a sample of 10 governing districts in Sri Lanka and through a series of awareness campaigns recruit content-creators and subscribers. Thereafter, let the system determine the survival of the fittest; where the creative, interesting, subscriber centric content-creators will profit from the system and the weaker ones will disappear. The assessment will group the data on the urban/rural divide, language, religious preface, and gender. The publications will be categorized in to current affairs, culture, philosophy, education, and entertainment based on a probability measure distribution; where a publication on the topic of "child primary schooling" may fall into the categories of current affairs and education with a distribution of 0.70 and 0.30, respectively. Both a subjective and objective assessment schemes will be implement to qualitatively and qualitatively assess the evidence of the viability of the technology, human aspects, and policy implications.

Comments are welcome on any literature available in this area, research methodologies, and implementation schemes or even knowledge on other projects of similar nature.

Technical definintion: "early warning system"

A technical definition for Early Warning Systems (EWS) in hard to find. The work on classification of EWS requires a precise definition for EWS. The wikipedia definition fo EWS is what is quoted by the United Nations, very much human centric with natural disasters in mind. In my opinion EWS and Observer Controller systems have a lot in common (Figure 1). As they both try to predict and correct system's response. However, EWS can be broken down to a chain of systems that are distinctly a chain of communication systems.

Figure 1 Feedback control system model for EWS

I propose the following definition -

Definition "Early Warning System (EWS)": A chain of information communication systems comprising sensor, detection, decision, and broker systems, in the given order, working in conjunction forecasting and signaling disturbances adversely affecting the stability of the physical world, giving sufficient time for the response system to prepare resources and response actions in minimizing the impact on the stability of the physical world.

A paper in relation to the proposed definition as well as an introduction to the necessary and sufficient components can be found in the blog with title: "towards a definintion for EWS".

Audio content production and delivery is the first step to instigating citizen journalism

Since October 2007, I have been voluntarily engaging in building capacity within Sarvodaya with the intent of mobilizing rural communities in developing local content. If we are to divide content as text, audio, and video, the question is "which one of the mediums do we start with first, in a Sri Lanka?"

We can rule out video based on cost of production and need for professionalism. Similarly, the production and distribution of text; i.e. a newsletter, would be rather costly and would be hard to recover the costs from the subscribers. In general Sri Lankan people are less inclined to reading and writing; i.e. even in a long distance bus one would observe nearly zero people to read a book or a news paper. However, would be apt to listening to the bus radio or even their built in FM radio on the mobile phone. Therefore, Sarvodaya policy was to use audio as a medium to instigate the concept of citizen journalism within its mandate.

My belief is developing audio, which is as simple as pressing the record button and speaking one's mind in to a microphone is far more simpler than electronically composing a story or making a video that is meaningful. Moreover, delivery of audio requires much less bandwidth opposed to video.

The community based audio production and delivery concept was presented to an audience at LIRNEasia by my colleague Chamindha Rajakaruna to get an opinion on the foreseen strategy. The real-time blog on the colloquium titled "Sarvodaya satellite and web radio, a precursor to community-radio, the way forward and challenges" highlights the concept. The colloquium was valuable to us in seeing the way forward; especially in separating the tow intents: 1) Internal closed user group broadcast of content on Sarvodaya philosophy, governance, and activities 2) pure citizen journalism creating a platform for people to voice their opinions and exchange ideas. I have written a comment on the LIRNEasia blog under the same colloquium topic saying that in a country where broadband in rural areas is still in its infancy an alternative broadcast technology and a peer-to-peer technology are both necessary, if Sarvodaya is to achieve intentions 1) & 2).

This community based audio content production and delivery project is a spin off from the past HazInfo project, which concluded the need for both the WorldSpace addressable satellite radios for emergency alerts and Dialog/Microimage Java enabled mobile phones for SMS alerts as the two technologies that could provide complementary redundancy in a closed user group last-mile hazard warning system. While mobile phones have been embraced in to the daily lives of people in Sri Lanka, the WorldSpace satellite radio remains a new and unheard information communication technology in Sri Lanka. Therefore, the greater challenge is developing a sustainable platform for the satellite radios as a technology that is always used. Deshodaya Media Production Unit took on the challenge of developing connect through a community participatory approach to bring life to the channel dedicated to Sarvodaya.

Given that the satellite radio and mobile phone technologies are currently in operation, it is ideal to use these two technologies as basis to test the content production and development processes such that when broadband with internet is widely accessible in rural Sri Lanka, the citizens would have the know how to develop MP3 audio content for exchanging information.