Community radio station is a promising ICT tool in various developing nations for the rural development. Among the other community media, community radio station has the potential to empower the grassroots people and strengthen the democracy in its operation. These radio stations work on the principle of participatory communication and are the medium of the poorest of the poor. The future of the poor and marginalised section of the society depends on how effectively and efficiently the community media are being utilized to address their specific development and informational needs. The presented paper contains a thorough review of the available literature regarding the factors affecting the functioning of the CRS. The organisational aspects, community aspects and roles played by the CRS in the community development affects the functioning of the stations in the long run. These three aspects are interrelated to each other, without taking all the three aspects, it is not possible to get the complete picture of CRS functioning. The organisational profile, programme development and broadcasting and the communicators' profile under the head of organisational aspects, are very important to study the CRS functioning from the institutional point of view. On the other hand, the community aspects like listeners' profile and community participation represents the factors related to the target population and their attitude towards the community radio station. The informational and developmental roles fulfilled by the CRS in the community are the factors facilitating the empowerment of the community. The presented criteria to assess the CRS functioning in this paper can be utilized as a framework to study the present status and challenges of the CRS functioning and can also be used to visualize the future of the operational community radio stations in the long run. | An analysis of the factors affecting the functioning of the community radio stations: A review paper
