This web site has useful information for communicators of all kinds: broadcasters, publishers, NGOs, arts groups, webmasters, educators... anybody who's interested in using research-based methods to make their organizations more effective.
The goal of Audience Dialogue is to improve people's lives through informed participation. We try to achieve this through a blend of social research, evaluation, and inquiry methods. Our emphasis is on action research, interactivity, and user involvement - because we've found that unless a wide range of stakeholders can reach consensus, a problem is seldom solved. Our preference is for formative evaluation ("how can this be improved?") rather than summative ("did that project work?"). We like to work with our clients, rather than for them, helping to build their capacity to solve their own problems.
Please read the latest developments with Audience Dialogue and this website in the News panel below.
If you would like to quickly access content of interest to you, try these keyword links: Audience Research / Business Models / Content Analysis / Content Analysis Example / Community Radio Funding / Learning Journals / Qualitative Research Software /Radio Audience Research / Radio Branding / Radio Marketing / Radio Station Marketing / Reflective Journals /Survey Report / Survey Report Sample /
June 2010: The revised and updated version of Participative Marketing for Local Radio has been re-scheduled for completion by August/September. Apologies for the delay, those who have expressed interest have been placed on an email mailing list for updates and to solicit ideas that may assist the book. If you would like to be advised about the book then please contact us with your interest.
March 2010: I have been invited to contribute to a new initiative called MediaME. MediaME seeks to collect and share global knowledge and experience in the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of media (all kinds, from radio to internet). The project is being coordinated by the Catholic Media Council (CAMECO) based in Aachen, Germany, an agency that assists (and funds) development-oriented and community-building media initiatives in the developing world. The key aim of MediaME is to produce and distribute useful tools and learning materials for assessing media, media development and media development assistance. For more information click on MediaME.
Why do you need to know your audience? Dennis List was interviewed on this subject in 2005 by the Arab Press Network in the context of newspapers, and his responses are here for your reference, as relevant today as then.
February 2010: The revised version of Participative Marketing for Local Radio is coming along well, but it will unfortunately not be ready until May. There are only a few hardcopies remaining of the current edition, and if you want this unique book in your library, study or workplace please contact us quickly to grab one. And if you have an interesting marketing story in your radio station please send it to us, as it could be included in the book.
Meanwhile, a quick review of Google keyword search results reflects the following 'ballpark' search data, that may interest you.
Keyword |
Number of global searches per month |
radio station marketing |
720 |
radio marketing |
22000 |
radio market research |
590 |
radio branding |
6600 |
community radio toolkit |
110 |
community radio funding |
320 |
These search numbers are relatively small in global terms but they do reflect a reasonable level of interest in the subjects addressed by the book Participative Marketing for Local Radio, and tells us there is a sufficient worldwide demand for the revised edition.
January 2010: Thanks for visiting and best wishes for a happy and successful year.
We are continually seeking to expand and improve our content, and the ways we make it available to you. We now offer several of our resources for easier reading online using the web publishing and sharing service at issuu.com. So rather than browse webpages or use a desktop PDF reader like Adobe Reader, you can more easily read the documents online and scroll the pages just like a normal book or magazine. You can also print and download the documents from issuu.com, and rate the documents, flag them and make comments about them, so go ahead as we'd like to know what you think and any suggestions. Note, either close (click cross at top right) the panel called 'Customize and embed' that pops up, or scroll down to Preview and click on the document image and it will open in magazine view. For any queries please return to this website (and don't use the contact information in the books). Happy reading, and look forward to hearing from you.
Quick Guide to Audience Research
Consensus Groups Technique: A Users Manual
Co-Discovery Conferences: A Users Manual
Scenario Network Mapping: A Users Manual
December 2009: It's been a long time since the last update but we've been busy on a number of tasks, including planning changes to this website, and revising the book Participative Marketing for Local Radio. The aim is to complete the revised (and electronic-only) version by February 2010, with case examples and exercises.
The softcopy 160 page book Participative Marketing for Local Radio is available from this website for now just AUD $20, US $20, or 15 Euros, plus postage and delivery charges. A very nice saving.
New pricing for Know Your Audience - A Practical Guide to Media Research, 384 page book revised in 2007. To help cover servicing costs, we have increased the price of this book to 10 Euros or US $15, remains AUD $15. This represents excellent value for a comprehensive and practical resource used worldwide, including by accredited research organisations.
You can buy both books for AUD $30, US $30 or 20 Euros plus postage and delivery charges, a nice Christmas present for your favourite radio station! Click here to email us your request.
Pre-revised versions of both books (most chapters) are available for you to read on this website, click here to read.
Course schedules. We don't have fixed courses or course schedules but design and run courses on audience research, marketing for community radio and internet related topics on agreement with participants. This could include online delivery if that suits. If you would like to inquire about a training course, please download our training request form, scroll down the page a little to find it, complete it and email to us.
Are you interested in how communications can impact on social change? Community radio (and other media) programs can be useful vehicles to support change and community development, but it is often difficult to understand the impact of such programs. Furthermore, conventional program-evaluation methods used by NGOs and other funding bodies tend to focus on individual behaviour change and often do not take proper account of the wider social context and local communication processes.
The Assessing Communication for Social Change (AC4SC) project - funded by the Australian Research Council and Equal Access Nepal - aims to address these issues, based on evaluating two radio programs broadcast in Nepal. You can learn more about this innovative project by visiting the project site then contacting the project team.
June 2009: I have returned from running a five-day course on marketing for community radio in Nepal. This first-time course based on the book Participative Marketing for Local Radio was stimulated and facilitated by Antenna Foundation Nepal (AFN) and funded by the US AID / OTI program, refer the links below for more information about them.
The course was held in the busy capital Kathmandu and attracted 18 local radio stations (community and commercial) from many areas of Nepal. Indeed, one representative had to fly-in as no roads or other convenient transport services exist from that remote part of the country. The enthusiastic participants absorbed a lot of new ideas and were regularly engaged in practical exercises to help build their understanding of how to do marketing. I learned a lot too including speaking more slowly (finally) and working effectively with a translator (Nepali language), a new experience for me. Many thanks to the Director of AFN, Madhu Acharya, who had the vision for such a course and was able to make it happen.
We would be pleased to discuss a specific marketing course for your community radio network or station, to help staff become more skilled in marketing and improve marketing results. A revised edition of the book is being developed as well. Please contact us with your needs and ideas.
US AID Transitions Initiative Nepal Program
March 2009: Community radio marketing experiences wanted! Are you a community radio station or network that has implemented some novel or interesting marketing activities (these could range from selling programs to other stations, getting program sponsorship, winning grants or acquiring paid subscribers) and would like to share what you have done/why successful for the benefit of other community stations and learn from the experience of others (good and bad) then please email me with details. I am exploring the possibility of providing these experiences and lessons on this website (perhaps via a special forum) and incorporating case examples in training courses we plan to run for community radio stations including in developing countries.
February 2009: Training courses. Recently we have had a number of requests for training courses on marketing for community radio stations and audience/media research from organisations in countries such as Nepal, Mongolia and Uganda. Audience Dialogue may have the capacity to design and deliver training to meet the specific requirements of media and other organisations in your country or locality. In some cases your training needs may be similar to a course we have run for someone else. We know that one constraining factor is a lack of money to pay for a trainer to visit your country or locality including air travel and accommodation as well as fees. To offset this problem - where suitable - we are thinking of providing courses via this website/the Internet using appropriate e-learning technologies. If you are interested in a course for your staff, partners or clients, please click and download our training request form below, enter your contact details and the type of training you would like and send it to us via email
Training course request form (Word document)
January 2009: A happy new year to you from Audience Dialogue. We've recently completed the electronic version of the renowned book Know Your Audience - A Practical Guide to Media Research, written by Dennis List and revised in 2007. This clearly written and detailed book covers research principles and methods for use by people working in media, community & public services and other organisations that deal with the public, to discover more about them/their audience or market, how many there are and what they like and don't like, such as views on specific programs or services. It incorporates all survey methods including email and web surveys, and also explains how to use the results of surveys to support management decisions. Much of the many useful insights in this comprehensive book have been gained through actual research projects many of which were conducted in developing countries.
Browse the content list below (PDF, 3 pages) to see for yourself.
Know your Audience: A Practical Guide to Media Research - List of contents
If the book interests you simply email us to request a copy via email or ask questions. The book is 384 pages long, with contents listed, but does not have an index, but if there is demand I can develop one and add it. Producing short versions of the content covering specific topics or chapters might also be possible. Also, if you have any comments and ideas for content or format, or would like to explore using the content for your purposes or translating into a different language then please let me know as the material is subject to copyright.
December 2008: Are you involved in commercial, public-owned or community radio or interested in setting up a radio broadcasting service? If so, then you will need to know about marketing and how you can apply it to meet your needs. Dennis List wrote a useful source-book called Participative Marketing for Local Radio based on a request from a radio station manager in Indonesia who wanted to know more about marketing for local radio, about which there was (and still is) little readily available. The book takes the view that marketing is about communication about relationships of exchange - and that participative marketing means making full use of all available channels to improve communication between an organisation and all the various groups and people it has relationships with.
Marketing results can be improved by removing barriers to communication and enhancing the flow of information between a radio station and its stakeholders, in both directions. The book covers a range of marketing issues/options such as station publicity, sponsorship, fundraising, winning grants, extending your reach (such as by using the internet) and stimulating a dialogue with your listeners. Refer the list of contents below.
Marketing and radio (inc. goals and stakeholders in radio stations).
Audience concepts (inc. measures of audiences).
Findings about radio audiences (inc. about time use).
Marketing through program strategy (inc. station format and positioning).
Publicity and promotion (inc. off-air publicity)
Advertising and promotion (inc. scheduling messages and making sales).
Funding from listeners (inc. on-air appeals and how to manage subscribers).
Funding from grants (inc. how to secure grants and get sponsors).
Selling programs and airtime (inc. giving access to airtime).
Internal marketing (inc. working with volunteers).
Beyond radio (inc. radio and websites).
Making it happen (inc. marketing plan and affordable audience research).
Further reading.
We have a limited number of copies of the book (softcopy, 160 pages) available, if you would like one please email us and agree to pay the costs of postage/delivery plus a small fee to cover administration costs (chiefly for this website) and we'll get it to you. It's a unique resource as far as I can tell, and I would be happy to explore running a course for your radio station or network based on the book.
November 2008: Yes, it's been a while since the last update but we have some news to share.
Jeffrey Vickers, a scholar based in New Zealand, has applied Dennis List's work in scenario network mapping to the issue of sustainable product development, to map trends in a business' core markets and enabling the creation of roadmaps into the future. This conceptual paper is being presented to a conference hosted by the New Zealand Society for Sustainability Engineering & Science. Jeffrey intends to run workshops to build scenarios with findings to be published next year.
Click here to download an abstract of the paper (PDF file). The confrence paper will be available here in mid-December. You can access Dennis's presentation on scenario mapping at the 2007 conference here
Are you at all curious about the very evolution and development of our universe, as Dennis was?
A starting point to engage is a research-based community devoted to this subject, the Evo Devo Universe project, click here to access a wiki style site that informs and encourages participation. A sample document (conference paper) that may whet your appetite written by key figure John Smart is available here. Enjoy exploring ideas on predictable and unpredictable universal change.
Also, a complete version of the excellent book Know Your Audience will be available for free download very shortly. Check back soon. Email me if you would like me to send you a copy.
July 2008: We've received contact/inquiries from community radio in Australia and other countries, which has prompted us to review what supportive resources there may be online other than this site. The first, quick pass brings up a site that may be useful, and also an audience research specialist with experience in developing countries whom I understand worked with Dennis List. As we find more we'll put them on here for your reference.
http://www.cba.org.uk/index.php
http://indepconsultants.co.uk/member/5000287
May 2008: Sourcing books written by Dennis List. Dennis produced several books (most being practical user guides) as noted on this site, including the following:
Co-Discovery Conferences: A Users Manual.
Quick Guide to Audience Research.
Consensus Groups: A Users Manual.
Participative Marketing for Local Radio.
Scenario Network Mapping: A Users Manual.
The source for copies of these books (and others produced by Dennis) was the publisher, Original Books based in New Zealand, however, whilst these books are now out of print, electronic versions of some are available in PDF format (click on links below) or on request, so please contact us if you'd like a copy. There is some prospect for updated versions of these resources, so keep in touch with us.
Co-Discovery Conferences: A Users Manual (PDF)
Quick Guide to Audience Research (PDF)
Scenario Network Mapping: A Users Manual (PDF)
Consensus Groups Technique: A Users manual (PDF)
News up to May 2008 and earlier is available via the link above.
This website has three main sections: Tools, Techniques, and Cases.
The Tools section of this website describes the tools available for communications research, evaluation and planning. These are not hammers and saws, but tools for working with words, numbers, and software. The tools include links to useful websites in our main topic areas and reviews of books on social research methods. This section also has glossaries of technical terms, reviews of research software, and notes on writing global English. Another tool to help people whose native language is not English is online translation.
Techniques is the largest section of our website. It focuses on practical methods for research and planning. This section includes most of the text of two books by our founder, Dennis List: Know Your Audience: a Practical Guide to Media Research, and Participative Marketing for Local Radio. This section also includes pages on two new qualitative research methods that we've been developing: the consensus group technique and the co-discovery conference.
The cases section is in a different style: mostly narrative. Here you can find 30-odd stories about some of our most interesting research projects, Also, amusing tales about projects that didn't turn out as we expected.
For an overview of all the pages on this site, see our site map. Also, you can search this site for a particular word or phrase. Or click on the 'quick' links below to some of our more popular content and pages. This list will be updated periodically based on visitor search requests, page visits and inquiries.
Content Analysis / Content Analysis Example
Reflective Journals / Learning Journals
Survey Report / Survey Report Sample
Audience Dialogue is based in Adelaide, South Australia, but a lot of our work is in developing countries. In Australia, we mostly do communications research, evaluating the success of communications between organizations and their stakeholders. Internationally, we work mostly with media and aid agencies: training staff and evaluating communications projects. We run courses in simple evaluation methods: how to collect relevant data, and how to use it well. Our work includes...
More about us, and our privacy policy. We specially welcome visitors from developing countries, so we have tried to make this web site easily accessible - even if you have a slow internet connection or an old computer. To help people whose first language is not English, we try to write in a way that's easily understood, avoiding technical jargon and cultural assumptions.
We always welcome feedback. If anything on this site is unclear or confusing, please let us know, and we'll fix it. If you have any questions or comments, we'd be pleased to hear from you. We try to answer the same day. How to contact us.
