|
|
Columns::February 10, 2003
New task force studies information technology on campus
Provost search committee recommends five finalists
Federal Reserve System vice chair to give Charter Lecture
Literary society exhibit chronicles 200-year history on UGA campus
Black History Month celebrates du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk
Campus Closeup
Retirees
Kudos
Looking for the perfect match
Broadening the horizons
Campus News
 |
| Diego del Pozo (foreground) introduces the guests on the Spanish-language radio show on WUOG-FM 90.5. (Photo by Peter Frey) |
The wave of the future
WUOG’s Spanish-only radio program becomes a local staple
By Phil Williams
phil@franklin.uga.edu
Every Friday night at eight, there’s a cultural shift at WUOG-FM, the student-run station on campus. The music changes, the news changes, and--most noticeably--the language changes. For the next two hours, the only language listeners hear is Spanish.
The program, called “En español desde las 8” (“In Spanish from 8”), has become something of a lifeline for the area’s
 |
| Enrique Carrión and Diego del Pozo worked to get the show on the air and are still with it. (Photo by Peter Frey) |
growing Hispanic community and a classroom for those wishing to bone up on their conversational Spanish. Since the program’s premiere on June 13, 2000, it has become a staple in local programming.
Diego del Pozo, an instructor in the department of Romance languages, believes the program serves an important role.
“We know people are listening--we get calls into it from many places,” he says. “Except for one other radio station in Gainesville, it’s the only place where people in this area can get news, information and music in Spanish.”
The program was started by Enrique Carrión, Elena Adell and del Pozo, all from Spain, who were working at the time on graduate degrees at UGA. Carrión, who graduated in December with a master’s degree in mass media communication, says the program had amazing reach when WUOG-FM was being Webcast on the Internet.
“My father listened to us from Venezuela, and he said we were speaking too fast,” says Carrión, laughing. “Once he called us live on the show from Caracas and, of course, we put him on the air.”
Similarly, del Pozo’s brother once called the show from Spain. Unfortunately, because of legal complications, WUOG is no longer able to broadcast online, but its strong following locally has greatly encouraged the team.
Carrión was the driving force behind the show’s creation--he was looking for an outlet for his journalism training in the Grady College. He approached WUOG because it is a student-run station, and he asked about the possibility of a Spanish-language show.
“Since I knew little about how to do radio, they assigned me to work with their sports team for four or five months, then started to allow me 15 minutes on Hispanic issues on the station,” says Carrión. “At first, I was very nervous.”
Del Pozo and his girlfriend, Elena Adell, heard about Carrión’s ideas and joined him in planning and launching “En español desde las 8” just after classes ended in the summer of 2000. It was a time when a failure might not have even been noticed, but the group had no intention of failing.
Since then, the program has grown in scope. While its format was settled early--international, national and local news, followed by an hour or more of music from Hispanic artists--the group also found there was a need for in-depth reporting. When a local mobile home community was forced to move because of encroaching development, the show spent considerable time reporting on the problems, since a large percentage of the residents were Hispanic. The team also focuses on different countries in South America, reporting on political and social issues.
Many students in UGA’s Romance languages department listen to the show, and some teachers in the department assign their students presentations on the radio show. The hosts hope in the future to integrate the program into the educational goals of the department so that it will be of more direct help to students.
Adell has now left the show and completed a Ph.D. in Spanish literature, and Carrión has graduated, but a new member joined the team not long ago. Ana Prats is also a Spaniard, from Ibiza.
“What we created, we want to keep alive with new people,” says del Pozo. “We’ve been able to do things we couldn’t have imagined in the beginning. For instance, three weeks after the attacks of 9/11/01, we hosted a round table discussion with professors from different departments at UGA that was very informative, very professional.”
The need for Spanish-language broadcasts isn’t at issue. More than 6 percent of the local population in the Athens area claims Hispanic heritage; a new Spanish-language television station has come on the air in Charleston. Latino disposable income nationwide has grown to $580 billion annually, according to UGA’s Selig Center for Economic Growth--an increase of 160 percent since 1990.
Carrión is now editor of Eco Latino magazine, a new publication produced by the Athens Banner-Herald and aimed at the area’s growing Hispanic population.
|
|
|
|
|
