Community Radio's Amplification of Communication for Social Change [1st ed.] 978-3-030-17315-9;978-3-030-17316-6

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii
Introduction (Juliet Fox)....Pages 1-22
Community Radio: Social Process and Democratic Intent (Juliet Fox)....Pages 23-56
Social Change: Active Citizens and the Value of Voice (Juliet Fox)....Pages 57-87
Critical Participation and Mediated Solidarity (Juliet Fox)....Pages 89-123
Cycles of Transformation and Community Radio Agency (Juliet Fox)....Pages 125-158
Reality Reconstruction and Resistance to Hegemony (Juliet Fox)....Pages 159-189
Regenerative Voice (Juliet Fox)....Pages 191-215
Conclusion (Juliet Fox)....Pages 217-224
Back Matter ....Pages 225-231

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change

Juliet Fox

Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Editors Pradip Thomas University of Queensland, Australia Elske van de Fliert University of Queensland, Australia

Communication for Social Change (CSC) is a defined field of academic enquiry that is explicitly transdisciplinary and that has been shaped by a variety of theoretical inputs from a variety of traditions, from sociology and development to social movement studies. The leveraging of communication, information and the media in social change is the basis for a global industry that is supported by governments, development aid agencies, foundations, and international and local NGOs. It is also the basis for multiple interventions at grassroots levels, with participatory communication processes and community media making a difference through raising awareness, mobilising communities, strengthening empowerment and contributing to local change. This series on Communication for Social Change intentionally provides the space for critical writings in CSC theory, practice, policy, strategy and methods. It fills a gap in the field by exploring new thinking, institutional critiques and innovative methods. It offers the opportunity for scholars and practitioners to engage with CSC as both an industry and as a local practice, shaped by political economy as much as by local cultural needs. The series explicitly intends to highlight, critique and explore the gaps between ideological promise, institutional performance and realities of practice. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14642

Juliet Fox

Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change Foreword by Mohan J. Dutta

Juliet Fox Melbourne, Australia

Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change ISBN 978-3-030-17315-9 ISBN 978-3-030-17316-6  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17316-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: john finney photography/Getty images Cover design by eStudioCalamar This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Front cover image: A flock of starlings forms a murmuration. Birds fly together, connecting in constant cooperation and networked movement, forming extraordinary patterns and fleeting images in the sky. The exact nature of their coordinated movements remains a mystery. Not unlike the vast collective efforts found in community radio around the world.

Foreword

Amid the large-scale incorporation of communication for social change into the circuits of global capital, “Community radio’s amplification of communication for social change” offers a framework for conceptualising social change as resistance to the neoliberal colonisation of the lifeworld. From the early tenets of development communication pushed by aid agencies and foundations to the contemporary empowerment-based projects, social change has been organised within the ambits of hegemonic structures. Particularly noticeable in the accelerated penetration of neoliberal forces is the erasure of spaces for community participation in democratic processes. In this backdrop, community radio emerges as a space for democratic transformation of communicative processes through community ownership of communication infrastructures. This premise of community radio as a communicative infrastructure for “voice democracy” (Dutta, in press) is explored in this book through two excellent case studies of 3CR Community Radio in Melbourne, Australia, and RCL Vox Populy in Lospalos, Timor-Leste, which are located explicitly as communicative infrastructures that seek to radically oppose the forces of neoliberalism. Building on the excellent body of work on citizens’ media, Juliet Fox depicts the negotiations of agency in creating communication infrastructures amid the broader structures of organising communication. Voice forms a key organising framework for theorising community radio in this book. The agentic capacity of communities at the margins is explored in the realm of voice, examining the ways in which voice is vii

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negotiated amid the ongoing forces of capitalist colonisation. In the overarching context of the neoliberal project taken up in the Asia-Pacific, the communicative infrastructures depict the ongoing challenges to articulating a resistive politics and the nature of collective agency in resisting these challenges. Of salience in this book is the theoretical concept of “giving voice” within the broader ambits of communication for social change. That power is intertwined with the various layers of marginalisation and voice draws attention to the ongoing negotiations at the margins, constituted within the distributions of power within community life. That the struggles for democratising voice are embedded within the various sites and forms of inequalities is evocatively depicted throughout the chapters of the book. What emerges as critical to these voice struggles is the depiction of the processes of collectivisation of subaltern communicative organising, negotiating erasures even as it seeks out registers for the mobility of the subaltern voice as an anchor to alternative organising. Here, a critical concept is the role of structures in constituting social change communication. The notion of voice is located amid the political economy of communicative infrastructures. The explicitly socialist and communist commitments of the community radio infrastructures explored in this book offer imaginaries for contemporary social change communication that point towards forms of alternative organising that seek to dismantle the capitalist order. One of the richest promises of the book is its capacity to imagine social change in resistance to the colonising forces of neoliberalism and capitalism. The ethnographic work with the 3CR Community Radio and RCL Vox Populy specifically locates the treatment of communication within the radical, socialist, and communist frameworks of social change. Within the grand narrative of the field, where knowledge of communication for social change itself has been constructed in the liberal democratic ideology of capital promotion, the struggles for voice emerging from an explicitly radical politics attends to the materiality of alternative organizing and simultaneously opens up an altogether new anchor for projects of communication and social change. This much needed corrective is thus fundamentally powerful in marking a transformative opening for the discipline of communication for social change. It is my hope that we witness many more detailed accounts of voice struggles in the socialist movements emerging from the margins and arriving into the mainstream across the globe, from Australia and New Zealand, to Asia,

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to Europe and Africa, to continental America. The democratising struggles for voice amid socialist reorganising of political economies return us to the trajectories of social change that have been obfuscated by the capitalist propaganda that has actively shaped knowledge production in communication. The chief concept in the book is the solidarity in South–South radical organising. The notion of the South is coloured with voice struggles emerging from the margins of Australia, finding possibilities of voice amplification through connections with radical organising emerging from Timor-Leste. What I hope you will find outstanding in this book is its rich depiction of the struggles for voice democracy, embedded within layers of power, and seeking to work out pathways for solidarity. Spaces from the North and South are interconnected through articulations of solidarity and through material flows of communication. Moreover, solidarity is explored in the connections of everyday organizing among the various participants in the community radio organisations. The concept of regenerative voice offered in the book thus connects individual struggles for voice with collective processes for building communicative infrastructures for the voices of the margins. Amid the large-scale incorporation of communication for social change within the hegemonic agenda of transnational capital, Juliet Fox offers us an anchor into imagining communication for social change at the radical margins. These radical margins, amid the global grand challenges of sustenance, inequality, poverty, climate change, and fascist politics, will emerge, I am confident, into the forefront of the contemporary social change struggles. Palmerston North, New Zealand

Professor Mohan J. Dutta

Acknowledgements

I live and work on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, otherwise known as Melbourne, Australia. I’d like to acknowledge that the lands were stolen, and sovereignty was never ceded, and pay my respects to the elders past and present in their ongoing struggle for land justice. Community radio is my passion, and it is thanks to the extraordinary support and efforts of those involved at radio stations 3CR and RCL that this research project was possible. 3CR staff graciously endured my long absences and very part-time work contributions—thanks Gab, Leanne, Loretta, Marian, Meg, Rachel and Ronny. The interviewee participants at 3CR were very generous with their time and zeal for the station. Sadly, two participants—Dale Butler and Darce Cassidy—have since passed away. I received a warm welcome at RCL in Lospalos, where the staff politely tolerated my broken Indonesian and gave up considerable time to facilitate interviews and provide a deeper understanding of the station— thanks Anito, Ermelinda, Evaristo, Francisco, Julio, Purdencio, Romenia, Sidalia and Zeserot. Thanks also to founding staff members who I was reunited with after twelve years—Alfredo, Lolalina, Pedrucu and Trolta. Sector leaders Prezado Ximenes and Francisco da Silva Gari provided crucial sector-wide context and guidance. I enjoyed enormous translation support from Johanes Jose (Jeje) da Costa and Marini Alice Sanches in Lospalos, and also Mayra Walsh in Australia and Laura Ogden in Dili. Collectively their expertise enabled the articulate and insightful observations shared by all the Timor-Leste participants to come to the fore. xi

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Closer to home, thanks to Robert Hassan, Rebecca Cole, Dimity Hawkins, Ingrid Volkmer, Rachel Kirby, Libby Jamieson, Sarojini Krishnapillai, Heather Anderson, Jenna Tuke, Charlotte Bedford and the late Kate Campbell for support, guidance, feedback and encouragement. Finally, thanks to my loving partner Richard and children Max and Archie for their care and presence during this period.

Contents

1 Introduction 1 About the Author 4 3CR Community Radio, Melbourne, Australia 5 RCL Radio Communidade Lospalos, Timor-Leste 9 The Diverse Case Study Approach 14 A Guide for Readers 16 References 18 2 Community Radio: Social Process and Democratic Intent 23 Community Radio in Context—Past and Present 24 The Field of Community Media 28 Creating Community: Inclusion and Exclusion 29 Theoretical Approaches to the Community Radio Form 32 Some Critical Reflections on Community Radio Studies 35 Critical Political Economy of Communication 37 Connecting Capitalist and Communication Systems 40 Third Generation Universal Rights 41 Political Public Spheres 44 Criticisms and Counterpublics 46 Summary 47 References 48

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Contents

3 Social Change: Active Citizens and the Value of Voice 57 Enacting Citizenship 58 Multi-layered Empowerment 61 Participatory Media 62 Communicative Democracy 67 Reflections on the Citizens’ Media Framework 68 Communication for Social Change 70 Development Communication—Point of Departure 70 Neoliberal Influences 73 Voice: Value, Inalienability and Materiality 77 Devaluation of Democratic Voice 79 Voice as Material Production and Social Cooperation 80 Summary 81 References 82 4 Critical Participation and Mediated Solidarity 89 Critical Media Participation 90 Open Doors on Public Streets 90 Building Community 97 Political Citizenship 107 Agency Through Organisational Structure 110 Mediated Solidarity 112 Active Airwaves 113 Off-Air Organising 115 Intersections and Exposures 117 Summary 119 References 120 5 Cycles of Transformation and Community Radio Agency 125 Diversity, Cooperation and Conflict 126 Community Multiplicity 126 Cooperation 130 Conflict 132 Communicative Agency 136 The Listener and Individual Impact 137 Community Radio Practitioners and Personal Impact 141 Social Change Disappointments and Criticisms 143 Political Listening and Community Action 146

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Media-Makers and Social Movements 148 Technological Change and Its Impacts 151 Summary 154 References 155 6 Reality Reconstruction and Resistance to Hegemony 159 Symbolic Fracturing 160 Alternative Viewpoints 161 Reality and the World Reflected 166 Self-Representation and Identity 171 Resistance to Hegemony 175 Radio Resistance 176 Dissenting Voices 179 Radical Politicisation and Activation 182 Summary 185 References 187 7 Regenerative Voice 191 Community Control 192 From Community Ownership to Content Autonomy 192 Financial Independence 197 Community Radio Voice 202 The Value of Voice and ‘Neoliberal Agency’ 202 The Emergence of a Regenerative Voice 206 Summary 212 References 213 8 Conclusion 217 References 224 Index 225

Abbreviations

3CR 3CR Community Radio ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation ACMA Australian Communications and Media Authority AMARC Association Mondiale Des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires/ World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters ARKTL Assosiasaun Radio Komunidade Timor-Leste/Association of Community Radio Timor-Leste ASIO Australian Security Intelligence Organisation CBAA Community Broadcasting Association of Australia CBF Community Broadcasting Foundation C4D Communication for Development CfSC Communication for Social Change CRC Centro Radio Communidade/Community Radio Centre FRETILIN Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente/The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor NWICO New World Information and Communication Order PEofC Political Economy of Communication RCL Radio Communidade Lospalos RTL Radio Timor-Leste TLMDC Timor-Leste Media Development Center UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNTAET United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Community radio embodies a distinctly powerful form of communication that values the social, the cultural and the egalitarian elements of communicative democracy. There is expanding interest in the importance of democratic media and communications systems, and the space of community radio presents both a sustained relevance, and a renewed capacity, for a world faced with a crisis of democratic communication. Scandals continue to engulf digital media corporations, exposing their role in privacy breaches, surveillance, political manipulation and deception. There is growing awareness of the need to disentangle media and communications from the profit imperative embedded in capitalism. The following is, in part, a call for greater attention to be focused on community radio experience and social engagement in the work towards media democratisation. Community radio arose in the middle of the twentieth century from community action that demanded greater participation in, access to, and ownership of, the media. The need developed due to many factors, including a concern over the monopolisation of media ownership, and identification of the limited media access for a diversity of citizens. Community radio promoted the idea that everyday people could produce and present their own media content in a community radio station run and owned by the community, and that this would enhance democratic participation and promote a better society. Additionally, community radio arose amidst inequalities of communication rights and © The Author(s) 2019 J. Fox, Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17316-6_1

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information flows. The need for greater democracy in the media grew globally and remains pertinent today. This book presents a deeper understanding of the experience of community radio within a communication for social change (CfSC) agenda. Approached from a critical perspective, CfSC is a field of inquiry that focuses on the empowering potential of communication (Rodríguez et al. 2014). It emphasises dialogue and participation, community ownership and self-management, and considers the tool of communication as central to a process of education, self-determination and emancipation (Figueroa et al. 2002; Gumucio-Dagron and Tufte 2006). CfSC champions democratic communication, agency and the power unleashed through the political act of community-based information and knowledge creation (Dutta 2011; Thomas and van de Fliert 2015). This study presents two diverse case studies of ‘successful’ community radio stations, and situates the work within a local–global context. Through gathering thick, historically contextualised, qualitative data from multiple aspects I have sought to more intimately investigate the multi-layered communicative practices and encounters within a community radio setting. In light of the technologically determinist and celebratory tone frequently equated with the potential of ‘new’ and ‘social’ media, my aim is to focus solely on the often-hidden space of community radio whose initial reasons for existence remain highly relevant today despite dramatic changes within media and communication technologies. The capitalist system of our times is neoliberalism, which advocates individual freedom and development through the strengthening of free markets, free trade and private property rights (Harvey 2010, p. 2). Under neoliberalism there is a strong tendency to commodify all aspects of social interaction, including the spaces of media and communication. Some claim that this enables greater freedom of expression and speech within society, and that there is a necessary causal connection between a ‘free market’ and ‘freedom of speech’ for all (Friedman 1987, p. 3). Media and communications—including information technology in all its forms—are central to the ongoing expansion of global capitalism. Simultaneously, they are at the core of the idea of democracy, which requires opportunities for all to be informed and engaged, and to communicate freely. Is this a problem? Increasingly scholars identify that the commodification of communication displaces democracy, creating a disconnect between the democratic requirements of communicative participation and access, and the communicative means by which to pursue

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a common social good, due to the dominance of commercialised communication (Dean 2010; Fuchs 2012; McChesney 2013). Community radio, it may be argued, emerged as a direct result of this growing disconnect between global capitalism and democracy. The community radio form is, in theory, specifically dedicated to providing access to those marginalised by the mass media, thereby increasing society’s democratic involvement and promoting greater equity. How is this being achieved? What is the personal experience of the participants as it relates to social change in their own lives? What type of content is being created and how does it relate to broader social change? Is the form applicable in diverse global settings? Does the on-air content elicit changed behaviour, or different activity in the everyday lives of the listeners? Community radio is ubiquitous yet remains underrepresented in media studies and scholarly enquiry with regard to its purpose, function and outcomes. In particular a deeper understanding of its capacity to facilitate social change is largely unexamined. My purpose within this book is to investigate community radio’s contribution to CfSC using a case study approach with multiple data collection strategies in order to map voice as a form of agency in a community radio setting. How does the social process of voice unfold, and what type of voice is facilitated in the unique mediaspace of community broadcasting? I will also explore possible spaces for CfSC within the community radio form by hearing from listeners and practitioners, as well as examining on-air material and considering the historical context and intent of the stations. Furthermore, I want to interpret the outcomes of community radio through the frameworks of citizens’ media (Rodríguez 2001) and political economy of communication (PEofC). Both hold relevance as theoretical lenses through which to view the community radio form, yet neither are widely used to critically engage with community radio practice. Neoliberalism constrains communicative democracy, and we need to understand more deeply the potential of community radio as a vehicle for CfSC. It is imperative to take a ‘global perspective’ and an international approach to these concerns, and my choice of case studies primarily draws from my experience with, and connection to, the relevant stations. The two stations presented in the following chapters are 3CR Community Radio (3CR) in Melbourne, Australia, and Radio Communidade Lospalos (RCL) Vox Populy in Lospalos, Timor-Leste, both of which I will introduce shortly. In undertaking research at both

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3CR and RCL I reviewed historical documents, interviewed past and present station workers, mapped a week of on-air programming and conducted a listener survey.

About the Author I first volunteered at 3CR in 1991 and have continued on since that time as a broadcaster, management committee member, and am currently a paid staff member. Joining 3CR was a welcome relief from my journalism studies at the time, and I felt like I found a place where journalistic practice was concerned with the social, environmental and political issues that mattered. My first involvement was with the Friday Breakfast Show, presenting alternative current affairs interviews and commentary, and in 1996 I established the national community radio environment program Earth Matters. In 1998 I joined the staff team as the Current Affairs Coordinator and went on to be the Program Coordinator (2002–2009). I currently hold the paid part-time staff position of Projects Coordinator and am no longer involved in any regular on-air broadcasting. In 2001 I took 12 months leave from 3CR and went to work at RCL as an Australian Volunteer International community radio facilitator. The opportunity sparked my interest following years of covering the independence struggle in Timor-Leste on-air at 3CR, and attending various rallies and meetings around Melbourne. On my return I facilitated a project that brought a group of Timor-Leste community radio broadcasters to Melbourne for a month of training and mentoring in community broadcasting. I have continued to support community radio in TimorLeste ever since. From these deep and ongoing connections flows a passion to better understand communicative practice and experience within a community radio setting. While the interviews and data presented here took place between 2013 and 2015, the work also indirectly draws on my experience of volunteering and working at both stations across a period of more than 25 years. My relationship with both stations is largely positive, and my position as a researcher can be seen as ‘embedded’ to some extent. That said, my approach is neither anthropological nor ethnographic. My positive connection to each station, however, needs to be acknowledged as central to my ability to gain access to participants, as well as documents, audio and listeners. With regard to interviewee participants, I was careful not to

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‘self-select’ participants at each station, or to choose favourites. Instead I took direction from the staff and committee members, asking them to provide a list, and requesting that they consider diversity and gender in their selections. I did, of course, have input into this process, and ultimately made the final decision on the interviewee set. My level of access, welcome, support and resourcing at both case study locations was considerable and hinged on my past contributions to the respective stations. In this way, my research was different from that of an ‘outsider’ entering into the space of community radio and questioning its purpose and practice. As an ‘insider’, I was immediately trusted, welcomed, and given significant access. Within the Timor-Leste context this was imperative. There is a high level of (warranted) mistrust of ‘malai’, or foreigners, within Timor-Leste and I believe it was only because of my earlier contributions and current connections that I was able to gain the level of access that I enjoyed. Similarly, at 3CR, some of the founding members who had left the station under difficult circumstances were willing to speak to me because of my high level of knowledge of, and ongoing commitment to, the station. Indeed, I think if I had been purely a researcher with no current ties to community radio, I would have had considerable difficulties. My historical, and ongoing, engagement with community radio was central to gaining quick, welcome, and supported access at both case study locations.

3CR Community Radio, Melbourne, Australia There are 357 licensed community radio broadcasters in Australia (ACMA 2019). 3CR is a metropolitan-based station in Melbourne, Victoria, that was first issued a restricted commercial licence in October 1975 (3CR Community Radio 1975, 1975–2018) and is widely considered to be one of Australia’s most successful community radio stations. Yet there is little academic documentation or analysis of the station. A small collection of academic literature makes mention of 3CR amidst themes such as ­ sector-wide studies on community radio’s origins (Thornley 1999), the history of radio (Jones 1995), and community radio’s relationship to ‘access radio’ (Dugdale 1979). Some research features 3CR programmer and staff perspectives (Foxwell 2012; Foxwell et al. 2008; Meadows et al. 2007), while other studies include 3CR programs in their analysis of media and marginalised communities, such as prisoners (Anderson 2012, 2013), or African-Australians (Budarick and Han 2015). Internationally United

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Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) highlights the station’s work in its Community Media: A Good Practice Handbook (Buckley 2011). David Barlow’s research features 3CR as a case study (1998, 2002)—however, a pseudonym rather than the station’s real name is used, leaving the contribution rather obscured. My work therefore builds on existing literature and aims to produce a larger pool of data through which the station’s practices can be understood. The station itself completed a book to mark forty years of operation, which I coordinated. The result, Radical Radio: Celebrating 40 Years of 3CR (2016c), provides a snapshot of the station rather than a case study investigation. 3CR arose in a dynamic political era, receiving its licence on 10 October 1975 just before the sacking of the Whitlam Labour government (3CR Community Radio 2016, p. 7; NFSA 2005). The pre-history of advocacy, campaigning and lobbying provides historical context to the station, including the policy decisions that made the licensing available. In investigating the history of 3CR, I applied to the National Archives of Australia for any Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) files related to either the Community Radio Federation or 3CR. To my surprise I received access to eleven volumes, or nearly 1800 pages of material under the title of Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio (ASIO 2015b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k), and Propaganda methods— Community Radio Federation, Melbourne (ASIO 2015a). The process of accessing the files took eighteen months and there are significant redactions. The material covers the period between 1976 and 1989 and, while of interest and relevance, does not form the basis of this book’s investigations. The files do shed light on the highly political role the station played in its early years, but largely focus on the activities of organisations with Communist Party of Australia—Marxist-Leninist affiliations rather than the station itself. That said, the eleven volumes contain considerable material worthy of further research. I interviewed a total of twenty-six people from 3CR: twelve interviews with ‘founders’, such as staff, volunteers and programmers involved in the early years of 3CR (1974–1980), and fourteen interviews with current staff, volunteers and programmers. An initial list of ‘founders’ was created based on key participants from committee of management and the Community Radio Federation that were named within meeting minutes and station newsletters. In addition, significant broadcasters were identified based on a review historical documentation. Flowing from the

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initial list, a ‘snowball’ (Lindlof and Taylor 2011) method of interviewee selection was then implemented by asking interviewees to nominate two key individuals in the station’s workings. In both the historical and present-day 3CR interviewee sample, it was necessary to identify participants and search for records that illustrate the inclusiveness and diversity of the station. That is, while 3CR was established to give voice to those marginalised in the mainstream media, it is necessary to be conscious that further exclusions within marginalised communities occur. My intention was to actively include a diversity of stakeholders thereby strengthening democratic and representative dimensions. For 3CR the content mapping phase required considerable listening hours as the station broadcasts full time. External people are not generally given access to the content of 3CR (for legal and other reasons), but as a staff member and long-time participant I was able to access the logger (.wav files of on-air content stored on computer hard drives). The week of 15–21 November 2014 was randomly selected for analysis, based on time availability and access to the station. While 3CR is a full-time broadcaster, some programs are repeated, and some on-air content is not live, but automated via a computerised playout system called Dinesat (e.g. some overnight programming). There was approximately 134 hours of original content across the week, that is content that is not a repeat nor computer-generated. Of this, approximately forty-five hours is music based, and approximately twenty-two hours is in a language other than English. The music programming content formed part of the study but was not listened to in full. By listening via .wav files it was possible to see the start and finish of songs and in this way the shows could be mapped without having to listen to every moment of every song. However, every file of the week of 168 hours was opened and checked for its content. At the time of mapping 3CR had nineteen community language programs broadcasting across evening slots throughout the week. A diversity of languages and community groups produce and present weekly shows including Armenian News, Eritrean Voices, Chin Radio and Melbourne Chautari. It was important to include the community language programming in the on-air mapping, although this did present additional challenges. The process for mapping the community language programming across one week of programming involved meeting with the programming team and ‘sitting in’ on their show. Three shows were

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not mapped, as two of the program teams were absent that week, and another was a pre-record on a CD with no programmer present to provide a description. For the remaining sixteen shows I joined broadcasters in the studio to gain a broad understanding of content, style, issues covered, persons interviewed, music and programming team, etc. I worked with station staff to ensure smooth and easy access with minimal programming disruption through providing notice that I would be present at the station in the designated week. The alternative would have been to get a full translation of each show, which was not possible, in terms of both time and funding. Programming was presented in fourteen community languages: Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Chin, Dari, Farsi, Greek, Harari, Macedonian, Nepalese, Pashtu, Somali, Spanish and Tamil. Throughout the book this documentation is used to augment understanding of station content across its entirety. It is not used as primary material through which to understand the content produced. In order to incorporate the experiences and views of listeners, a short questionnaire was used to gather valuable data on listener activity. This was not a qualitative survey conducted with sampling, but rather a means by which to gather the views and voices of listeners. It was not intended to be a representative sample through which generalised conclusions could be drawn. As noted in The Handbook of Media and Communication Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies: It is essential that the individuals in a survey should be representative of the total population from which they are drawn, if researchers wish to generalise their findings to the population as a whole (Jensen 2012, p. 243).

While not able to be generalised, the questionnaire data does provide a useful, additional qualitative tool, appropriate to a rich representation of station activity. The two listener questions were: 1. Can you describe a time when listening to 3CR/RCL changed your views, or made you more aware about an issue? 2. Can you describe a time when listening to 3CR/RCL made you (more) active, with an organisation or issue? The very brief questionnaire was made available for 3CR listeners over a one-month period (June 2014). It used both an online and

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paper option, given that 3CR has many older listeners who do not widely use the internet and are more likely to fill in and return a form. A SurveyMonkey link with the survey in online format was distributed via the station’s eNewsletter, and on the station’s social media sites. The paper copies were mailed out with the station’s annual magazine and a reply-paid envelope was included. In total sixty-two responses were received—twenty-nine via SurveyMonkey and thirty-three written responses. Fifty-six of the responses were valid, that is, went beyond a one-word answer. In summary, the data set for 3CR contained a review of historical documents (particularly station ‘CRAM’ newsletters); 168 hours of mapped program content; 26 audio recorded and transcribed interviews with practitioners; and 56 listener surveys.

RCL Radio Communidade Lospalos, Timor-Leste There are sixteen community radio stations throughout Timor-Leste— although this number is disputed. In 1999, Timor-Leste gained its independence from Indonesia after nearly twenty-five years of military rule. The UN-sanctioned vote for independence led to significant destruction and bloodshed, and the establishment of RCL in Losaplos, Lautem, in the far east of the country followed shortly after one of the most violent and devastating periods in the country’s history. Timor-Leste is one of Australia’s closest geographic neighbours and has one of the newest community radio sectors in the world. RCL Community Radio is a small rural broadcaster which was established with the support of UNESCO in early 2000. I selected RCL using a similar set of priorities as used for 3CR. That is, within the context of community radio in Timor-Leste it is considered a successful station; second, there is little research into its activities, or its contribution to the community media field more broadly; and third, I have a strong relationship with the station. As with 3CR, in selecting the station as a case study for the research I considered the key issue of trust with regard to access to participants and programming content. My earlier contribution to the station was central in gaining the acceptance and access required to collectively select participants and map on-air programming content. Unlike 3CR, access to RCL involved considerable time and resources. I travelled to TimorLeste in July 2014 for three weeks and spent two weeks at RCL. While

10  J. FOX

Dili, Timor-Leste’s capital, is only an hour and a half from the mainland Australian city of Darwin, Darwin itself is a four-and-a-half-hour flight from my hometown of Melbourne. Due to Timor-Leste’s poor infrastructure, it then took approximately eight hours by bus to travel from Dili to Lospalos, which highlights the relative remoteness of the location. For RCL, eight historically focused interviews were conducted— five with people who were involved in the first two years of the station (2000–2002), and three with community radio sector representatives, in order to provide adequate background and context. There is some literature available on the origins and current workings of the Timor-Leste community radio sector, but it is limited (David 2006; Scambary 2004). Three sector-based interviews and one present-day interview were conducted in English at the request of the participants, while all other interviews were conducted in Tetum through a local translator. Tetum is one of Timor-Leste’s national languages, and in Lospalos it is sometimes spoken using occasional words from other languages, such as Indonesian. Later a translator whose first language is English provided a second level of translation from the original recordings. Representation of minority voices within the RCL study was less of an issue as the community is small and relatively homogenous. However, a concern of a different kind did emerge. There is considerable valid criticism about the ongoing role that international aid agencies play within community radio sectors in some countries, and I am conscious of the negative and dominating effects they can have (Conrad 2013). With this in mind, the semi-structured interviews with ‘founders’ in relation to RCL focused primarily on the experience of local staff and community members, and the establishment of their station, and not with representatives of INGOs. Historical documents were accessed from UNESCO and Louie Tabing (Community Radio adviser from the Philippines) that enabled a detailed and more complex understanding of the events, activities and intentions of the station’s establishment, as well as informing interviewee selection. At RCL six current station workers were interviewed and the selection was made in consultation with the station manager. Gender balance was addressed through prioritising some female volunteers. While representing diversity was less relevant here, as stated above, it was still necessary to have a selection of both station staff and management. All material— research questions, plain language statements, consent forms—were translated before travel to ensure the necessary time and thoughtfulness

1 INTRODUCTION 

11

required for the language translation. For example, on advice from the Australian-based translator, the RCL interview questions were tailored to be open while remaining clear in their intent. This was to take into account potential nuances of the Timor-Leste culture and the necessity to be open, on the one hand, but directly ask something particular on the other. For example, the request: ‘Tell me about your understanding of the station’s current aims and objectives’ was translated to ‘What are the station’s aims and objectives?’ This advice was followed and was based on both the fine distinctions within, and limitations of, Tetum as a language and the cultural tendencies in relation to open or direct questions. RCL interviews were all conducted in Tetum using a local translator. Both the Tetum and the English were recorded as audio files. The level of local translation, while sufficient for the purposes of general understanding, was not sufficient to adequately represent the articulate and intelligent content presented by the participants. Therefore, the Tetum audio in full was provided to another translator whose first language was English for a second level of transcription and translation. All interviews were then firstly transcribed in Tetum and then translated into English. RCL currently broadcasts for around ten hours a day, six days a week. Therefore, the station creates around sixty hours of content each week, generally between the hours of 6 a.m. and 12 noon, and 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. (and not on Sundays). In the week of content mapped, Friday 25 to Thursday 31 July 2014, there was one power outage (that is, no one in town had power), and one transmitter problem that reduced the hours broadcast to forty-seven. In mapping a week on RCL a local translator assisted and was present throughout all of the on-air programming to discuss the content, assist with detailed notes and ask questions of the presenter or producer either during or after their show. Following the week of programming, I met with the program manager who assisted with the verification of program names, when they were made and whether they came from other media production outlets. It was important to establish a clear set of guidelines as to what details would be included. For example, the information gathered included who is presenting; what is the show’s name and theme; what music is played; what announcements are made; what issues are discussed; and how are listeners included in the show (if at all). In addition, some audio recordings of the content were saved to allow for deeper investigation and follow-up if needed.

Trolta Havana Chris Holliday

Gary Foley Matt Gleeson Sally Goldner Helen Gwilliam

Liz Caffin Darce Cassidy Lolalina da Conceição Freitas Jacinto da Costa Francisco da Costa Hornay Pedrucu da Cunha Zesorot Delaserna

Jan Bartlett Berta (last name not used) Susan Blackburn Ian Bolton Dale Bridge Dale Butler

RCL station manager 3CR volunteer programmer and committee member 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer technician and committee member 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer programmer RCL volunteer programmer RCL chairperson RCL station manager RCL volunteer programmer RCL program manager

Alfredo de Araújo Nancy Atkin

Involvement focus

Station coordination Current affairs and station coordination Current affairs Armenian show International development show Union show Music, homeless, feminist issues Technical and station coordination Arts and current affairs Current affairs Current affairs Station coordination Station coordination Current affairs Current affairs and station coordination 3CR volunteer programmer Aboriginal show 3CR volunteer programmer Music show 3CR volunteer programmer Transgender show 3CR volunteer programmer and Current affairs, disability issues management committee member and station coordination RCL volunteer programmer Current affairs 3CR volunteer technician and Technical and station committee member coordination

Interviewee type

Name

Table 1.1  3CR and RCL interviewee overview

2000s 1970s

1970s 2010s 2010s 2010s

1970s 1970s 2000s 2010s 2010s 2000s 2010s

2010s 1970s 1970s 1970s 2010s 1970s

2000s 1970s

(continued)

23 July 2014 4 March 2014

28 May 2014 26 September 2014 8 September 2014 11 September 2014

16 October 2013 21 October 2014 28 July 2014 31 July 2014 25 July 2014 7 August 2014 26 July 2014

7 September 2014 13 April 2014 26 May 2014 28 August 2014 10 September 2014 10 December 2013

7 August 2014 14 February 2014

Era focus Date of interview

12  J. FOX

Louie Tabing Robbie Thorpe Joe Toscano Pam Vardy Prezado Ximenes

Ermelinda da Silva Pereira

Francisco da Silva Gari

Ben Rinaudo Greg Segal Luís Evaristo dos Santos Soares Julio Seixas Perambalam Senthooran

Bevan Ramsden

3CR volunteer programmer and committee member 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR technical coordinator Timor-Leste CR sector representative RCL volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer management committee member Timor-Leste CR sector representative RCL staff member and volunteer programmer RCL station adviser 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer programmer Timor-Leste CR sector representative

3CR staff member and volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR volunteer programmer 3CR station manager 3CR volunteer programmer RCL volunteer programmer

Ronny Kareni

Viv Malo Bob Mancor Marian McKeown Amanda Millear Romenia Mimosa

Interviewee type

Name

Table 1.1  (continued)

Current affairs and station coordination Station and technical advice Aboriginal show Anarchist issues Gardening show Timor-Leste community radio

Music, current affairs Tamil show and station coordination Timor-Leste community radio

Aboriginal show Union show Station coordination Disability show Current affairs and station coordination Current affairs and station coordination Mental health show Technical coordination Timor-Leste community radio

Current affairs, West Papua show

Involvement focus

2000s 2010s 2010s 1970s 2010s

2010s

2010s

2010s 2010s

2010s 2010s 2010s

1970s

2010s 1970s 2010s 2010s 2010s

2010s

12 July 2014 8 September 2014 10 September 2014 2 November 2013 19 July 2014

29 July 2014

20 July 2014

29 July 2014 10 September 2014

14 April 2014 28 August 2014 21 July 2014

11 December 2013

8 September 2014 6 May 2014 8 September 2014 14 April 2015 29 July 2014

10 September 2014

Era focus Date of interview

1 INTRODUCTION 

13

14  J. FOX

For the RCL listener questionnaire it was necessary to consider internet access, which is extremely limited. A SurveyMonkey link was created and sent through to the station manager, but this was not distributed or used at all. A paper version was made available at the station, but not a lot of people were passing through the station and so there was minimal uptake of the questionnaire. Therefore, in addition to online and paper options, there were drop in visits to various local government offices, non-government organisations, shops and local markets, inviting a random selection of listener questionnaire participants. This was done within a two-week period during a visit in July 2014 and involved recording people’s responses and later transcribing them. All questionnaires—paper and recordings face-to-face—were conducted in Tetum and later translated. A total of fourteen questionnaires were completed. In summary, the data set for RCL contained a review of historical documents (particularly UNESCO paperwork); 47 hours of mapped program content; 14 audio recorded and transcribed interviews with practitioners; and 14 listener surveys. Table 1.1 provides an interviewee overview of all forty semistructured interviews conducted at the two case studies—fifteen women and twenty-five men. Real names, as authorised through the consent process, are used throughout the coming chapters, along with descriptions of the interviewee.

The Diverse Case Study Approach The data gathered across 3CR in Melbourne and RCL in Lospalos amounted to forty interviews, seventy questionnaire responses and 215 hours of mapping of on-air content. The stations present two significant cases of community radio practice. Despite the considerable differences, there are broad similarities: both are held up as successful community stations in both a national and global context, and both are considered the ‘first’ community radio station in their respective countries (3CR Community Radio 2016; Tabing 2014). Each site firmly identifies as a ‘community radio station’ and thereby seeks to follow a set of global normative principles in relation to the structure and process of community radio. The seventeen interviews with station founders at the two case study locations were asked questions such as: Tell me about when, and why, you first got involved with 3CR or the Community Radio Federation/RCL?

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Can you describe your role in the organisation at that time? Can you detail your understanding of how the station began? Can you describe how you saw the role of a community radio station back in those early days? The contemporary participants from RCL to 3CR were asked the questions such as: Can you describe your current role in the organisation? Are there things that frustrate you about 3CR/RCL? What contribution do you think the station makes to broader social and political life? Reflecting on your involvement at the station—what have you got out of your experience? The majority of all interviews (thirty-seven of the forty) were conducted in a studio environment or at a private venue of the participant’s choosing. One telephone interview was conducted with a 3CR founder now living interstate. RCL participants were interviewed faceto-face, with one interview conducted via Skype with a participant in the Philippines. All interviewees, except one, from both stations nominated to be identified by their full, real names. All audio was saved as .wav files to enable broadcast options at a later date, and all participants also agreed to pass on their recorded interviews to the nominated stations for possible broadcast or historical use. In this way the data gathered provided stations with a valuable resource and presented an additional community-based use for the data gathered. All 3CR interviews were transcribed by myself with some help from a 3CR programmer who I paid to assist me. In the case of the Timor-Leste transcriptions the translator provided a full transcript in Tetum and English. 3CR and RCL have quite different histories and institutional identities. Nevertheless, each site provides a rich resource of insight into the capacity of community radio to contribute to CfSC. As Downing describes: ‘If communication media research is to have heft, it must never be permitted to slumber inside a national cocoon’ (2012, p. 9). Yet I want to make it clear that I am not seeking to directly compare the two (Livingstone 2003), but rather to explore each of their practices in relation to the question: To what extent, and in what ways, does community radio contribute to CfSC? That is, how does community radio facilitate a type of voice that possesses power of the user’s own making—able to articulate the intentions, desires and opinions of a self-proclaimed voice? While RCL and 3CR are distinct and separate, interestingly there is a distant historical connection. In March 1976 a resistance-run radio transmission was established by Fretilin (The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor) in Timor-Leste called Radio Maubere.

16  J. FOX

It broadcast news, music, and messages in a range of languages including English. Australian and Timorese activists in Darwin set up clandestine two-way radio contact with the resistance in the mid to late 1970s, part of which involved recording broadcasts of Radio Maubere (Waddingham 2016; Manning 2003). In 3CR’s Radical Radio book, Timor Information Service (TIS) coordinator John Waddingham explains that, ‘Tape recordings of the Radio Maubere broadcasts and two-way contact were then sent to the Communist Party of Australia office in Sydney and copies were distributed to various groups—including the TIS here in Melbourne. The [3CR] East Timor Calling show would then either broadcast excerpts or relay the information in their news reports’ (2016c, p. 23). It’s likely that 3CR was the only radio station in the world to make regular use of the Fretilin broadcasts. The engagement forms part of the ongoing coverage and reporting of TimorLeste by 3CR which continues today.

A Guide for Readers The following two chapters of this book provide a theoretical discussion of community radio and CfSC. Both ‘community radio’ and ‘social change’ are oft-used terms that require refining and contextualising. Chapter 2 positions community radio within the space of community media while asserting its unique place. In considering community radio’s historical underpinnings and possible present-day manifestations, it is necessary to also connect it to the theoretical lens of PEofC. From PEofC we follow the thread that necessarily leads to concerns situated in communication rights discourse. Within a media and communication context, the community radio form was theoretically established to change the shape of the media landscape by opening up spectrum for the community. In the Australian instance this included AM radio broadcast spectrum and in the TimorLeste instance new frequencies on the FM band. That is, community radio was concerned with creating a mediaspace wherein ordinary citizens could participate, determine and control their own media. From a PEofC perspective this makes it a site for potential social change— through its on-air content, its democratic structure and its commitment to giving marginalised communities a voice in the media. How, and in what ways, is this being achieved?

1 INTRODUCTION 

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While a PEofC framework leads us to consider where the spaces dedicated to social change within the media landscape might be, it does not necessarily present us with a model of analysis with which to interrogate their everyday function and potential. Here I draw on a ‘citizen’s media’ framework, as articulated by Clemencia Rodríguez in Fissures in the mediascape (2001). As Rodríguez notes, ‘the democratization of communication is a much more complex process. It implicates the survival of cultural identities, the expression of marginalized social and cultural symbolic matter, and the growth of subordinate groups in terms of empowerment and self-esteem’ (2001, p. xii). A citizens’ media perspective is presented in Chapter 3 as an essential complement to PEofC, and in combination the lenses allow for a richer, nuanced and more complex view of community radio practice. Rather than assessing if community radio can create a gaping crevasse in the power structure of global capitalism, this research investigates how ‘subtle processes of fracture in the social, cultural, and power spheres of everyday life’ (Rodríguez 2001, p. xiv) might occur that lead to a contribution to CfSC. Citizens’ media enables us to take a more grounded, local and everyday viewpoint, in order to examine the experience of CfSC on a small scale and with a subtle, multi-layered perspective. In this way CfSC is interpreted to be part of the construction of democracy rather than a re-balancing of power within an existing democratic structure. PEofC enables us to contextualise, historicise and theorise the limits and potential of media forms as they relate to social change; while a citizens’ media framework interrogates more broadly the multiplicity of ways that change and transformation can occur in local, personal and diverse ways. Chapters 4–7 take us into the themes and issues that come into view through the theoretical lenses and methodological approach. Critical participation and mediated solidarity are addressed in Chapter 4, with the key issue of access deeply considered within the two case studies in order to develop a complex understanding of how participation, community and access manifest within a community radio setting. Political citizenship is explored within this context and from there a type of ‘mediated’ solidarity is uncovered in both the on-air and off-air contexts, as listeners and practitioners are exposed to a diversity of content, intersections and interactions. Chapter 5 delves further into the diversity of community radio—and observes how this presents differently at the two stations. From diversity

18  J. FOX

the central elements of cooperation and also conflict arise as part of a cycle of transformation that is enabled within the unique space of community radio. ‘Transformational radio’ is brought into focus through the manifold of experience that illuminates listener action, community interactivity and practitioner insight flowing from the social processes of community communicative practice. Media and communication are central to how we create, and recreate, our reality and sense of self, and the ‘construction of reality’ is taken up in Chapter 6. How is reality contested, redefined, reconfigured and reflected when everyday people have a voice within a community radio setting? Inevitably a type of resistance, dissent and call to action emerges, and power and counter-hegemony develop into central themes. A central point of this book arises in Chapter 7 with the articulation of a distinct type of voice that is made possible within the particular setting of community radio. A ‘regenerative voice’ is revealed to have distinct attributes that make it an effective element of CfSC. Within this is a consideration of community-control within the community radio case studies—what does this mean for content autonomy and financial independence? And how is it experienced by listeners and on-air presenters— does it make a difference who owns the means of production? This book is not a definitive study of community radio nor is it a comprehensive account of the two community radio stations presented. It does, however, uncover community radio’s potential as a medium capable of the amplification of CfSC. Far from being a representative sample, the stations are anomalies; however, there is no reason why they could not be replicated in diverse settings or even different media ecologies. Through critical participation, the cycle of transformation, the construction of reality and the emergence of a regenerative voice, the two stations present original examples for the community media field. What is also made clear is the need for further understanding and utilisation of media and communications that are capable of amplifying social change within the context of a world in crisis.

References 3CR Community Radio. (1975). Memorandum of Association of Community Radio Federation Limited. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: 3CR Community Radio. 3CR Community Radio. (1975–2018). CRAM guide collection. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: 3CR Community Radio.

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3CR Community Radio. (2016). Radical radio: Celebrating 40 years of 3CR. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: 3CR Community Radio. ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority). (2019). Community radio broadcasting licences. Viewed 11 March 2019. https://www.acma.gov. au/-/media/Community-Broadcasting-and-Safeguards/Information/pdf/ lic035_community_radio_broadcasting_licences-pdf.pdf. Anderson, H. (2012). Raising the civil dead: Prisoners and community radio. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang. Anderson, H. (2013). Beyond the bars: Prisoners’ radio strengthening community. Media International Australia, 149(1), 112–127. https://doi.org/10.1 177/1329878X1314900113. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015a). Propaganda methods—Community Radio Federation, Melbourne. NAA: A6122, 2702 Barcode 13629522. Release Date 27 April 2015. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015b). Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio, volume 1. NAA: A6122, 2178 Barcode 13629520. Release Date 8 July 2015. Canberra, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015c). Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio, volume 2. NAA: A6122, 2179 Barcode 32562345. Release Date 8 July 2015. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015d). Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio, volume 3. NAA: A6122, 2720 Barcode 32562346. Release Date 8 July 2015. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015e). Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio, volume 4. NAA: A6122, 2721 Barcode 32562347. Release Date 8 July 2015. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015f). Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio, volume 5. NAA: A6122, 2722 Barcode 32562349. Release Date 14 July 2015. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015g). Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio, volume 6. NAA: A6122, 2723 Barcode 32562350. Release Date 14 July 2015. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015h). Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio, volume 7. NAA: A6122, 2724 Barcode

20  J. FOX 32562351. Release Date 14 July 2015. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015i). Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio, volume 8. NAA: A6122, 2725 Barcode 32562352. Release Date 14 July 2015. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015j). Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio, volume 9. NAA: A6122, 2726 Barcode 32562353. Release Date 15 July 2015. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). (2015k). Propaganda methods, 3CR Community Radio, volume 10. NAA: A6122, 2727 Barcode 32562354. Release Date 15 July 2015. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. Barlow, D. (1998). The promise, performance and future of community broadcasting (Unpublished PhD thesis). La Trobe University, Bundoora and Melbourne. Barlow, D. (2002). Conceptions in access and participation in Australian community radio stations. In N. W. Jankowski & O. Prehn (Eds.), Community media in the information age: Perspectives and prospects (pp. 141–161). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Buckley, S. (Ed.). (2011). Community media: A good practice handbook. Paris, France: UNESCO. Budarick, J., & Han, G.-S. (2015). Towards a multi-ethnic public sphere? African-Australian media and minority-majority relations. Media, Culture and Society, 37(8), 1254–1265. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443715596503. David, M. I. (2006). (Community) radio for development in Timor-Leste (Unpublished Masters thesis). Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands. Dean, J. (2010). Communicative capitalism: Circulation and the foreclosure of politics. In M. Boler (Ed.), Digital media and democracy: Tactics in hard times (pp. 101–122). Cambridge: MIT Press. Downing, J. (2012). Comparative research and the history of communication studies. In I. Volkmer (Ed.), Handbook of global media research (1st ed., pp. 9–27). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Dugdale, J. (1979). Radio power: A history of 3ZZ access radio. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Hyland House. Dutta, M. J. (2011). Communicating social change: Structure, culture, and agency. New York, NY: Routledge. Figueroa, M. E., Kincaid, D. L., Rani, M., & Lewis, G. (2002). Communication for social change: An integrated model for measuring the process and its outcomes. New York, NY: The Rockefeller Foundation and Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs.

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Foxwell, K. (2012). Community radio in an Australian city: The Melbourne experience. The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media, 10(2), 161–172. https://doi.org/10.1386/rjao.10.2.161_1. Foxwell, K., Ewart, J., Forde, S., & Meadows, M. (2008). Sounds like a whisper: Australian community broadcasting hosts a quiet revolution. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 5(1), 5–24. Friedman, M. (1987). Free markets and free speech. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, 10, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5842.2006.00787.x. Fuchs, C. (2012). Some reflections on Manuel Castells’ book “networks of outrage and hope: Social movements in the internet age”. tripleC-Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, 10(2), 775–797. Gumucio-Dagron, A., & Tufte, T. (Eds.). (2006). Communication for social change anthology: Historical contemporary readings. New York, NY: Communication for Social Change Consortium. Harvey, D. (2010). The enigma of capital and the crisis of capitalism. London, UK: Profile Books. Jensen, K. B. (Ed.). (2012). The handbook of media and communication research: Qualitative and quantitative methodologies (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Jones, C. (1995). Something in the air: A history of radio in Australia. Kenthurst, NSW, Australia: Kangaroo Press. Lindlof, T. R., & Taylor, B. C. (2011). Qualitative communication research methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Livingstone, S. (2003). On the challenges of cross-national comparative media research. European Journal of Communication, 18(4), 477–500. https://doi. org/10.1177/0267323103184003. Manning, B. (2003). Charlie India Echo Tango: Calling Timor-Leste. In H. Alexander & P. Griffiths (Eds.), A few rough reds: Stories of rank and file organising. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Australian Society for the Study of Labour History. McChesney, R. W. (2013). Digital disconnect: How capitalism is turning the internet against democracy. New York, NY: The New Press. Meadows, M., Forde, S., Ewart, J., & Foxwell, K. (2007). Community media matters. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Griffith University. Viewed 14 October 2015. www.cbonline.org.au. NFSA (National Film and Sound Archive). (2005). From wireless to web. National Film and Sound Archive. Viewed 17 September 2014. www.fromwirelesstoweb.com.au. Rodríguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the mediascape: An international study of citizens’ media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

22  J. FOX Rodríguez, C., Ferron, B., & Shamas, K. (2014). Four challenges in the field of alternative, radical and citizens’ media research. Media, Culture and Society, 36(2), 150–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443714523877. Scambary, J. (2004). UNDP Report on Community Radio. Dili, East Timor: United Nations Development Program. Tabing, L. (2014). Research interview with RCL station adviser (via Skype from the Phillippines) by Juliet Fox, 12 July 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Thomas, P., & van de Fliert, E. (2015). Interrogating the theory and practice of communication for social change. Studies in Communication for Social Change. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Thornley, P. (1999). Broadcasting policy in Australia: Political influences and the Federal Government’s role in the establishment and development of public/community broadcasting in Australia—A history 1939 to 1992 (Unpublished PhD thesis). University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW. Waddingham, J. (2016). Occupation and resistance: Primary sources in East Timor history, 1975–1989. In S. Smith, N. C. Mendes, A. B. da Silva, A. da Costa Ximenes, C. Fernandes, & M. Leach (Eds.), Timor-Leste: The local, the regional and the global, volume II (pp. 29–35). Hawthorn: Swinburne Press.

CHAPTER 2

Community Radio: Social Process and Democratic Intent

Of fundamental interest here is an investigation into what community radio is, and how its structural and practical communicative activities might contribute to social change. While ‘new’ and ‘social’ media studies dominate investigations into communication, democracy and participation, community radio’s possible contribution remains largely hidden. Yet arguably the latter face greater restrictions from the influences of neoliberal values than the former (Rodríguez et al. 2014, p. 158)—a concern we will take up later in the book. Here I want to analyse community radio’s structure, content and practice together with its historical intentions, and its relationship to other ‘community media’ forms. Within this, the question as to just what ‘community’ is, needs to be addressed, along with a discussion of recent theoretical approaches to community radio studies generally. Following on from this, in order to critically consider the role of communication within a neoliberal, that is, capitalist, system we need to take a critical political economy of communication (PEofC) perspective: How do the social, political and economic contexts of our world, together with its increased digitality, impact on community radio practices? There are persistent endeavours to increase the public’s active engagement in the media sphere and thereby communicative democracy, together with an acknowledgement of communication rights. Community radio remains well-placed to facilitate these identified needs. © The Author(s) 2019 J. Fox, Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17316-6_2

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24  J. FOX

Community Radio in Context—Past and Present In defining community radio, we need to acknowledge that it is intensely diverse, frequently undocumented, global and often divergent from its original aims. Here I want to provide a broad definition with the aim of drawing attention to some of the original intentions and ongoing theoretical objectives of the form, while conceding some of its subsequent failures and aberrations. There are gaps in much theorising around community radio, as it fails to capture the intricacies, complexities and depth of the form. A citizens’ media lens enables a deeper analysis. But let us firstly examine just what community radio is, or at least what it purports to be. Some claim that finding a definition of community radio is ‘beset with problems’ (Chignell 2009, p. 119) and that there is ‘little agreement’ (Gordon 2006, p. 1); others establish that while there are significant nuances, ambiguities and complexities (Fairchild 2010; Rennie 2006), there is much that can be agreed upon in defining community radio. Generally, community radio is considered to be not-for-profit; service a local community; provide access and training to marginalised peoples and issues; serve as an alternative to mainstream media; predominantly involve volunteers; and be community managed and owned (Buckley 2011; Gordon 2006; Howley 2010a; Tucker 2013). In fact, as Tucker articulates, ‘the normative political theories of community radio are remarkably consistent’ (2013, p. 394). A community radio station that incorporates all the elements above can, however, be surprisingly diverse as it is shaped by its cultural, social and political setting. While community radio does remain largely hidden in much of the deliberations around media and communications, there is a considerable body of work that I draw from, and hopefully build upon, that deals directly with community radio. The form is internationally recognised and can be traced back to the Bolivian Miners Radios of the 1940s and 1950s (Downing 2011; Gumucio-Dagron 2001; O’Connor 1990; Rodríguez 2001, p. 160). Community radio exists in various incarnations throughout the world, and its capacity to effect individual and community-based change has been investigated through methodologies such as ethnographic action research and embedded anthropological approaches (Bessire and Fisher 2012; Gordon 2012; Tacchi et al. 2003). Communication Action Research and Participatory Action Research take methodological stances of deep engagement with stakeholders and

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incorporate a strong change agenda. Additionally, community radio has been assessed using qualitative and quantitative methods (Davies 2005; Fairchild 2010; Foxwell 2012; Guo 2015; Howley 2000; O’Brien and Gaynor 2012), such as audience surveys, content analysis, focus groups and semi-structured interviews with listeners. Frequently the aim of such research is to investigate community radio’s ability, or not, to facilitate marginalised voices and issues, create new public spheres, or provide a media commons (Gordon 2012; Meadows et al. 2005). Community radio in Australia has also been assessed in contexts of structural, content and listener research methods. For example, organisa­ tional analysis in which community participation or compliance with ­not-for-profit status is investigated (Fairchild 2006, 2012; Forde et al. 2003; Foxwell 2012; van Vuuren 2006); content analysis whereby the ‘alternative nature’ of the programming content is documented or assessed (Forde et al. 2002); and audience research where the listening habits and possible effect of content are analysed (Meadows et al. 2007). The community radio form demands community organisation and cooperation, as each station is required to have a collective, self-management structure that engages with, and directly involves, the local community. Community radio, in theory, facilitates a ‘bottom-up’ (Servaes and Malikhao 2005, p. 193) process of self-development and self-representation, in what can also be described as ‘horizontal communication’ (Downing 2007, p. 11) and contributing to the formation of a ‘global communications commons’ (Kidd 1999). That is, stations seek to be inclusive and democratic in both on-air programming and off-air operations, rather than hierarchical or ‘top-down’. They also seek to expand ‘common spaces for public discussion and debate’ (Kidd 1999, p. 5) in order to counter the enclosed structures of the corporate mass media. Community radio in the context of neoliberalism is a counterhegemonic media form, which embodies divergent values and intentions that stand in contrast to the needs of the market, free trade, or rampant individualism. While not immune to neoliberalism’s cooption, community radio is a media type committed to everyday media participation for the purposes of progressive political and social change. In particular, community radio takes its focus to those people and issues on the margins of society. Neoliberalism holds deep-seated hypocrisies, including ‘the further shrinking of discursive opportunities for participation of the subaltern classes accomplished through the language of free market,

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openness, and participation’ (Dutta 2015, p. 131). Community radio practice is well placed to both expose neoliberalism’s deceptive defining of individual freedoms while also providing a community-owned, supportive media space that prioritises the voices of the marginalised. Community radio emerged out of concerns for media access and communication equality, and it is important to consider whether such aims remain relevant today. The Tin Miner’s radio stations that began in Bolivia in 1947 to self-represent the struggles of the mine workers are generally regarded as the world’s first community radio stations (Downing 2011; Gumucio-Dagron 2005; O’Connor 1990; Rodríguez 2001, p. 160). The establishment of KPFA in 1949 in Berkley, California, followed these and was part of a network of five community stations run by the Pacifica Foundation (Barlow 1988; Chignell 2009, pp. 119–120; Dunaway 2005; Fraser and Restrepo-Estrada 2002; Rodríguez 2001, p. 34). In 2014 in the United States, the Prometheus Project advocated the roll out of community radio stations in order to ‘empower participatory community voices and movements for social change’ (Prometheus Radio Project), thereby illustrating the ongoing function (Dunbar-Hester 2014) that community radio seeks to provide within contemporary, networked societies. Community radio is frequently recognised as the third sector, or third tier, of broadcasting alongside public or government-funded, and private or commercial. Public radio, such as the ABC in Australia or RTL in Timor-Leste, differs from community radio in many ways. One key element is that public radio does not include the community in any democratic decision-making structure, nor does it have policies determining community involvement (Barlow 1988, p. 82). In addition, public radio is often seen to be under government control or influence (Buckley 2011, p. 7), whereas commercial, or private, radio has a clear focus on advertising and mass audience reach. While various names continue to be used interchangeably for community radio—such as ‘pirate’, ‘alternative’, ‘free’, ‘Indigenous’, ‘public interest’ (Rodríguez and El Gazi 2007, p. 451), ‘radical’, ‘grass roots’ and more (Meadows 2012, p. 44)—it is ‘community radio’ that is the recognised legislative and policy term in the international setting (UNESCO 2013). It is not clear just how many community radio stations exist throughout the world. As an indication of the number of community radio stations globally, AMARC has over 4000 members and associates in

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more than 130 countries (2018). AMARC is the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters and its goal is ‘to combat poverty, exclusion and voicelessness and to promote social justice and sustainable, democratic and participatory human development’ (AMARC, p. 5): In pursuit of this goal AMARC’s purpose is to amplify the voices of the excluded and marginalized through community media and new ICTs, to support popular access to communications, and to defend and promote the development of community radio worldwide (2013, p. 5).

AMARC’s goals outline a clear purpose for community radio stations that is reflected in legislation, station constitutions and organisational structures in diverse settings. On a global level, UNESCO is also a key supporter of the community radio form, with the organisation emphasising community radio’s capacity to contribute to democratic development and media pluralism (2013). In Australia, the community radio sector is considered to be one of the leaders in the international field, with 357 licensed stations (ACMA 2019) across rural, regional and metropolitan areas (see interactive maps CBAA 2019; First Nations Media Australia 2019), and clear legislative and policy arrangements (Gordon 2006; Meadows et al. 2007; Tacchi 2003). Timor-Leste, in comparison, has just sixteen stations nationally—dating back to just 2000—and continues to struggle for clear media legislation governing community radio licence allocation (dos Santos Soares 2014; Scambary 2004). Stations vary in size and capacity and are present within each district across the country (see map ARTKL 2013). It is possible to argue that community radio is a clear and recognisable form within a global context. It has, at least in theory, a defined set of characteristics that are often mandated in legislation, or station rules and regulations. However, its cultural and political setting shapes its local articulation, and there is diversity and difference in its manifestations throughout the world. Having emerged in the 1940s, the community radio sector continues to grow throughout the world. While the media landscape today is radically different, the goals and purposes of community radio stations remain the same despite a plethora of ‘new’ and ‘social’ media opportunities. Whether these goals and objectives are actually achieved is, of course, a separate matter that will be discussed shortly.

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The Field of Community Media When situating community radio within a wider media environment, the form tends to get lost in a sea of ‘community media’. The term community media is more commonly used than, and has significant crossover with, community radio. Meadows writes that community media has ‘existed for as long as mass communication itself’ (2012, p. 44). Howley defines community media as ‘locally oriented, participatory media’ enabling ‘voices and perspectives … excluded from mainstream media’ (2007, p. 344). Therefore, in defining community radio we need to consider that it sits within a larger field that John Downing calls ‘radical media’ (2001); Chris Atton describes as ‘alternative media’ (Atton 2008); Kevin Howley names ‘community media’ (2010a); and Clemencia Rodríguez reconceptualises as ‘citizens’ media’ (2001). We can see that all these terms draw attention to the democratic and participatory intentions of the media forms. Additionally, Marisol Sandoval and Christian Fuchs call on ‘alternative media’ to take on a ‘critical media’ role (2010), whereby a critical analysis of current social, cultural and economic issues is pursued regardless of whether the media outlet is commercial or non-commercial. What all these media forms have in common, with the exception of Sandoval and Fuchs’ ‘critical media’, is a commitment to facilitating community participation, increasing democratic engagement and providing ‘another view’ from that of the mass media. Ellie Rennie (2011) traces the policy origins of community media to the middle of the twentieth century, citing the work of both UNESCO and AMARC in promoting it as an international model. A key element of present-day community media is that it refers to a range of media practices, which utilise diverse communication technologies. These may be overtly political websites run by social movements, or arts-based video game initiatives aimed at increasing teenage participation (Boler 2008). Community media is also frequently represented as challenging media power—or as a type of media intervention. As Howley notes, community media ‘represent a significant intervention into the structural inequalities and power imbalances of contemporary media systems’ (2010a, p. 4). Here, too, we can see a crossover with the aims and objectives of the community radio form more specifically. For these reasons, it is increasingly ‘community media’ that advocates are seeking to have recognised in policy and legislation as the ‘third tier’ of the media—as has been the case more recently in Europe (Carpentier and Scifo 2010).

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That said, the term community media does risk being extremely broad, nebulous and apolitical. The attraction of the term is, perhaps, that it more closely aligns with the shiny appeal of ‘new’ and ‘social’ media, as it is clearly able to absorb new technologies. If community radio appears difficult to define, certainly the amorphous ‘community media’ presents even more challenges. Community radio often sits easily under umbrella terms such as community media and social movement media. And, like them, it can interact, utilise and engage with ‘new’ and ‘social’ media technologies. However, it is a discrete form that, for now, has held on to the ‘radio’ label. It is important to acknowledge that community radio, as Charles Fairchild states, ‘is a stubborn medium that does not lend itself to easy description or prescription’ (2010, p. 25). However, in separating out community radio as a distinct entity within the ‘community’ or ‘alternative’ media fields, its historical context is emphasised, as is its ongoing international structure and practice. More than a generic community medium, community radio usually has clear parameters in terms of representative, democratic governance. It also frequently has a significant connection to resistance movements, such as land and labour rights struggles, as well as movements for greater access to the media and communication rights (Mosco 2008, p. 49). In these ways, its parameters, historical setting and present-day intent are more tightly structured. It has a more precise and contained purpose regarding media access, and programming content, for progressive political social benefit. In defining community radio in this way, we can see how it closely relates to a critical political economy analysis of communication systems, media power and access.

Creating Community: Inclusion and Exclusion The above definition of community radio illustrates that the form is well established and global in nature. It situates community radio firmly within the broader field of community media, whilst also articulating some of the distinct traits specific, in theory, to a community radio station. A brief diversion is now necessary in order to consider the often-contentious term ‘community’. In defining community radio there are many assumptions made with regard to just what ‘community’ means and how it is determined (Browne 2012; Downing 2001, pp. 38–39).

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My aim here is to more closely examine the term, which is arguably the more important of the two-word label. That said, it is important to avoid going down ‘the rabbit hole’ (Howley 2005, p. 5) in a never-ending attempt to define community. Instead, the focus will be on key considerations of the term that relate to community radio’s potential within a communication for social change (CfSC) agenda. In the Australian context, community radio stations are granted a licence to represent a ‘community interest’ (Commonwealth of Australia 2006). For example, in Melbourne, SYN FM is a ‘youth and students’ station; Joy FM is a ‘gay and lesbian’ station; and 3KND is an ‘Aboriginal’ station. In addition, licensing is geographically determined, with 2XX, for example, licensed to serve the ‘general geographic area’ of Canberra (ACMA 2019). Clearly there is a gap between reality and policy here, with many stations now ‘broadcasting’ to a global community via online streaming, podcasting and audio on demand. However, the idea of place (Silverstone 1999) remains important in providing people with a physical location to come together to produce community radio content and collectively run a radio station. Accordingly, localism, age, sexual orientation and ethnicity are also key determinants in defining community. Beyond the licensing prescriptions community radio stations are still at work defining their own communities. And in this respect, we can observe that community can be about participation, inclusion and involvement by station volunteers. In the case of the listeners, ‘community’ might be more imagined and symbolic rather than material. As mentioned above, community is frequently about commonality, of political leanings, cultural background or topic of interest (Browne 2012, p. 153) within a community radio setting. For community radio stations there are multiple communities within the same space in a complex interweaving of literally hundreds of threads with numerous intersections. It is perhaps here that a notion of an ‘acentred, nonhierarchical’ rhizome rather than a community is more appropriate, where ‘any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be. This is very different from the tree or root, which plots a point, fixes an order’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, pp. 7, 20). Such a vision allows for the possibility of endless links and fluidity of shape and an image of peoples’ connections as ‘nonlinear, anarchic, and nomadic’ (Bosch 2010, p. 84). Frequently individuals may feel a sense of belonging to multiple communities within the station—perhaps

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the queer community as well as the Arabic community, for example. Furthermore, the rhizome metaphor allows for an approach that is ‘situated within a more society-centred approach to media’ (Carpentier et al. 2003, p. 66). What is also clear about the concept of community within a community radio setting is that it is certainly not about everyone. A community is created, and members may come and go over time; and while access is championed, it is also sometimes denied (van Vuuren 2006). The community at a community station is also far from idyllic, with conflict, power struggles and ongoing negotiations persistently present. While community radio literature speaks of the ‘people’s voice’, and a space for ‘ordinary people’, it is certain that exclusions and limitations exist. However, in contrast to public and commercial media, community radio—and community media more generally—is, at least in part, accessible to more members of the community. There is both an evocation and expectation that the term community radio elicits—namely, that a degree of accessibility and welcome will exist to those who wish to participate. And importantly, community members within a community radio setting are primarily considered as active media citizens as opposed to passive media consumers. As active media citizens, power is a key concern. That is, community radio is interested in addressing inherent imbalances of power within the media landscape by prioritising marginalised issues and voices. This prioritisation involves a sharing of media resources, and a fairer allocation of media power to those citizens who are under-represented or misrepresented in the mass media. Of course, this idealised distribution of power does not necessarily play out evenly within the volunteer-run, community-owned space of an autonomous community radio station. Personalities and individual relations have their impact and ‘power equations’ (Rodríguez 2001, p. 16) permanently shift and change. However, a community radio station dedicated to creating a heightened democratic media space is concerned with defining ‘community’, in part, in relation to the equitable sharing of communication power. Here I wish to be attentive to the ‘flows of power’ within the field of Community for Social Change that are often ignored and ‘replaced by a celebration of participation, empowerment and the sociality of technologies’ (Thomas and van de Fliert 2015, pp. 10–11). I also want to highlight that a community radio setting can enable media power that is capable of facilitating resistance by marginalised communities, and that power is activated

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(Rodríguez 2001, p. 17) through social and political practice within our everyday lives. There is much more that could be discussed with regard to defining ‘community’. Ideas of imagined communities, symbolic and material communities, commons, publics, sharing and solidarities (DyerWitheford 1999; Kidd 1998; Silverstone 1999) all hold relevance to a discussion of defining community in relation to community radio. Similarly, the formation of communities through the practice of communication is highly significant here. That is, the making of communities through communicative practice also connects to the formulation and circulation of meaning and value via media use (Couldry 2012). Suffice to say for now that ‘community’ within a community radio setting almost defies clear definition. It incorporates commonalities, as well as differences, and it has moving boundaries and thereby constant fluidity and possibilities for change. The ‘community’ within community radio also speaks to an alternative vision of media providing ‘ordinary people’ the ‘symbolic resources for both change and resistance to change’, and highlights the key role of community participation and access (Silverstone 1999, pp. 103–104). Further exploration of ‘community’ as it pertains to community radio will be considered more closely through the voices of practitioners in the chapters to follow.

Theoretical Approaches to the Community Radio Form It is perhaps the diverse and multi-layered aspect of community radio that attracts a wide array of research approaches. With this comes a broad range of theoretical frameworks used to examine the practice, content and function, of community radio in international settings. I want to briefly outline some of these theories in order to situate my approach within the wider arena of community radio investigations. It is by no means a comprehensive overview of community radio studies to date, but rather an outline intended to illuminate how the approach taken here both builds on, and identifies gaps in, studies thus far. It also acknowledges the importance of articulating a strong theoretical frameworks (Howley 2005; Jankowski and Prehn 2002) through which to consider the workings and outcomes of community radio practice. Frequently community radio is theorised in a development studies context due to its potential contribution to building democracy and strengthening communication flows (Fraser and Restrepo-Estrada 2001;

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Tacchi 2002; UNESCO 2013; van Vuuren 2002). Studies utilise participatory media analysis, or a Communication for Development, C4D, framework in order to consider the role of community radio within a nation’s democratic functioning through the media and civic engagement. Yet critics assert that the development paradigm remains beset with historic imperial tendencies (Rodríguez et al. 2014; Sachs 1992). Additionally, research within a development setting may be blind to the ‘donor-driven’ agenda that has the potential to impact negatively on a community radio station’s broader aims (Conrad 2013). Conversely, a development approach can neatly intertwine methodology, such as Participatory Action Research or Ethnographic Action Research that aims to combine the acts of research and praxis leading to enhanced operations in under-resourced community stations (Lennie and Tacchi 2001). Here I want to engage with a contemporary definition of ‘development communication’ (Rodríguez 2000, p. 148) that requires ongoing critical examination with regard to its relationship with global capitalism and Westernised notions of ‘development’. Later in this chapter we will consider development and the media within the struggle for communication rights during the 1970s and 1980s, and the ongoing challenges and point of departure relevant to this research project. Anthropologists and ethnographers have long had an interest in community radio stations as rich sites of social participation and interaction in everyday life. Such theoretical approaches bring attention to the diverse social impacts of radio activities on practitioners and listeners, and allow for closer consideration as to how experiences are shaped by sound, audiences, technologies and media practice (Bessire and Fisher 2012). The results are often tightly focused on the everyday experience, perhaps at the expense of a broader perspective engaged with an analysis of power and the media within societal systems. More generally, community radio is also examined within radio studies (Goodman 2004; Jankowski and Prehn 2002) and audience/reception studies (Chignell 2009), which is a field that continues to define itself and more often concentrates on mass, as opposed to alternative, radio forms. Feminist scholarship and gender studies (Lee 2011) have also turned their attentions to community radio as sites to investigate ‘subaltern counterpublics’ (Parvarala and Malik in Rodríguez et al. 2010, pp. 110–111) and alternative practices of countering gender inequality (Mitchell 2002). Studies on social movements and community media activism frequently include community radio case studies in considering

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media and communications role in social change. Within a cultural theory framework, Kevin Howley (2010b) calls for Stuart Hall’s ‘articulation’ analysis (2016) to be utilised specifically to study community radio. Howley’s articulation theory for community radio draws on two distinct meanings of articulation—that is, ‘joining’ and ‘speaking’ (2010b, p. 64). It foregrounds the role community radio plays in joining together, or connecting, different individuals and groups, as well as emphasising the importance of speech or language in creating community. Articulation draws from a wealth of knowledge and development around the idea of the symbolic construction of community and the importance of communication in the forging of commonalities between diverse individuals and groups. The theory centres the coming together of difference, or a ‘unity in difference’ (2010b, p. 64) as well as the defining of community predominately within and through communication. The process of ‘joining’ distinct parts together is central within Howley’s emphasis on the function of articulation theory—as opposed to any emphasis on the ‘joint’ itself. In this way Howley’s theory aligns with others, including Rodríguez’s citizens’ media, to emphasise process and practice and thereby the distinct relationship between communication and community building (2010b, pp. 64–65). Community radio, Howley asserts, is a particular articulation, or arrangement, of community groups and alliances amongst many possibilities. Following on from this, articulation theory positions community radio within a dynamic state wherein the agency of actors enables the re-creation, the re-making of social formations. Here again we can see similarities with Rodríguez’s citizens’ media, as Howley describes how ‘community radio highlights people’s ability to alter and rearrange existing media structures to better suit their needs’ (2010b, pp. 69–70). Clearly there are significant interdisciplinary approaches with regard to the theoretical stance taken to investigate community radio. My position is that community radio research needs to combine PEofC and communication rights discourse, alongside CfSC and a citizens’ media theory, in order to meld both a cultural studies and a critical political economy perspective. It is clear that this multi-perspectival approach is befitting the study of a form that is complex and fluid. It allows for a holistic examination of community radio’s form and function and also facilitates both a macro and micro analysis of community radio’s potential contribution to CfSC. As we will discuss, CfSC can be considered both within the everyday practice of individuals, and also within the

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broader socio-economic, cultural and political setting. Before considering more closely the importance of some key theoretical frameworks in any considerations of community radio practice, it is necessary to critically reflect on community radio studies in general.

Some Critical Reflections on Community Radio Studies There is a risk that community radio research will ‘lack objectivity’ and contribute to ‘mythologies’ as to just how uniquely beneficial the form might be (Gordon 2006, p. 1). This is particularly the case when the researcher is also a practitioner, which I am. It is important, therefore, to critique the possibly utopian characteristics of the community radio form stated above—with regard to community ownership, democratic participation and social benefit intent. Actually achieving non-hierarchical, functioning organisational structures within community radio stations is often a shortcoming of the form (Carpentier and Scifo 2010, p. 118). Similarly, it is important to be ‘wary of sustaining a myth of alternative media to replace the myth of the mighty media’ (Fenton 2006, p. 358). In addition, as stated previously, neoliberalism can curtail communication systems, including communicative practice that seeks greater justice and equality within society. Community radio stations are not immune to the impact of neoliberalism. My purpose here, in part, is to question community radio’s capacity—or inability—to facilitate communicative practice for social change within the neoliberal context. Undoubtedly, community radio faces significant barriers in achieving many of the ideal aims outlined above, and I am not suggesting that it is even broadly achieving this normative set of objectives. A number of scholars have documented the shortcomings of individual stations as they relate to access, structure and content (Fairchild 2006; van Vuuren 2006) or the possibility that station content is largely unheard and thus ineffective (Sandoval and Fuchs 2010). In addition, criticisms have pointed to the conflict that exists between audience building and a station’s non-commercial requirements (Dunaway 1998; Fairchild 2012), as well as the type of exclusions ‘alternative’ media might practice in their reporting (Groshek and Han 2011). Certainly, I do not wish to present a purely ‘celebratory’ analysis of the community radio form, and therefore seek to avoid assumptions regarding the success, or otherwise, of

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the stations that are presented here. As Chris Atton observes: ‘The celebratory approach is a problem because the ways in which alternative media connect to other aspects of social and cultural life are left obscure’ (2008, p. 218). Additionally, some have asserted that community radio is simply and uncritically ‘idealised’ as ‘filling the media–democracy gap left by commercial and state-owned media’ (Conrad 2013, p. 4). It is necessary to vigorously address these clear concerns with any discussion of community radio practice. My approach includes audience research and producer interviews with the aim of contextualising programmer practice and avoiding ‘researcher as ideological advocate’ (Atton 2008, p. 224). That said, there is much to celebrate within the two stations that are presented in this book; yet like Rodríguez’s investigations into Colombian community media, this element of celebration ‘does not blind me to the vulnerabilities and weaknesses’ (2011, p. 31) of their practice. Entire books could be written on the respective sectors of my case studies outlining their ‘vulnerabilities, weaknesses, blind spots, and questionable practices’ (p. 194); however, like Rodríguez’s, this research chooses to ‘focus on what we don’t yet know or understand about the role(s) these media can play’ (p. 195). Equally there is a need to address some of the criticisms aimed at community radio. One argument put forward is that there is no longer a need for either community or public broadcasting, and that participation in the media has been made ‘free’ and accessible via the internet and new communication technologies. One consequence of such an analysis is that governments can now argue that they no longer need to resource either public or community media (Commonweath of Australia 2014; Rennie 2011). A critical analysis of the internet as ‘free’ has revealed that it is tightly bound up with market-driven profit-making imperatives, and that a user’s access and engagement is rarely ‘free’. Community radio access, in the instance of the two stations presented here, might involve the one-off purchase of an AM/FM receiver; while participation at the station level involves physically coming into the station. Participation with online platforms, conversely, might involve the purchase of a device with ongoing costs to ensure internet access. Additionally, participation is frequently within a commercialised, advertising-rich space with free labour—or play and labour (‘playbour’)—used to create online content and data enabling companies such as Facebook to accumulate enormous profits through the ‘exploitation of users’ labour that is unpaid’ (Fuchs 2014). The digital delivery of some community radio complicates this

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argument and I will return to this, but the point made here is that ‘free’ online participation and access must be critically considered, particularly when it emerges as an argument for the replacement of community radio services. In summary, community radio studies need to contribute distinct data and investigations that move beyond a simplistic or purely celebratory analysis of community radio as a democratic community communication medium. Studies into community radio must critically challenge and interrogate the participatory and alternative outcomes in order to reveal the form’s potential, as well as its limitations. Partly this approach requires a strong engagement with theory, and in particular the theoretical insights of PEofC (Rodríguez et al. 2014).

Critical Political Economy of Communication PEofC is a communications sub-field that affirmed its position after the Second World War, initially in North America, led by scholars Dallas W. Smythe and Herbert I. Schiller. Its actual origins, however, can be seen to flow from the work of a variety of earlier scholars and thinkers. PEofC draws on the political economy of the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century (Garnham 1995) and its critique in the nineteenth century. At its broadest, it has a focus on ‘the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of wealth and the consequences for the welfare of individuals and society’ (Wasko 2004, p. 309). Connections can also be drawn to the work of Harold Innis, Edward Bernays and Harold Laswell (Graham 2007). Edward Bernays is widely considered to be the father of modern public relations, and in the late 1920s he produced seminal work on both the manipulation of public opinion and the use of propaganda, as did Harold Laswell. Harold Innis coined the term ‘knowledge monopolies’ to describe the privileging of communication means by certain sectors of society. Returning to Schiller and Smythe, we can see the influences of Robert A. Brady and other anti-fascist thinkers of the 1930s and 1940s (Wasko 2004) on PEofC. Brady identified a growing coalescence under capitalism of what he termed ‘spirit and structure’, or what we might today call ‘culture and organisation’. His inquiry centred on capitalism’s tendency to assert coordination and domination over all aspects of social and cultural life, including a person’s consciousness (Schiller 1999b, p. 95).

38  J. FOX Monopoly-oriented business which attempts to evade democratic restraints can dominate government only through control over the thinking processes of the mass of the people who dwell at the base of the social pyramid (Brady 1943, p. 320).

Contemporary political economist of communication theorist Robert McChesney in Communication Revolution (2007) outlines how together Schiller and Smythe formed ‘the crucial and original argument that communication was becoming a central component of capitalist accumulation, with significant and striking implications for both communication and capitalism’ (p. 63). The consolidation of the field by Smythe and H. I. Schiller (1976, 1978) produced some key themes that remain relevant today. The PEofC field identifies media institutions as sites of power struggles rather than merely objective, centralised forms through which information flows. The ownership, monopolisation and economic structure of media institutions—particularly the mass-scale, commercial media—is interrogated through a framework of analysing material production and exchange-values, while the role of media and communications are interpreted in relation to their role in the maintenance and advancement of a capitalist system. A political economy approach recognises that capitalism expands not only through faster, more efficient computerised communication systems, but also through the making of meaning and the setting of agendas by the dominant elite. Additionally, PEofC scholars identify the role of media in the reinforcement of dominant societal views, and the placation and manipulation of the public (Schiller 1973; Smythe 1981, p. xii). Mass media, according to Smythe, produces a particular kind of human nature or consciousness, whereby an individual’s energies are focused on the consumption of commodities (1981, p. 9). They are, in effect, simultaneously commodified and sold to advertisers, while also put to ‘work’ in manufacturing their own consciousness, as directed by the capitalist imperatives asserted through the mass media. But rather than isolating individuals in the process as single atoms, Smythe considers the social process and the dialectic relationships they are engaged in. PEofC helps illuminate the relationship between human communication and the commodity form—a relationship that has no inherent,

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necessary connection. That is, communication has come to have an exchange-value through the abstraction of the commodity form, but previously only embodied a use-value and stems from the space of the commons, rather than that of private property. However, a connection between communication and the commodity form is realised with the establishment of a communication industry and a market economy for communication. This process remains pervasive in late capitalism (Wasko 2014). For many, however, the ideas of mass manipulation, control of knowledge and false consciousness are anachronistic and irrelevant to today’s modern societies—if indeed they were ever relevant (Fenton 2007; Grossberg 1995). Additionally, others regard the expanding commodification of communication as an essential ingredient of democracy and freedom of speech, arguing that the commodification of news—and thereby its separation from propaganda, or party-political material— enabled a strengthening of journalistic standards and practices. Media scholar Michael Schudson argues that ‘the drive for profit was even more potent a factor than the party drive for political power in orienting newspapers to a mass public and imbuing news writing with a broad democratic rather than elitist appeal’ (2011, pp. 124–125). A position that equates capitalism with freedom of communication persists within government policy, media commentary and corporate media advocacy worldwide. Neoliberalism is a capitalist ‘political project’, which while seemingly ‘everywhere’ (Peck and Tickell 2002, p. 400), simultaneously lacks centres or institutions, is non-linear and able to thrive and transform through the process of crisis. Neoliberalism is focused on political-economic power and has largely been absorbed and internalised as a global ‘metaregulation’, or ‘metalogic’ of ‘common sense’ (Peck and Tickell 2002, p. 381). A PEofC framework enables us to theorise neoliberalism by focusing our attention on the capitalist modes of production, and the material nature of media and communication practice. It leads us to examine the meaning of value, and the value placed on voice within communicative democracy. It also leads us to consider spaces of change and the role of resistance in addressing neoliberalism’s extensive ‘inequities and perversities’ (2002, p. 400). Without doubt a direct correlation between a free, deregulated market and freedom of speech and democracy continues to be made—and also challenged.

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Connecting Capitalist and Communication Systems The PEofC approach has a long and significant history of researching mass media institutions and practices but has generally shown little interest specifically in community radio. That is, while the field consistently points to the need for community radio and alternative media within a commercialised media environment, the framework is seldom overtly used to analyse the outcomes or potential of community media settings. Similarly, from the perspective of communication for social change research, as Thomas and van de Fliert assert: ‘The political economy of media development is a subject that has rarely been of academic interest to CSC scholars’ (2015, p. 83). Nor does the field of PEofC more broadly appear to actively seek to promote or elevate community radio as a site of resistance to capitalist media production. Perhaps this is because, in the main, community radio globally does not perform this function. The fields of alternative or community media are to me an obvious, but frequently uncharted, area of interest in the study of PEofC. Community radio stations are sites that are theoretically community-owned, largely advertising free, and historically established as a space of reflection, critique and alternatives with a strong focus on political and social change. A key question here is this: does community radio break free of the corporate constraints and commercial imperatives that capitalist society places on media institutions to facilitate communication dedicated to social need and societal good? The following section takes up the idea of communication rights as an extension of the critical political economy approach. What are communication rights and how can they contribute to a framework for assessing community radio’s possible contribution to CfSC? Critical PEofC illuminates the possible restrictions communication systems face under capitalism and highlights the need for commonly held communication spaces that serve democracy as opposed to corporate profit or market imperatives. Through this analysis we can see the need to recognise an individual’s—or a collective’s or community’s—right to communicate. Beyond just a process of transmission, communication involves social processes and interactions resulting in the construction and interpretation of meaning. Through considering a universal right to communicate we can more closely connect to media and communication’s possible role within an active democracy. Within this, it is necessary to address the idea of participation through the Habermasian public sphere, and that concept’s relevance today, alongside its connection to a community radio space. Additionally, in the next section we will briefly

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consider what curtailments communication rights face within ‘new’ media spaces as opposed to ‘old’. We will also reflect on the application of communication rights discourse to an investigation of community radio and CfSC. First, it is necessary to consider the origins and unfolding definitions of communication rights.

Third Generation Universal Rights The proposal for recognition of communication rights emerged following the Second World War, and in particular after the signing of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948. Basic human rights are considered to be ‘first generation’ rights, followed by ‘second generation’ rights such as safe working conditions, access to education and social security (Jacobson 1998). ‘Third generation’ rights include ecological balance, peace and development along with communication rights—although it could be argued that the right to communicate is a prerequisite for equal opportunities for participation and power within media and communication systems within which other rights are negotiated (Dakroury and Hoffmann 2010). A communication rights analysis connects a political economy perspective with critical social theory, as well as providing important historical context to the struggle for media democratisation (Padovani and Nordenstreng 2005). I want to consider whether community radio is a site in which communication rights can be realised within diverse social and cultural settings. An infringement of communication rights also connects with the idea of the need for media justice and an enabling, communicative environment beyond just a notion of individual freedoms. Definitions of communication rights include the right to assemble, discuss, participate, inquire, be informed and to inform (UNESCO 1980). For Cammaert the ‘discourse represents a counter-hegemonic reaction against the commodification of information and communicational tools. It pleads for a participatory and citizen-oriented approach to information and communication, embedded in an open and transparent democratic culture’ (2007, p. 5). Thomas defines the term by describing four pillars: Pillar A: Spaces for Democratic Participation: Communicating in the Public Sphere Pillar B: Communicating Knowledge for Equity and Creativity: Enriching the Public Domain

42  J. FOX Pillar C: Civil Rights in Communication Pillar D: Cultural Rights in Communication (2006, p. 300).

Despite these clear—albeit grand—articulations, there is a lack of a unified, international recognition of the term communication rights, and its global status arguably remains ‘in limbo’ (Jacobson 1998, p. 398). As Thomas notes, an inability to clearly articulate the term relates to ‘the complex, multifaceted nature of communication rights that defy any easy translation into communicable codes for universal consumption’ (2006, p. 300). However, the term ‘communication rights’ is ubiquitous in presentday global community radio literature. For example, AMARC (2013) asserts as a key strategic goal: ‘Policy research, advocacy and partnership for community media and communication rights at regional and international level’, and in 2012 it held a conference in Brazil entitled ‘Communication Rights, Democracy and Technological Convergence’. The emergence of communication rights can also be identified as early as 1946, when the concern for the ‘free flow of information’ entered onto the international stage within UN agencies, signalling the beginning of decades of struggle and debate surrounding access to and participation in the media, together with ‘chronic imbalances’ (Carlsson 2005, pp. 193–194) between countries in an increasingly globalised flow of communication. In 1976, UNESCO established the MacBride Commission (also known as the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems) (Dakroury and Hoffman 2010; Jacobson 1998). One of its principal tasks was to analyse communication problems and investigate measures that would ‘foster the institution of a “new world information order”’ (Carlsson 2005, p. 198). Countries of the ‘South’ led the drive for a ‘new world information and communication order’, or NWICO. They called for media for social good and demanded greater equality in the flow of information and communication by ‘putting electronic media in the hands of citizens and communities’ with the intent, and hope, that this would ‘alter the old power equation between powerful transnational media corporations and powerless audiences’ (Rodríguez 2001, p. 7). The publication of the MacBride Report, Many Voices, One World (UNESCO 1980), remains a potent call for the realisation and legitimisation (Mastrini and De Charras 2005, p. 275; Thomas and van de Fliert 2015, pp. 57, 139–140) of communication rights and the re-ordering

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of the role of media and communication toward promoting social transformation, collective self-reliance and democratisation. As Mastrini and de Charras articulate, ‘the report adopted by UNESCO’s General Conference in 1980 is the seminal international document establishing the essential elements of any process aimed at democratizing communications’ (2005, p. 274). The calls for media to be used for social good were made in direct relation to the tendencies observed for the utilisation of media and communication systems under capitalism primarily for profit-making and market expansion. Ulla Carlsson (2005) traces the demise of NWICO and argues that its failure is significant as it represents, in part, the growing domination of free-market ideology surrounding communication and media systems in the neoliberal period. Mastrini and de Charras concur observing that the ‘success of neoliberal ideas at the world level, particularly in the political sphere, entailed the disappearance of the context that had allowed for the development of the NWICO’ (2005, p. 275). Initially NWICO called into question the concept of media modernisation, instead demanding reform that by the early 1970s rested on the ‘four Ds’: democratisation, decolonisation, demonopolisation and development (Carlsson 2005, p. 197; Padovani 2005, p. 317). Following the 1980 UNESCO General Conference, only ‘development’ remained, with the promotion of international aid as the cornerstone for media democratisation. The United States and Great Britain, having repeatedly threatened to leave UNESCO, eventually did so in 1984 and 1985 respectively. By 1989 NWICO had been taken off the agenda ‘once and for all, leaving the stage open for “free flow” to make its comeback’ (Carlsson 2005, p. 203). Internationally, the struggle for communication rights was then taken up by alliances such as the Platform for Communication Rights (PCR) and the Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS), while attempts to address communication inequalities also persist among communication scholars (Couldry and Curran 2003; Howley 2010a; Rodríguez et al. 2010). It is possible to see that the loss of the ideas of democratisation, decolonisation, and demonopolisation resulted in a highly specific development communication model—a model that suited the expanding power and economic growth of the United States. As Clemenica Rodríguez describes, this communication model involved ‘a hopeful fascination’ with the mass media that privileged agendas that have ‘little to do with the well-being of most people in the Third World’ (2000, p. 149).

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An emphasis on development saw mass media and communication use in some countries set firmly within the parameters of Western-led interests dominated by profit and market imperatives. We might consider that the three Cs of mass media—conflict, consumerism and controversy— resulted in a decline in the possibilities of media and communication for democracy and social change. I take the position that in the area of CfSC communication rights need to be seen as ‘Voice contributing to social change within enabling environments’ (Thomas and van de Fliert 2015, p. 136). Community radio prioritises a voice and access for silenced, marginalised issues and peoples, and is theoretically part of a wider struggle that seeks to provide a media space for active citizenship, media access and participation. This situates the form squarely within a discourse of communication rights (Cammaerts and Carpentier 2007; Jacobson 1998; UNESCO 1980) and social change. Within this, stations seek to address issues of active citizenship, media access and participation, personal expression and, in the words of Paulo Freire, ‘dialogical communication’. Dialogical communication, and dialogical theory, ‘requires that the world be unveiled. No one can, however, unveil the world for another’ (1972, p. 169). In short, the community radio form puts the power in the hands of ordinary people to voice their concerns in the space of the everyday—to create their own realities, and to experience and exercise their communication rights.

Political Public Spheres Communication rights necessarily raise the question of where such rights might be realised and through what processes and structures such rights might be enjoyed. They also connect closely to ideas regarding the necessary ingredients of communicative democracy. The notion of a Habermasian public sphere remains central to the concept of democratic decision-making, deliberation and communication rights—the public sphere forms a space, and a time, for public debate and the formation of public opinion within society where everyone can participate and contribute—where speaking and listening are considered valuable, and communication has a focus on the common good. It is a concept that links to a critical PEofC perspective—with its interest in value formation, and communication external to market forces, and for societal good— and is frequently associated with an analysis of community radio practice and function.

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The concept of the public sphere—while not without criticism— remains central to discussions on communication and democracy. Additionally, the media remain in a critical position to actively facilitate the necessary information and relations of a theoretical public sphere. Habermas himself acknowledges, in ‘The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere’, that the term itself ‘betrays a multiplicity of concurrent meanings’ and is not entirely appropriate (1991, p. 1). Yet it has come to stand for attempts to create a space for a ‘solidarity among strangers’ based upon ‘shared and mutually accepted norms rather than the mere expediency of material self-interest or the doxa of inherited cultural traits’ (Garnham 2007, p. 208). It is also pertinent to consider what problem Habermas was seeking to solve with his idea of the public sphere. As Nicholas Garnham explains, in the aftermath of National Socialism, Hitler and the Holocaust, Habermas was concerned to ‘construct a viable and legitimate democratic state for Germany’ that avoided ‘an aestheticised politics’ (2007, p. 202). In this way we could also interpret an understanding of the public sphere to include the pursuit of a peaceful and equitable society, and see too—as we did with the emergence of PEofC—a connection with anti-fascist struggles. Under today’s digital capitalism, we could consider the growing disenchantment and disconnect with politics, and the dominant commodified entertainment-based communication processes, as posing a considerable problem for democracy, in a similar way that Habermas viewed post-Nazi Germany. Many writers have acknowledged the disconnect that broad publics are experiencing with politics around the world (Hassan 2011; McChesney 2013), and it is for this reason too that it is worthwhile drawing on the ideas, and ideals, of a democratic, political public sphere. In short, there is nothing that can easily replace the idea when it comes to a discussion of communicative democracy. Writing more recently on the ‘democratic public sphere’ in relation to the European Union, Habermas again articulates some of the key qualities of the concept describing it as ‘a network that gives citizens of all member states an equal opportunity to take part’, while stating that its function ‘is to turn relevant societal problems into topics of concern, and to allow the general public to relate, at the same time, to the same topics, by taking an affirmative or negative stand on news and opinions’ (2001, p. 17).

46  J. FOX

It is important to continue to engage with the ideas of the public sphere as they are of key concern to the pursuit of the project of democracy, and to the facilitation of public communication with an overtly political intention and direct relationship to the exercise of political power (Garnham 2007, p. 210). As outlined by Nancy Fraser, the public sphere is a theatre of political participation enacted primarily through the medium of talk, as well as a site distinct from the state that may also be critical of the state. It is primarily an arena of discursive relations not ‘market relations’ with clear democratic intentions (1990, p. 57). It is here that the medium of community radio is of particular relevance and therefore frequently examined in direct reference to the Habermasian public sphere (Meadows et al. 2005).

Criticisms and Counterpublics It also necessary to acknowledge some of the criticisms of the public sphere concept, including, as outlined here by Nancy Fraser (1990), that the concept is ‘a masculinist ideological notion that functioned to legitimate an emergent form of class rule’ (p. 62). Without doubt the notion of a political realm populated solely by middle-class, white men bears little relation to the ideals of real democracy. Similarly, the failure to take into account the challenges of social equality and participatory parity in actually facilitating people’s access and inclusion in public debate is certainly a flaw (p. 65). My approach aligns with that taken by Fraser (1990), who concludes that the idea of the public sphere is neither an instrument of domination, nor a utopian ideal (p. 62). It is, however, a key concept for anyone ‘committed to theorising the limits of democracy in late capitalist societies’ (Fraser 1990, p. 56). In analysing the media from a critical PEofC perspective and exploring opportunities for communication rights, it is necessary to draw on Fraser’s observation that a form of ‘public sphere is indispensable to critical social theory and to democratic political practice’ (p. 57). The question remains as to what types of media and communication systems, particularly within an era of digital capitalism (Schiller 1999a), are capable of performing the critical role and function of the public sphere, or multiple public spheres. As Schiller describes in his recent articulations on the growing digital depression: ‘Accumulation by dispossession takes away from those with little in order to create territories of profit for those with much’ (2014, p. 246). The result is an ever-increasing gap in equality.

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Like critical PEofC, the public sphere concept firmly recognises the ongoing, evolutionary process of historical development that requires analysis, and also action, to contribute in the long term to greater participation and justice within society. It also acknowledges the duality, and potential contradictions, inherent in a public sphere that requires both the rise of the autonomous individual subject and, alongside it, the collective participation of a public citizen in a democracy. I am keenly interested in the facilitation of marginalised groups (the poor, women, refugees, Aboriginal Australians) in having a voice within public discourse as citizens rather than consumers; together with a recognition that radio remains a key platform for participation given its accessibility, reach and low-cost nature for communities around the world (Carlsson 2005, p. 209). Yet it is Fraser’s (1990) articulation of multiple public spheres, in particular, that is of direct relevance to research in the field of community radio. Like community radio, alternative publics—counterpublic spheres, subaltern counterpublics—are places where people can come together as distinct groups, but not within enclaves, to speak for themselves, to exercise self-representation, while engaging in the political realm and discursive opinion formation (Fraser 1990, p. 69). In addition, the multiple political public spheres are spaces where ‘participants are transformed from a collection of self-seeking, private individuals into a public-spirited collectivity, capable of acting together in the common interest’ (p. 72). In this way, publics are arenas for not only formation of discursive opinion, but also formation and enactment of social identities (p. 68).

Summary We face multiple descriptions with regard to our current predicament: information society, network society, post-politics, post-industrial, digital capitalism, late capitalism (Castells 2007a, b; Dean 2010; Hassan 2011; Mattelart 2003; Mosco 2009; Schiller 1999a). An analysis of the vital role communication systems play within these transitions, and expansions, of capitalism is key to understanding how social change occurs. Communication is itself a social process, and the means of production yields and wields considerable societal power. Media power and the defining of social reality are critical cogs in the machinery of capitalism. Media spaces that challenge the hegemony of digital capitalism are, therefore, necessarily spaces of potential social change.

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While initially a field dominated by the exploration of the production processes involved in media and mass communication, critical PEofC has expanded to analyse the processes of social relations and social meaning, alongside the realisation of value in communicative activities. The field has predominantly critiqued the mass media, analysing its impact and effect as a corporate entity involved in ‘packaging consciousness’ (Schiller 1973, p. 88), but it has also identified and explored alternative public sphere structures including civil society and community communication platforms (Mosco 2009, pp. 71–72). However, the intersection between PEofC and the analysis and exploration of the field of community radio, it must be said, is largely untouched. Here I am seeking to extend the boundaries of critical PEofC research, by choosing to focus on the community radio sector in particular as a potential space for democratic media practice. Part of this includes melding a critical PEofC with a citizens’ media approach under the umbrella of CfSC as we shall see in the following chapter. At the core of intertwining and connecting these approaches is the development of adequate lenses through which to understand community radio’s function and practice for social change.

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Howley, K. (2010b). Notes on a theory of community radio. In K. Howley (Ed.), Understanding community media (pp. 63–70). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452275017.n6. Jacobson, T. L. (1998). Discourse ethics and the right to communicate. International Communication Gazette, 60(5), 395–413. https://doi.org/10 .1177/0016549298060005003. Jankowski, N. W., & Prehn, O. (2002). Community media in the information age: Perspectives and prospects. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Kidd, D. (1998). Talking the walk: The communication commons amidst the media enclosures (Unpublished PhD thesis. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global). Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. Kidd, D. (1999). The value of alternative media. Peace Review: Media and Democratic Action, 11(1), 113–119. https://doi. org/10.1080/10402659908426238. Lee, M. (2011). A feminist political economy of communication. Feminist Media Studies, 11(1), 83–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2011.537032. Lennie, J., & Tacchi, J. A. (2001). United Nations inter-agency resource pack on research, monitoring and evaluation in communication for development. New York, NY: United Nations Inter-Agency Group on Communication for Development. Mastrini, G., & de Charras, D. (2005). Twenty years mean nothing. Global Media and Communication, 1(3), 273–288. https://doi. org/10.1177/1742766505058124. Mattelart, A. (2003). The information society: An introduction. London, UK: Sage. McChesney, R. W. (2007). Communication revolution: Critical junctures and the future of media. New York, NY: The New Press. McChesney, R. W. (2013). Digital disconnect: How capitalism is turning the internet against democracy. New York, NY: The New Press. Meadows, M. (2012). Putting the citizen back into journalism. Journalism, 14(1), 43–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884912442293. Meadows, M., Forde, S., Ewart, J., & Foxwell, K. (2005). Creating an Australian community public sphere: The role of community radio. Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media, 3(3), 171–187. https:// doi.org/10.1386/rajo.3.3.171_1. Meadows, M., Forde, S., Ewart, J., & Foxwell, K. (2007). Community media matters. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Griffith University. Viewed 14 October 2015. cbonline.org.au. Mitchell, C. (2002). On air/off air: Defining women’s radio space in European women’s community radio. In N. W. Jankowski & O. Prehn (Eds.), Community media in the information age: Perspectives and prospects (pp. 85–107). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

54  J. FOX Mosco, V. (2008). Current trends in the political economy of communication. Global Media Journal—Canadian Edition, 1(1), 45–63. Mosco, V. (2009). The political economy of communication (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage. O’Brien, A., & Gaynor, N. (2012). Voice of the people? Objectives versus outcomes for community radio in Ireland. The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media, 10(2), 145–160. https://doi. org/10.1386/rjao.10.2.145_1. O’Connor, A. (1990). The miners’ stations in Bolivia: A culture of resistance. Journal of Communication, 40(1), 102–110. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1990.tb02254.x. Padovani, C. (2005). Debating communication imbalances from the MacBride Report to the World Summit on the Information Society: An analysis of a changing discourse. Global Media and Communication, 1(3), 316–338. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742766505058127. Padovani, C., & Nordenstreng, K. (2005). From NWICO to WSIS: Another world information and communication order? Introduction. Global Media and Communication, 1(3), 264–272. https://doi. org/10.1177/1742766505058123. Parvalrala, V., & Malik, K. K. (2010). Community radio and women: Forging subaltern contrunerpublics. In C. Rodríguez, D. Kidd, & L. Stein (Eds.), Making our media: Global initiatives toward a democratic public sphere. Volume One: Creating new communication spaces (pp. 95–114). Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Peck, J., & Tickell, A. (2002). Neoliberalizing space. Antipode, 34(3), 380–404. Prometheus Radio Project. (2014). Prometheus Radio Project—About us. Viewed 4 March 2014. prometheusradio.org/about_us. Rennie, E. (2006). Community media: A global introduction. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Rennie, E. (2011). Community media and the third sector. In J. Downing (Ed.), Encyclopedia of social movement media (pp. 115–121). London, UK: Sage. Rodríguez, C. (2000). Civil society and citizens’ media. In K. G. Wilkins (Ed.), Redeveloping communication for social change: Theory, practice, and power (pp. 147–160). Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield. Rodríguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the mediascape: An international study of citizens’ media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Rodríguez, C. (2011). Citizens’ media against armed conflict disrupting violence in Colombia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Rodríguez, C., & El Gazi, J. (2007). The poetics of indigenous radio in Colombia. Media, Culture and Society, 29(3), 449–468. https://doi. org/10.1177/0163443707076185.

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Rodríguez, C., Ferron, B., & Shamas, K. (2014). Four challenges in the field of alternative, radical and citizens’ media research. Media, Culture and Society, 36(2), 150–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443714523877. Rodríguez, C., Kidd, D., & Stein, L. (Eds.). (2010). Making our media: Global initiatives toward a democratic public sphere. Volume One: Creating new communication spaces. Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Sachs, W. (1992). The development dictionary: A guide to knowledge as power. London, UK: Zed. Sandoval, M., & Fuchs, C. (2010). Towards a critical theory of alternative media. Telematics and Informatics, 27(2), 141–150. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.tele.2009.06.011. Scambary, J. (2004). UNDP report on community radio. Dili, East Timor: United Nations Development Program. Schiller, H. I. (1978, Autumn). Computer systems: Power for whom and for what? Journal of Communication, 28(4), 184–193. Schiller, D. (1999a). Digital capitalism: Networking the global market system. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Schiller, D. (1999b). The legacy of Robert A. Brady: Antifascist origins of the political economy of communications. The Journal of Media Economics, 2(2), 89–101. Schiller, D. (2014). Digital depression: Information technology and economic crisis. The geopolitics of information. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Schiller, H. I. (1973). The mind managers. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Schiller, H. I. (1976). Communication and cultural domination. White Plains, NY: International Arts and Sciences Press. Schudson, M. (2011). The sociology of news (2nd ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Servaes, J., & Malikhao, P. (2005). Participatory communication: The new paradigm. In O. Hemer & T. Tufte (Eds.), Media and glocal change—Rethinking communication for development (pp. 91–103). Buenos Aires, Argentina: CLACSO. Silverstone, R. (1999). Why study the media? Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Smythe, D. W. (1981). Dependency road: Communications, capitalism, consciousness, and Canada. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Tacchi, J. A. (2002, May). Transforming the mediascape in South Africa: The continuing struggle to develop community radio. Media International Australia, 103, 68–77. Tacchi, J. A. (2003). Promise of citizens’ media—Lessons from community radio in Australia and South Africa. Economic and Political Weekly, 38(22), 2183–2187.

56  J. FOX Tacchi, J. A., Slater, D., & Lewis, P. (2003, May 19–21). Evaluating community based media initiatives: An ethnographic action research approach. Paper Presented to OURMedia III Conference, Barranquilla, Colombia. Thomas, P. (2006). The Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) campaign: Applying social movement theories to an analysis of global media reform. International Communication Gazette, 68(4), 291–312. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048506065763. Thomas, P., & van de Fliert, E. (2015). Interrogating the theory and practice of communication for social change. Studies in Communication for Social Change. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Tucker, E. (2013, July–December). Community radio in political theory and development practice. Journal of Development and Communication Studies, 2(2/3), 392–420. UNESCO. (2013). Tuning into Development. Paris, France: UNESCO. UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation). (1980). Many voices, one world. International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. Paris, France: UNESCO. van Vuuren, K. (2002, May). Beyond the studio: A case study of community radio and social capital. Media International Australia, 103, 94–108. van Vuuren, K. (2006). Community broadcasting and the enclosure of the public sphere. Media, Culture and Society, 28(3), 379–392. https://doi. org/10.1177/0163443706062891. Wasko, J. (2004). The political economy of communications. In J. Downing (Ed.), The Sage handbook of media studies (pp. 309–331). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412976077.n16. Wasko, J. (2014). The study of the political economy of the media in the twenty-first century. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 10(3), 259–271.

CHAPTER 3

Social Change: Active Citizens and the Value of Voice

What do we mean by ‘social change’? Communication for social change (CfSC) has its origins in development communication, which remains a pertinent, but not unproblematic, field within media studies. In this chapter I consider the societal impact of neoliberalism at the intersection of democracy, citizenship and communication. To do this I engage with Rodríguez’s (2001) positioning of ‘citizens’ media’ which is, in part, a response to some of the constraints, rigidity and binary nature of other approaches including aspects of political economy of communication (PEofC). That is, alternative media are often assessed in opposition to mass media, with the question: Can community media act as a counterbalance to corporate media power in order to achieve communication rights and a more egalitarian media system? As Rodríguez notes, this type of oppositional framework for assessment inevitably leads to an analysis of failure, while also failing to produce any detailed understanding of alternative media practice (Anderson 2012). What is more productive is the reconceptualisation of the role of community media (alternative media, radical media etc.) within an analysis of citizen engagement and everyday power. How can we understand the making of power and the production of democracy within, and through, community media activities? Rodríguez’s citizens’ media lens sharpens our focus on the complex layers and practices of community media and their multi-faceted role within building the media power of local communities. © The Author(s) 2019 J. Fox, Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17316-6_3

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Enacting Citizenship A citizens’ media approach draws on theories of citizenship and democracy, alongside communicative agency and power. Key within the term is the notion of a ‘citizen’ and ‘citizenship’. The word citizen connects back to ancient Greek city-states, describing the granting of individual rights (albeit only to free men) alongside the expectation of obligations to a nation state (Cammaerts 2007). The idea of a set of bounded rights and duties included participation in the political through abiding laws, together with the presumption of innocence, and progressed to broad participation in political life and voting. It is worth restating that the expansion of citizenship, as fought for by trade unions and social movements, also extended to a set of communication rights (Mosco 2009) as articulated in the previous chapter. Alongside the ongoing development of the idea of the citizen come differing concepts as to what constitutes citizenship. Liberal, communitarian and republican classifications of citizenship place varying importance on individual versus collective citizen activity and present differing perspectives on democracy’s requirements for citizen participation (Dahlgren 2006). The spheres of state, market and civic activity intersect in interpretations of citizenship, and debates continue as to which sphere should exert the most influence on the individual citizen. For example, liberalism asserts that the state should play a subordinate role to the market to ensure the reduction of obstacles for the individual, thereby maximising opportunities flowing from ‘the dynamics of the market’ (Dahlgren 2006, p. 268). Consequently, varying views on citizenship place differing importance on the level, and type, of individual participation. In a globalised, modern world, citizenship is challenged on a number of fronts, as addressed through both cosmopolitan and post-nation citizenship perspectives. The influences of culture, gender and environment, for example, challenge forms of identity that in turn are contested and constantly redefined. Additionally, there is an assessment that citizen engagement continues to wane amidst growing apathy, disaffection and disengagement, which in turn negatively impacts on functioning democracies (Hintz 2007; McChesney 2013; Mouffe 1999). What continues within the ongoing defining of a ‘citizen’ is a connection to social processes of inclusion and exclusion, of contestation and dissent, and of participation and representation.

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In Chapter 2 we noted the array of terms describing community media institutions and activities. Here we can add ‘civil society media’ to describe media practice that is non-government, non-commercial and primarily concerned with extending democracy (Hadl 2004, 2009; Hintz 2007; Rodríguez 2000). Civil society can be understood as ‘the societal terrain between the state and the economy, the realm of free association where citizens can interact to pursue their shared interests, including political ones’ (Dahlgren 2006, p. 271). Civil society media, or CS Media, emerged around the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) forums and seeks to be an umbrella term to describe ‘radical alternative, community, citizens’, tactical, autonomous, social movement, Indigenous, aboriginal, activist, free and feminist media’ (Hadl 2009, p. 4). The term, however, remains contested, with both its purpose and success (as an umbrella term) in question. In Hadl’s ‘civil society media theory’ (2004, p. 79), democratisation of the media acts in concert with the larger project to ‘decolonise the lifeworld’ from market and state forces. This reference to Habermas’ critique highlights the wider framework in which civil society media is situated. That is, its critical analysis of the ‘effects of commodification and bureaucratisation of daily life’ (Jacobson and Kolluri 2006, p. 809) and its possible function in facilitating ‘ideal speech acts’ and deliberative democracy. Ideal speech acts, or situations, here refer to the Habermasian model wherein communication between individuals is governed by shared parameters that enable rational argument and a consensus to be reached. In turn, this alerts us to criticisms, some already outlined in Chapter 1, with regard to the normative values placed on both the public sphere, and also within the notion of civil society media. Here we can see that Hadl’s positioning of civil society media alongside an advocacy for deliberative democracy sits, in part, in contrast to Rodríguez’s proposed citizens’ media. Simultaneously Hadl also tells us to be cautious with ‘Habermas-inspired civil society theories: there are still lurking issues such as class and gender bias, excessive rationalism, public-private dichotomies, and a narrowly European perspective’ (2004, p. 80). In short, citizens’ media aligns with Chantal Mouffe’s criticism of Habermasian deliberative democracy, and draws on Antonio Gramsci’s conception of civil society as being a place of contest, hegemony and possible counter-hegemony (Forgacs 2000). Mouffe asserts that rational and moral discourse can never be removed from the influences of power and antagonism. Therefore, ideal speech acts within a normative public

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sphere cannot provide consensus without exclusion, thereby rendering full democracy an illusion (1999, p. 757). In relation to the typology of the citizen within citizens’ media, we can see that radical democracy ‘retains a republican quality precisely in its emphasis on agency, its view of the common good and its commitment to democratic values and procedures, while at the same time highlighting the tensions between them’ (Dahlgren 2006, p. 270). A citizens’ media framework draws on Mouffe’s notion of radical democracy to examine the complexity of power and the necessary multiplicity of voices within a pluralist society, and amidst networks of difference. As a brief aside, it is necessary to point out, as many others have in more detail, that citizens’ media alongside the other community media terms does not include small-scale right-wing media activities (Downing 2001; Hintz 2007; Rodríguez 2001). While these forms may engage citizens, enact participation, and be non-government/non-commercial they are fundamentally concerned with oppression, segregation, exclusion and the concentration of power. In this way they are intrinsically separate from notions of both community and citizens’ media in that they have clear undemocratic, exclusionary and often sexist and racist intentions. That said, it is also important to note that community media and ‘participatory communication structures and non-hierarchic organization do not automatically produce “democratic” texts (in form and content)’ (Hadl 2004, p. 89). This point is key if we are to avoid assumptions regarding positive democratic outcomes from citizens’ engagements in media practice. In returning to a citizens’ media approach, we can see that the understanding of citizenship draws on the work of Mouffe to encapsulate it as entirely active. That is, it is enacted rather than granted. The word citizen is ‘reclaimed’ to denote a type of daily political action, or political identity, ‘something to be constructed, not empirically given’ (Rodríguez 2011, p. 100). Through engagement in alternative media, transformative processes arise, spinning new forms of identity, subjectivity, and power (Rodríguez 2001, p. 18). Rather than a state-based, passive issuing of citizenship, it is through everyday social relations and practices that citizenship is negotiated and renegotiated in a multiplicity of ongoing struggles over power and representation. As already indicated, a citizens’ media approach necessarily invokes participatory media practice and democratic communication intentions. I will return to these concepts later but let us now more deeply consider the illumination of the ‘everyday’ that a citizens’ media approach provides.

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Multi-layered Empowerment By viewing citizens in a complex manner, we can move away from the essentialist analyses of power, citizenship and political action, and away from the limitations sometimes presented through the use of grand narratives of democracy, politics and emancipation (Rodríguez 2001, p. 10). A citizens’ media lens enables an analysis, for example, of the role community radio practice and engagement has on a practitioner’s identity, subjectivity, sense of self and feeling of empowerment. It also provides a lens through which to consider the possibility of intervention in dominant representations, and the weaving of alternative stories and representations— that is, the potential disturbance of multiple layers of power through alternative media practice (Rodríguez 1996, p. 64). It helps avoid a linear analysis of media facilitating a state of ‘non-democracy’ to ‘democracy’ and encourages an examination of communicative democracy as if it were living and breathing, constantly being made and unmade. In particular, community media’s contribution is sometimes fleeting, completely undocumented, and highly localised—how can we consider the possible impact of this activity? As Rodríguez reminds us ‘empowerment is not an all-or-nothing condition but rather a multi-layered and multidimensional phenomenon’. By focusing on the ‘more subtle and microscopic forms’ of media practice within a community radio setting we can seek to understand the constant movement and negotiation of power as experienced by individual practitioners and listeners alike. ‘After all, what is empowerment anyway but the eternal explosion of movement—any movement—that challenges an oppressing force’ (1996, p. 67). Here, also, the articulation of ‘making community’ through media practice—particularly community radio, as discussed in the previous chapter—is highly relevant. It directs our attention to the actual activity of voicing views and opinion through an alternative media space. Within the context of radio, it is the manifestation of voice wherein individuals, or collectives, determine and produce their own content that is of particular interest to me. What is the impact of speaking in one’s own voice in such a setting? We will take up a more detailed discussion of voice, power and agency shortly. Participation within a community radio setting is about effective engagement wherein power relations are largely egalitarian and the type of involvement is largely self-directed and self-controlled. The type of participation inferred by citizens’ media, and also, theoretically,

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the community radio form, encompasses a democratic intention. That is, having identified a marginalisation, a lack of access, or a dearth of coverage, citizens’ media steps in to improve media equality, address issues of social justice and contribute positively to the ongoing construction of democracy through active citizen-based participation. In the following section I want to elaborate on participatory media and communicative democracy within a citizens’ media framework, with the community radio form in mind. Participatory Media Participation, like ‘community’ in the previous chapter, is a hard-to-define term that is frequently used and less frequently comprehensively described. It is also fundamentally complex and varied; however, it is necessary to address participatory media’s core elements. The purpose here is to critically assess the term, acknowledge its historical underpinnings and provide relevant parameters for its use as it pertains to community radio and citizens’ media. Brazilian educator Paulo Freire provides significant contributions to our understanding of participatory communication and its relationship to a process of conscientisation (Servaes 1996, p. 78). For the field of CfSC, which I will engage with more fully in the next section, Freire’s work from the 1960s and 1970s is also vital. He proposed that ‘consciousness and action on consciousness are dialectically linked’ and that it is through the ‘emancipatory process of action and reflection’ (Servaes 1996, p. 78) that we see the emergence of self-empowerment, selffulfilment, and freedom through communication. In other words, communication as education through participation, and as community dialogue and interaction (Waisbord 2001). Many scholars (Berrigan 1979; Gumucio-Dagron and Tufte 2006; Servaes 1996; Servaes and Malikhao 2005), see Freirean dialogical pedagogy as foundational to democratic, empowering participation within media and communication systems. It encompasses a utopian hope derived from the early Marx that the human species has a destiny which is more than life as a fulfillment of material needs. Also from Marx is an insistence on collective solutions. Individual opportunity, Freire stresses, is no solution to general situations of poverty and cultural subjugation (Servaes 1996, p. 96).

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This approach to participation elicits a conception of critical participation (Jenkins and Carpentier 2013, p. 283), and firmly relates to ideas around participation by the oppressed and the marginalised in society, which in turn connects us to the community radio form. In Chapter 4, I will spend some time detailing ideas around critical participation, while here the focus is on participatory media. It is possible to see the theoretical underpinnings of participatory media emanating not only from the work of Paulo Freire, but also from the UNESCO forums of the 1970s. As noted in the previous chapter, NWICO was deeply concerned with information flows and communication rights, including moves to make media more accessible and increase the public’s participation in media production. Self-management is also a key element as articulated in the 1977 UNESCO meeting in Belgrade (Servaes and Rico 2013). We can see that these principles—of access, participation and self-management—remain central to the present-day understanding of participatory media and indeed of community radio. The online media environment has greatly expanded the potential for media participation. For some, ‘participation’ indicates clear democratic intent, yet increasingly the term is used to describe an engagement that may be anything but political. It is frequently argued that online opportunities for participation within a networked society are positively transformative—increasing our engagement and collaboration (Castells 2012; Dahlgren 2012; Shirky 2008, 2010). Online media continues to be presented as a ‘free’ and ‘public space’ of ‘autonomous communication’ (Castells 2012, p. 11) enabling users to ‘overcome the powerlessness of their solitary despair by networking their desire. They fight the powers that be by identifying the networks that are’ (Castells 2012, p. 9). Such an analysis is in stark contrast to the assessment of increased internet-based surveillance, control and commercialisation (Fuchs 2016). D. Schiller describes a ‘digital depression’ (2014), asserting that ‘no variant of digital capitalism serves the human condition’ (p. 246); while the articulation of a ‘digital condition’ describes how ‘unequal property relations are turned into equal access to the realm of the digital’ (Wilkie 2008, p. 169). The idea that the internet, and media participation through it, is a space of freedom and democratic engagement is difficult to reconcile in relation to its central position in the ongoing expansion of capitalism. That is, the expansion of a system based on inequality, dependent on the extension of exploitation and injustice, and increasingly judged to be incompatible with democracy.

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Without doubt, online media platforms facilitate participation; it is, however, necessary to critically assess the form and function of the engagement. For example, some scholars assert that online technologies have spawned a fantasy of participation in what Carpentier et al. describe as ‘reductionist privileging of digital media as the ultimate sites of participation’ (2013, p. 288). In the wake of the internet and Web 2.0, participation ‘became (at least partially) an object of celebration, trapped in a reductionist discourse of novelty, and detached from the reception of its audiences and decontextualized from its political-ideological, communicative-cultural and communicative-structural contexts’ (Carpentier 2009, p. 407). The elements of power, politics, culture and structure are central to any analysis of participatory media. So how should we understand participatory media in relation to community radio? And what is its connection to a citizens’ media framework? I maintain that participatory media necessarily goes beyond the online individual status update, or clicktivism/slacktivism (Karpf 2010), that is sometimes associated with online ‘participation’. It also goes beyond media interactivity (Jenkins 2006, p. 133), or isolated individual self-expression. ‘Participate’ is, as Dahlgren (2011) points out, a verb, necessitating engagement and activity in line with a citizens’ media perspective. Media participation is concerned with creating equitable communication flows, facilitating media access and supporting dialogue on political concerns that contribute to an active democracy. For Carpentier and Dahlgren the concept of participation ‘refers to a situation where the actors involved in (formal or informal) decision-making processes are positioned towards each other through power relationships that are (to some extent) egalitarian’ (2014, p. 9). Additionally, participatory media ‘embody ethical approaches to media production and distribution’ and are centrally concerned with social justice issues (Wilkins 2011, p. 388). In further defining participatory media, I want to more closely consider power. Sherry Arnstein outlined an explicit link between participation and power back in 1969. In her typology of citizen participation she defines it as: a categorical term for citizen power. It is the redistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future (p. 216).

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Along Arnstein’s gradation of citizen participation, the eighth (and final) rung in the ladder is ‘Citizen Control: have-not citizens obtain the majority of decision-making seats, or full managerial power’ (1969, p. 217). Her analysis captures an essence of participation that is central to our understanding of participatory media and its relationship to media power—community control. Arnstein also identified that the definition of citizen participation was ‘purposely buried in innocuous euphemisms’ (1969, p. 216)—arguably it remains so. Participation in, and through, media is about the practice of building power, and while Arnstein’s ladder-based approach provides considerable insight, it does not account for what Carpentier describes as the ‘complexities of participatory processes’ (2016a, p. 76). Complexities that include the non-linear and unstable nature of the participation process, and the ongoing struggle over the level of intensity of the participation experience (Carpentier 2016b). Before moving on to a consideration of communicative democracy that will inform our citizens’ media framework, I want to address some structural considerations with regard to participatory media. Under the influence of neoliberalism, ‘participation’ faces numerous affronts as it, too, is impacted by the ‘commodification of everything’. It is necessary to consider the roles that ‘culture and participation’ play within the ‘hegemonic development agenda of consolidating resources in the hands of the global power elite’ (Dutta 2015, p. 141). That is, ‘empowerment’ and ‘participatory media’ are frequent terms and tactics used within a neoliberal agenda that sees a continuation of colonisation and oppression advanced under the guise of well-meaning ‘development’ and ‘democracy building’ programs (Dutta et al. 2014). The wide frame of CfSC as defined by Thomas and van de Fliert (2015) helps to contextualise participation within this neoliberal spread. As they observe, we live amidst a mass of mobile and digital communication technologies, yet ‘very few people have the capacity to make their voices heard and acted upon in meaningful ways’ (p. 85). This is because power, and the power to participate, is contingent on an equitable sharing of resources, yet neoliberalism is active in incorporating modes of ‘participation’ into ongoing systems of exploitation. Participation that seeks social change communication does not require market-based outcomes, capital or private ownership. Within the context of CfSC, the participatory space of a community radio station requires the allocation of cultural resources and the supported facilitation of citizen-based agency and power.

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Participatory media requires multiple ways of facilitating, and ensuring, clear flows of engagement and open opportunities. This can be with limits, but there is a requirement for structured avenues of facilitated access—otherwise participation in the media is simply a hollow term. Or worse still, a coopted term whose meaning has been manipulated to reflect a neoliberal agenda. That is, participatory media must have a clear method of facilitating an individual’s introduction to, and possible involvement in, the media space. The decision-making process of who decides (and how) with regard to participation is also vital (even if this is in fact an online algorithm rather than a real-life person). Following on from this, a participatory media space needs to have the resources and support necessary to allow for meaningful access by the individual. Training, technological access, or skills advancement, may all be required to facilitate participation in media content production, presentation and distribution. Similarly, clear processes and open access is required to enable participation in the decision-making processes within the participatory media form. It follows that effective participatory media requires a clear, independent structure, or structures, in order to further democratic communication, and advance citizen engagement. On the macro level, this may include a degree of state intervention through spectrum allocation, legislation and licensing arrangements, as well as ‘sufficient subsidies’ (Rennie 2002, p. 11). This may all sound rigid and confined, institutionalised or even pre-determined. Surely participatory media in a networked society is about increased freedoms, limitless access and an abundance of opportunities to express oneself via multiple platforms? I propose that to make media participatory requires clear channels of access, and open paths of ongoing support. Without this scaffolding, questions arise with regard to the substance of partaking in such communicative activities, and to their contribution to democratic intent. I acknowledge that this somewhat utopian ideal of participation is not without its criticisms. For example, in some instances participation is considered a foreign concept, culturally inappropriate, potentially manipulative, idealistic and unable to respond to short-term problems. For the most part, it is a Western concept, focused on the individual rather than the community. Additionally, within a community media setting, participatory approaches might privilege the more powerful and active within that particular community, or some simply might not be interested in participating. While on the extreme level, participation might deepen

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community divisions (Waisbord 2001). Such criticisms remind us of the necessity of considering cultural diversity, power dynamics and individual agency in any assessment of participatory media engagement. Through this discussion of participatory media, it has not been my intention to ultimately define the term. Instead the analysis has aimed to draw some boundaries around it, based on shared analyses of the structural, intentional and active nature of participation in a community radio setting. While the boundaries are in no way fixed, we can certainly now closely situate participation in, and through, the media to the practice of building power within a citizens’ media framework. I will continue the discussion of participation, and in particular critical participation and the experience at the two case study stations, in Chapter 4. In the next section, let us consider the related subject of communicative democracy. Communicative Democracy The connection between communication—and indeed, media participation—and democracy can best be understood through Jakubowicz’s (1990) term ‘communicative democracy’. That is, rather than communication being one contributing factor in a functioning democracy, the premise of democracy itself is placed upon egalitarian communication (Hackett 2000, p. 65). While it is clear that democracy is not an end point or a static destination (Dahlgren 2012), it is equally evident that it faces increasing limitations and numerous blockages. As noted above, in late capitalism democracy is increasingly assessed as being under stress (Hintz 2007; McChesney 2013; Mouffe 1999). While some view new communication technologies as being our saviour in this regard, others, such as myself, are less optimistic. Below I want to discuss some of the obstacles neoliberalism presents to democracy, but first let us consider the instrumental role of communication within a functioning democratic society. The critical role of communication within a democracy is long held, and widely agreed upon, although the details of its practice remain contested. Some observers note the necessity for free flows of information, ‘freedom of speech’ and an objective, unbiased media as central to democracy (Friedman 1987; Schudson 2011). Others argue for an egalitarian distribution of communication access and information and assert the necessity of facilitating marginalised voices and issues in order to achieve a democratic society (Fenton 2011; Rodríguez et al. 2010).

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This latter prioritisation points to the democratic need for equitable distribution of communication resources that connects to the very essence of community radio with regard to accessible, participatory media. Jakubowicz considers that community media might be a space for ‘representative participatory communicative democracy’ (2010, p. 120), thereby combining notions of participatory media and communicative democracy. What is conceptualised, therefore, by democratic media and communicative democracy includes the pursuit of a more equitable distribution of, and access to, the production and distribution of information, symbols and social meaning. Again, we can observe the connection to Habermas’ idealised public sphere. As noted in Chapter 2, the Habermasian public sphere is fundamentally concerned with democratic communication. Without doubt accusations of cultural universalism are justified and, considering the international nature of my approach here, need to be taken into close account. However, the public sphere does provide a necessary guide— albeit idealised—when considering community radio as participatory media alongside its possible contribution to communicative democracy. As Jacobson and Kolluri (2006, p. 806) note, Habermas’ analysis of ideal speech situations and communicative action are useful tools in analysing a media institution’s possible facilitation of democratic participation. If we understand ‘ideal speech situations’ to prioritise respectful, thoughtful listening and speaking without restrictions or coercion that have clear democratic and community-oriented intent—that is, deliberative discourse—then we can see their close connection to the ideas and objectives of community radio practice. A citizens’ media approach embodies the values and objectives ascribed to communicative democracy, and not only seeks to put a name to them, but also provide a framework through which their possible contributions might be gauged or understood. Before moving on to the wider space of CfSC I want to acknowledge some of the criticisms of the citizens’ media approach. Reflections on the Citizens’ Media Framework The perspective of citizens’ media provides a lens through which to view the micro, everyday practice and outcomes of community radio

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participation. However, it is necessary also to consider possible criticisms of it and its limitations, which, while not insurmountable, are still pertinent. By focusing on everyday, individualised practice, a citizens’ media framework risks exaggerating the freedoms of daily life and potentially overlooks an ‘understanding of the power relationships involved in culture and their relationship to wider structures of domination’ (Garnham 1995, p. 65). That is, it risks overstating the power and political effectiveness of individualised cultural production and consumption viewed through a lens that separates power from structure. This highlights broader concerns about the possible limitations regarding theories on empowerment and agency that fail to consider the wider societal oppressive forces that may impact on individual action (Crewe and Harrison 2000). This is why, in part, it is imperative to engage with a critical PEofC analysis that takes a closer account of these factors as outlined in Chapter 2. Chris Atton (2008) criticises a citizens’ media approach on a number of fronts, including the analysis, as he interprets it, of participation in the media being ‘the sole end of such media practices’ (p. 217). Following on from this, Atton criticises the approach for not considering the audience: ‘For Rodríguez, self-empowerment and self-education are all: audiences seem irrelevant’ (p. 217). Certainly, audiences are not at the core of the approach, but there is no evidence to suggest that a citizens’ media approach deems the audience to be entirely ‘irrelevant’. In my approach, I certainly agree that taking the audience into consideration is vital in order to discover the possible impact that listening to alternative media has on attitudes and behaviours. In this way, my approach extends the citizens’ media perspective by collecting data from multiple directions within the community radio form, including the audience, in order to view it from diverse angles, as described in Chapter 1. Quite apart from such critiques, a citizens’ media approach also presents challenges for those wishing to champion a rights-based approach through formalised citizenship. A citizens’ media approach moves away from the state-based, nation-centric definition of ‘citizen’. However, presenting the notion of a citizen as multi-layered, borderless and enacted possibly detracts from the social, economic and political benefits of a recognised state-based ‘citizen’ and the rights and obligations that entails. Further criticism can be seen with regard to a citizens’ media presumption of a widespread desire for participation in the media. As a

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concept based on the individual as active citizen, rather than a passive consumer, citizens’ media practice expects community involvement in production and presentation of media content. However, arguably not everyone wants to express themselves in this way, or to participate within the media landscape (Jankowski 2006; Schudson 1998; Servaes and Malikhao 2005; Waisbord 2001). Others have long considered that mass participation in the political sphere is not conducive to efficient democratic function, and that it is both impossible and undesirable to define a notion of ‘common good’ (Schumpeter 1976) now frequently associated with citizen media forms. I will engage with these concerns throughout the book. However, the application of a citizens’ media lens for the interpretation of the case studies does provide necessary tools to analyse media practice beyond mainstream media frameworks. I want to now turn to consider CfSC, but will return to citizens’ media, in combination with critical PEofC, at the end of the chapter in order to assess their suitability as a combined view through which to present insights into community radio practice.

Communication for Social Change In considering the role of community radio in diverse international settings through the lenses of critical PEofC and citizens’ media, it is necessary to further situate the study within the wider field of CfSC. In the following section I will provide a closer examination of the CfSC field, outlining how it encompasses community radio studies and how its historical positioning, methods and theories need to be both considered and enacted. The historical and contemporary nature of CfSC is, in part, presented, together with neoliberalism’s impact on the ongoing study and practice of CfSC. Following on from this I will turn to focus on one of the book’s central themes—namely voice, agency and power. Finally, the critical PEofC and citizens’ media frameworks will be drawn together within the field of CfSC in order to firmly position my approach. Development Communication—Point of Departure Both the Rockefeller Foundation and the subsequent Communication for Social Change Consortium have produced a considerable body of literature on CfSC (Deane and Gray-Felder 1999; Figueroa et al. 2002; Gumucio-Dagron 2001; Reardon 2003; Waisbord 2001). Much of the

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work flows from meetings and conferences, working papers and reports specifically addressing, defining and redefining the field of CfSC. I am not intending to critique or summarise that body of work here but my approach does build on this considerable body of literature. CfSC is an international field of inquiry that was first known as ‘communication for development’, or ‘development communication’ (Rodríguez et al. 2014, p. 151). Development communication’s origins can be traced to the 1940s, and theories of modernisation and ‘development’ that sought to utilise the media to advance and improve societies. The media, it was proposed, was a key tool within the growth and ‘progress’ of societies, because of its ability to educate, inform and democratically engage the population. It was largely a Western, capitalist notion of development that flowed from the North to the South, whereby industrialised, modern nations were the model to be replicated globally (Waisbord 2001, p. 1). Again, we can reflect on the opposition that arose within NWICO as noted in the previous chapter, and the resultant movement surrounding communication rights, to observe the emergence of an opposition to development communication. That is, some saw this type of development as an extension of colonisation and cultural imperialism, and identified its connection with the growth of global capitalism and the ongoing exploitation of poorer communities (Dakroury and Hoffmann 2010). Access to communication and the type of information and media being pushed onto countries of the South by the North was central to this form of development. A critical stand against this version of communication development emerged and those critical approaches are now situated under the umbrella of CfSC. As Rodríguez et al. note: ‘Community/alternative/ citizens’ media uses for mobilisation and empowerment constitutes one of these critical approaches’ (Rodríguez et al. 2014, pp. 151–152). At its broadest, CfSC can be defined as a people coming together to decide who they are, what they want and how they are going to obtain it (Deane and Gray-Felder 1999; Figueroa et al. 2002). Within this, communication and dialogue are seen as central to improving communities through strengthening people’s skills and confidence. In turn, people can then ‘tell their own stories, explain their needs, and advocate for the kind of change they want’ (Gumucio-Dagron and Tufte 2006, p. xi). From the type of definition explored in the previous chapter, we can see how, in theory at least, the community radio form fits easily underneath the umbrella of CfSC.

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This is particularly the case when we further consider that CfSC ‘should be empowering, horizontal (versus top-down), give a voice to the previously unheard members of the community, and be biased towards local content and ownership’ (Figueroa et al. 2002, p. ii). The field also emphasises self-management, the prioritisation of issues as they relate to local communities and a move away from persuasion and transmission towards dialogue, debate and negotiation. In turn this connects back to Freire’s dialogic communication raised in the previous chapter, with its close connection to CfSC articulated here: The guiding philosophy of communication for social change can readily be traced to the work of Paulo Freire (1970), the Brazilian educator who conceived of communication as dialogue and participation for the purpose of creating cultural identity, trust, commitment, ownership and empowerment (in today’s term) (Figueroa et al. 2002, p. 2).

The community radio form and a citizens’ media approach sit within the wider field of CfSC. CfSC not only provides broad defining principles but also furnishes a range of indicators and assessment tools through which to gauge the possible impacts of a media form as it relates to social change. The proposed measures include: ‘expanded public and private dialogue and debate’ and ‘linked people and groups with similar interests who might otherwise not be in contact’ (Deane and Gray-Felder 1999, pp. 21–22). While Deane et al. note that capturing impact, evaluating and assessing CfSC is notoriously difficult, there is an array of indicators proposed in the literature that are useful reference points in analysing community radio practice. Within any analysis, however, it is necessary to take into account the contemporary social, political and economic conditions. This research departs from any persistent development focus within CfSC to align with others (Thomas and van de Fliert 2015) in a paradigm shift that recognises and foregrounds the agency of those on the margins. At the centre of my approach is a focus on the power associated with the ‘political exercise’ of ‘knowledge production’ (Dutta 2011, p. 291) through the action of creating one’s own community radio content. Implicit in this powerful activity is the challenge directed at neoliberal hegemony by marginalised communities and this power lies at the heart of CfSC within a community radio setting. As Dutta outlines: ‘In order to reclaim the agenda of social change, critical communication theorists

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and scholars draw attention to hegemonic narratives of capitalism and neoliberalism, and continually disrupt these hegemonic narratives theoretically, methodologically and in praxis’ (2011, p. 291). Arguably, by focusing on the ‘microscopic’ activities of two diverse community radio stations and identifying these sites as significant media spaces of knowledge production and power, my work challenges common conceptions of where CfSC occurs. Before moving on, it is vital to consider neoliberalism’s ongoing, and broad-based, influence on media and communication systems. That is, to situate the role of community radio, citizens’ media and CfSC within the neoliberal context. Neoliberal Influences As noted earlier, communication systems play a crucial role in breaking down barriers to the ever-greater speed and efficiency required by capitalism. Indicatively, communication systems played a key role during the 1970s and 1980s, during which time the elevation of free-market ideals in social, political and economic priorities in many Western nations led to the era of neoliberalism—a term reinterpreted from the 1770s (Hassan 2008, p. 233) to describe a time when market forces became the ‘overwhelming priority for social organisation’ (Couldry 2010, p. 4). During the 1970s and 1980s period of free markets, deregulation and globalised capitalism, modern communications systems expanded significantly, and their present-day function and objectives should be considered within this historical context. Social, political and economic values under neoliberalism prioritise individual rights and freedoms, maintaining that there is a direct dependency between personal and market freedoms; meanwhile the role of the state and government is to clear the path for free trade, foreign investment and the privatisation of public enterprises. What impact does this have on the social versus economic imperatives embedded in the communication technologies and their networks developed at the time? Present-day mass media and communications systems need to be interrogated in light of the influence, and coercive nature, of neoliberalism. Simultaneously, the potential function and practice of ‘older’ communication technologies, such as community radio, need to be considered in light of neoliberal influences. This is particularly important with regard to the actual practice of community radio, which—in ways we will consider—has values at odds with a neoliberal ideology. Can

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these values be productively pursued? What blockages and barriers does neoliberalism present within a CfSC context? According to Nick Couldry (2010), neoliberalism spawns a ‘crisis of voice’, wherein social communicative processes and the value placed on democratic communication is reprioritised within a society dominated by commercial imperatives. Simultaneously ‘new’ media—social media, the internet—embody value systems that see the rise of the neoliberal self, the emergence of hyper-individualism and the further extension of market-based commodities through global, high-speed, network computing systems. Is this conducive to ideals of social equality, common good and participatory democracy? Are these new media forms capable of forming a functioning political public sphere, or multiple public spheres? While these are important questions, I will not be directly addressing them; however, through a deeper understanding of community radio we can at least consider what is required within a communication system to produce participatory, communicative democratic means more broadly. Let us now, however, detail more closely the time of neoliberalism and the role of communication systems within it. Although neoliberalism has a history beyond its rise in the 1970s and 1980s, it is this manifestation in the second half of the twentieth century that is of primary interest here. Social philosopher and economist, F. A. Hayek and economist and statistician Milton Friedman—both of whom received a Nobel Prize for Economics in the 1970s—heavily influenced neoliberalism’s philosophical and theoretical underpinnings. Both envisioned the progress of humanity through free markets and demanded that the individual must be prioritised over the collective in all things social, cultural and economic. They maintained that the relationship between the free flow of commodities, markets and capital, alongside personal freedom, a free society and the free ‘man’, was one of interdependence (Friedman 1987). It is here that we can draw a comparison to the rise of the free ‘man’ during industrialisation—an individual that, above all else, is at once set free through the advances of a market economy, while also establishing himself as a free agent ostensibly liberated to partake in public, political life. As Nicholas Garnham (1986) noted, however, the inequalities of monopoly capitalism arguably destroyed any notion of equitable access to either the economy or the public sphere. While Friedman expounded a free market in which the government played a role, Hayek put forward a utopian vision of liberty in which men, currency systems, and indeed all aspects of the economy are set

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free—without any government interference. Hayek’s influence today remains strong, with his book The Road to Serfdom (originally published in 1944) reaching number one on the Amazon reading list in June 2010 following its exposure on CNN (Schuessler 2010, July 11). The book presents a moral argument against the state’s role within the economy, linking government planning with totalitarianism, and maintaining that more state power leads to the enslavement of the citizen (Hayek 1994). Robert A. Brady, as noted in Chapter 2 as a key influencer of the PEofC field, assessed that there was a potential link between capitalism and fascism, while conversely here Hayek relates a lack of capitalism to totalitarianism. It is vital that we question capitalism’s contribution to ideas of democracy, participation and access, particularly with regard to the social effect of commodified communication. One tendency under neoliberalism is for ‘accountable political power’, as Peter Dahlgren describes, to be transferred from any formal political system across to the space of ‘unaccountable power in the private corporate sector’ (2012, p. 29). This movement of power from the public to the private is in line with a broader neoliberal agenda and associated conception of societal progress. ‘When market dynamics come to be seen as the most democratic force in society, the opportunities for meaningful civic participation become eroded’ (Dahlgren 2012, p. 29), and it is this erosion that community radio seeks to counter. Neoliberalism uses concepts of human dignity and individual freedom, and the virtues of privatisation to mask the harsh nature and reality of the economic reforms embodied in its ideology (Harvey 2010, p. 10). For corporations, big business and the dominant elite in society, neoliberalism hides negative social impacts with its emphasis on increased flows of capital, increased profits and a mantra of ‘speed, flexibility, and efficiency’ (Hassan 2008, p. 67). Yet at the heart of neoliberalism, according to McChesney, there is a power shift towards the wealthy and away from the poor, alongside a push to make profits dominate as much of social life as possible (2008, pp. 15–16). Just as Garnham (1986) observed with monopoly capitalism that equitable access was a misnomer, structurally the neoliberal project can be seen as increasing social inequality (Oxfam 2016; UN 2017) and redistributing wealth to elites, as well as facilitating an inevitable ongoing expansion with its incessant and inherent requirements for growth and unfettered access to markets (Harvey 2005). That said, neoliberalism is not a linear process resulting in a static

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outcome. Clearly, economic crises are not deterrents, but rather crucial points within an ongoing transformative process (Peck and Tickell 2002, p. 387). Adaptability and plasticity, along with instability and contradictions are all aspects of neoliberalism (Peck and Tickell 2002, 2012; Mirowski 2013), yet there is a view that it is not ‘infinitely adaptable’ (Peck and Tickell 2012, p. 248). However, in the main its economic and political ideas are held as ‘common sense’ resulting in ‘nonbelievers’ being ‘typically dismissed as apostate defenders of outmoded institutions and suspiciously collectivist social rights’ (Peck and Tickell 2002, p. 381). We can see that within this context the deep integration of communication networks into the project of neoliberalism performs multiple functions. The impact of neoliberal values on media systems is of crucial relevance here, as is the role of communication in the expansion and domination of capitalism. Under neoliberalism, communication systems expand, in part, under the guise of free flows of information and freedom of speech; simultaneously, critics identify the tendency of market value-led communication systems to create monopolies of media ownership, and the marginalisation of the voices of the poor, women and the working classes. The resulting crisis of voice identified by Nick Couldry (2010) is indicative of the impact that communication systems subjugated by neoliberalism have on today’s reality. Shortly I will consider the challenges of voice and its value under neoliberalism, but the deep interdependencies between neoliberalism and communication technologies need to be emphasised. The free flow of markets internationally requires extensive global systems. As David Harvey explains, neoliberalism requires ‘technologies of information creation and capacities to accumulate, store, transfer, analyse, and use massive databases to guide decisions in the global marketplace’ (2005, p. 3). Therein we see the extensive development of communication systems at the time of the rise of neoliberalism, including the rise of the personal computer, the development of the internet and the connecting of global computing systems specifically tailored to managing international capital flows. Neoliberal proponents have constructed many arguments in favour of a system that focuses on individual freedom of information and communication. Accompanying capitalism’s market expansion is a clear connection with its relevance to personal freedom of speech. Here Friedman articulates the aims that persist within the narratives of neoliberalism today:

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There is a direct connection between free markets on the one hand and free speech on the other. That is part of the story of free markets making free men. Interferences with markets constitute and produce interferences with free speech (1987, p. 3).

Global communication systems, according to Friedman (2006), smooth the progress of international capitalism and enable individual freedom of expression; simultaneously, progressive media organisations identify fundamental limitations to market-based communication expansion, and call for the systems to be utilised for media participation and access for social, rather than primarily economic, needs. Just as the neoliberal stance of free markets and free speech remain pervasive, the concerns regarding unequal access to information and control over media production and distribution are also ever present. The role and potential of ‘new’ media is of particular relevance here, as is the positive, or negative, impact of present-day digital capitalism. Does market freedom provide for media justice or the realisation of communication rights? Can the expansion of online media forms lead to more democratic, valued and inclusive means of communication? While these issues are not intricately discussed here, they are crucial for the broader agendas of the CfSC field.

Voice: Value, Inalienability and Materiality ‘Voice of the people’ is a frequent mantra of community radio stations. Within a citizens’ media framework, voice might be seen to be the manifestation of civic engagement, or the means through which citizenship is enacted. In order to consider voice through a citizens’ media lens, and within a broader CfSC field, I want to articulate the sense in which I understand ‘voice’ and ‘voices’ within community radio. Judith Butler (2005) asserts that ‘giving an account of oneself’ is in itself a type of moral practice—a performance, a speech-act in which ‘my speaking is also a kind of doing, an action that takes place within the field of power and that also constitutes an act of power’ (p. 125). Similarly, Paulo Freire proposes that ‘if it is in speaking their word that people, by naming the world, transform it, dialogue imposes itself as the way by which they achieve significance as human beings’ (1972, p. 77). There is an absolute need for free speech and democratic choice, as Amartya Sen argues, in order to ‘express publicly what we value and to demand that attention be

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paid to it’ (1999, p. 152). In investigating voice, then, I view it as active and consequential. In considering the root and origin of the word ‘voice’, let us look to the etymology of the Latin ‘vox’, ‘the first meaning of vocare is “to call,” or “invoke”. Before making itself speech, the voice is an invocation that is addressed to the other and that entrusts itself to an ear that receives it’ (Cavarero 2005, p. 169). Voice assumes an addressee, and thereby a target, yet it is not a product, as such, but rather an open-ended process— an endless mode of expression. While voice can also be enacted within written and other forms, it is the vocal aspect, and in particular the voice practised through the medium of radio, that is of interest here. If an individual is unable to vocalise, that does not mean that they cannot have a voice in a broader sense, but again here the focus will be on the idea of voice as a vocalised, communicative practice. Sound is a crucial element of voice, and its specific sonic dimension is capable of contributing additional meaning, power and effect. Through the multiple uses of the sound of voice, it can appeal, evoke, soothe or alert. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary voice is ‘agency by which opinion is expressed’. In this way, voice is not just speech, or the function of speech or simple deliberation—voice is action and is performed. Voice is also agency, that is, it is a human quality that makes communicative practice possible, so that individuals have an ability to act on the world around them. We can also consider voice to be embodied, as it is situated in the body and emanates from the mouth then is received by the ears. Accordingly, voice plays a vital role in the intersubjective experience— that is to say, the ‘material voice as intermediary between the individual and the social world’ (Fisher 2010, p. 83). Voice comes from within, from the inner world, and in this way sits in contrast to other human actions that have a peripheral focus and produce external objects. Voice is not, in a Marxian sense, an object made of labour that is external and possesses power that then confronts its maker as hostile and alien. Within the same field of analysis, the process of production of voice is not concealed or disguised but is open and transparent. It is not engaged in ‘commodity fetishism’, as described by Ellen Riordan, ‘in which the economic forms of capitalism conceal social relations because the products of human labour appear independent from those who created them’ (2002, p. 8). In this way, voice belongs to its producer and can be seen

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as inalienable; that is, the power and value of voice is not transferred into inanimate objects, it remains inherently human. Embodied voice links us to nature, with voice requiring breath and, being of essence, air. I regard voice as a manifestation of our speciesbeing—to have a voice, to speak and be heard, is to be human. For these reasons voice brings us into continuous interchange with nature, and with the organic world around us. In the context of these attributes, I want to now consider the value that is placed on voice. Devaluation of Democratic Voice It is reasonable to question how there can be a devaluing and diminishing of voice in a period of unprecedented digital communications and apparently free and easy access to the public sphere. My position is that a plethora of online communications and ‘new’ media opportunities do not constitute a necessary expansion of effective, social and embodied voice. Present-day opportunities for voice are largely preconditioned by profit-making imperatives, with the majority of online, new media platforms arguably utilised for neoliberal developments of markets, enhanced speed for monetary transactions and extended consumer options (Couldry 2010; McChesney 2013). As stated above, voice is not necessarily a product and therefore remains largely beyond commodification, exchange-value and profit making. Its use-value, therefore, lies within deeply social bonds that constitute the ties and threads that connect human beings and enable them to know themselves and their surrounds. However, such a social voice simply holds no weight, no value, within an increasingly monetarised society. As Nick Couldry describes it: ‘The fundamental deficit in neoliberal democracies is, then, not one of voice but of ways of valuing voice, of putting voice to work within processes of social cooperation’ (2010, p. 144). Voice is fundamental to what it is to be human, and to express oneself and to know oneself, yet it appears that in a society dominated by profit making voice is considered a market externality and therefore lacks value. Market value under neoliberalism is determined by exchange-value, and if—as outlined above—voice is not a product that is readily bought and sold in the marketplace then it lacks value. Of course, voice is sometimes a product, in the form of songs or even opinions, but for our purposes voice is a more complex and embodied concept. Accompanying voice’s devaluation comes the diminution of the power of voice—for how can

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voice wield significant power when its value, under neoliberalism, is not recognised? Within a neoliberal logic, power resides within the economic value placed on voice, with the economy increasingly ‘disembedded’ from its social and historical conditions and conventions (Butler and Athanasiou 2013, p. 40). A voice that ‘matters’, a voice as a social process, or a voice that contains and reproduces a multiplicity of histories (as opposed to a single, hegemonic one), holds little to no value in a society run by its economy. The result is the waning role of voice as action, and the declining impact of voice as a process with transformative consequences. Voice as Material Production and Social Cooperation The process of voice creation is, in part, material: voice contributes to the production of reality, and can reproduce oppression. Its silence can rob an individual of their humanity, or speak volumes in the form of a silent protest. Similarly, ‘speaking up’ can empower, elate and even interrupt hegemony. In this way, voice contains power, and can enact and exert power. As Judith Butler writes: when we do act and speak, we not only disclose ourselves but act on the schemes of intelligibility that govern who will be a speaking being, subjecting them to rupture or revision, consolidating their norms, or contesting their hegemony (2005, p. 132).

Voice is a complex process, and an act of social cooperation, whereby a relationship exists between individual voice and the macro social structures. The relationship is not fixed, but dynamic, allowing for ‘a dialectic of control in social systems’ (Giddens 1984, p. 16). We need to consider this dialectical flow in understanding how the potential for voice within a community radio setting can transform, wield power and effect change. Closer to the field of CfSC, controlling the means of production of voice is also fundamental within broader struggles to decolonise media and communication systems. Just as early PEofC (Schiller 1978) and other scholars identified the connection between controlling the means of media production and oppressing—or freeing—communities, present-day scholars (Dutta 2015; Hadl 2004) also draw our attention to the ongoing need for the decolonisation of media practice and production. Understanding voice’s capacity and power within an ‘alternative media’

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setting also highlights the role of media and communication in building democracies and strengthening social cooperation. A citizens’ media perspective necessarily focuses the analysis of voice on the subaltern and those at the margins, as well as on the required distribution of resources for all voices to be spoken and heard.

Summary It is necessary to consider how ‘power is sustained across space, cutting through the complexities of the individual point of view’ (Couldry 2012, p. 29). While an analysis of individual media practice can illuminate much with regard to experience and representation, it is necessary to firmly situate it within a larger social and political context. As Couldry articulates: ‘A media phenomenology not grounded in political economy is blind, but a political economy of media that ignores the phenomenology of media use is radically incomplete’ (2012, p. 30). Arguably, a contradiction arises between the two frameworks of critical PEofC and citizens’ media. Community radio, be it in Melbourne, Australia, or Lospalos, Timor-Leste, operates within a global capitalist structure. How then, can community radio, on the one hand, effect any change if we accept the limiting factors of a capitalist society on democratic communication? On the other hand, what possible change can be effected by localised, individual (or collective) citizens’ media activities if the overriding capitalist system is so restrictive? This conflict is addressed by focusing on the space that both frameworks acknowledge—that is, the capacity, and need, for change. The broader field of CfSC supports this positioning, additionally providing methodologies, indicators and processes of measurement that can be employed in understanding the impact of community media practice. My approach here integrates the two perspectives. This is because social change is, in theory, an intention of the community radio form as a direct result of the limiting factors that capitalism places on democratic communication forms. However, in order to consider the types of social change that may, or may not, be occurring in a community radio context, a more flexible framework needs to be applied by utilising Rodríguez’s citizens’ media approach. In the following chapters I will look at community radio’s contribution to CfSC by considering whether they are ‘fracturers of the symbolic’ (Rodríguez 2001, p. 150). Is the station content engaged in ‘dissent in

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the realm of the symbolic’ by ‘selecting, rejecting, reacommodating [sic], and reappropriating the symbolic in order to create their own grid … relabeling the world, reorganising reality, and reconstituting a new order where preestablished social and cultural codifications of power cease to make sense’ (Rodríguez 2001, pp. 150–151)? And how is citizenship enacted in the space of community radio? Does the personal experience of community radio involvement lead to a reshaping of identity, a reformulation of established social definitions or a legitimising of local culture and lifestyles on a personal and local level (Rodríguez 2001, p. 158)?

References Anderson, H. (2012). Facilitating active citizenship: Participating in prisoners’ radio. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 30(4), 292–306. Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35(4), 216–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 01944366908977225. Atton, C. (2008). Alternative media theory and journalism practice. In M. Boler (Ed.), Digital media and democracy: Tactics in hard times (pp. 213–226). Cambridge: MIT Press. Berrigan, F. (1979). Community communications—The role of community media in development. Paris, France: UNESCO. Butler, J. (2005). Giving an account of oneself (1st ed.). New York, NY: Fordham University Press. https://doi.org/10.5422/fso/9780823225033.001.0001. Butler, J., & Athanasiou, A. (2013). Dispossession: The performative in the political. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Cammaerts, B. (2007). Citizenship, the public sphere, and media. In N. Carpentier & B. Cammaerts (Eds.), Reclaiming the media: Communication rights and democratic media roles (pp. 1–8). Bristol, UK and Chicago, IL: Intellect Books. Carpentier, N. (2009). Participation is not enough: The conditions of possibility of mediated participatory practices. European Journal of Communication, 24(4), 407–420. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323109345682. Carpentier, N. (2016a). Beyond the ladder of participation: An analytical toolkit for the critical analysis of participatory media processes. Javnost—The Public, 23(1), 70–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2016.1149760. Carpentier, N. (2016b). Power as participation’s master signifier. In D. Barney, G. Coleman, C. Ross, J. Sterne, & T. Tembeck (Eds.), The participatory condition in the digital age (pp. 3–21). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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84  J. FOX Fenton, N. (2011). Deregulation or democracy? New media, news, neoliberalism and the public interest. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 25(1), 63–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2011.539159. Figueroa, M. E., Kincaid, D. L., Rani, M., & Lewis, G. (2002). Communication for social change: An integrated model for measuring the process and its outcomes. New York, NY: The Rockefeller Foundation and Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs. Fisher, L. (2010). Feminist phenomenological voices. Continental Philosophy Review, 43(1), 83–95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-010-9132-y. Forgacs, D. (Ed.). (2000). The Gramsci reader: Selected writings, 1916–1935. New York: New York University Press. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. London, UK: Sheed and Ward. Friedman, M. (1987). Free markets and free speech. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, 10, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5842.2006.00787.x. Friedman, M. (2006). Free markets and the end of history. NPQ: New Perspectives Quarterly, 23(1), 37–43. Fuchs, C. (2016). Reading Marx in the information age: A media and communication studies perspective on capital (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Routledge. Garnham, N. (1986). The media and the public sphere. In P. Golding, G. Murdock, & P. Schlesinger (Eds.), Communicating politics: Mass communications and the political process (pp. 37–53). New York, NY: Leicester University Press. Garnham, N. (1995). Political economy and cultural studies: Reconciliation or divorce? Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 12(1), 62–71. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gumucio-Dagron, A. (2001). Making waves—Stories of participatory communication for social change. New York, NY: The Rockefeller Foundation. Gumucio-Dagron, A., & Tufte, T. (Eds.). (2006). Communication for social change anthology: Historical contemporary readings. New York, NY: Communication for Social Change Consortium. Hackett, R. (2000). Taking back the media: Notes on the potential for a communicative democracy movement. Studies in Political Economy, 63(Autumn), 61–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/19187033.2000.11675233. Hadl, G. (2004). Civil society media theory: Tools for decolonizing the lifeworld. Ritsumeikan Social Sciences Review, 40(3), 77–96. Hadl, G. (2009). Introduction to the special issue “Convergences: Civil society media and policy”. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 5(1&2), 3–6. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

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Harvey, D. (2010). The enigma of capital and the crisis of capitalism. London, UK: Profile Books. Hassan, R. (2008). The information society. Digital Media and Society Series. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity. Hayek, F. A. (1994). The road to serfdom (50th anniversary ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hintz, A. (2007). Civil society media at the WSIS: A new actor in global communication governance? In B. Cammaerts & N. Carpentier (Eds.), Reclaiming the media: Communication rights and democratic media roles (pp. 243–264). Bristol, UK and Chicago, IL: Intellect Books. Jacobson, T. L., & Kolluri, S. (2006). Participatory communication as communicative action. In A. Gumucio Dagron & T. Tufte (Eds.), Communication for social change anthology: Historical contemporary readings. New York, NY: Communication for Social Change Consortium. Jakubowicz, K. (1990). “Solidarity” and media reform in Poland. European Journal of Communication, 5, 333–353. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323 190005002010. Jakubowicz, K. (2010). Community media: “Flavour of the decade” worldwide. A keynote address at the AMARC Europe Conference. Telematics and Informatics, 27(2), 119–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2009.06.007. Jankowski, N. W. (2006). Creating community with media: History, theories and scientific investigations. In L. Lievrouw & S. Livingstone (Eds.), The handbook of new media (pp. 35–49). London, UK: Sage. Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press. Jenkins, H., & Carpentier, N. (2013). Theorizing participatory intensities: A conversation about participation and politics. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 19(3), 265–286. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1354856513482090. Karpf, D. (2010). Online political mobilization from the advocacy group’s perspective: Looking beyond clicktivism. Policy & Internet, 2(4), 7–41. https:// doi.org/10.2202/1944-2866.1098. McChesney, R. W. (2008). The political economy of media: Enduring issues, emerging dilemmas. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press. McChesney, R. W. (2013). Digital disconnect: How capitalism is turning the internet against democracy. New York, NY: The New Press. Mirowski, P. (2013). Never let a serious crisis go to waste: How neoliberalism survived the financial meltdown. London, UK: Verso Books. Mosco, V. (2009). The political economy of communication (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage. Mouffe, C. (1999). Deliberative democracy or agonistic pluralism? Social Research, 66(3), 745–758.

86  J. FOX Oxfam. (2016). An econmy for the 1%: How privilege and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can be stopped. Oxford, UK: Oxfam International. Peck, J., & Tickell, A. (2002). Neoliberalizing space. Antipode, 34(3), 380–404. Peck, J., & Tickell, A. (2012). Apparitions of neoliberalism: Revisiting “Jungle law breaks out”. Area, 44(2), 245–249. https:// doi:10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01091.x. Reardon, C. (2003). Talking cure: A case study in communication for social change. New York, NY: The Rockefeller Foundation. Rennie, E. (2002, May). The other road to media citizenship. Media International Australia, 103, 7–13. Riordan, E. (2002). Intersections and new directions: On feminism and political economy. In E. R. Meehan & E. Riordan (Eds.), Sex and money: Feminism and political economy in the media (pp. 3–15). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Rodríguez, C. (1996). Shedding useless notions of alternative media. Peace Review, 8(1), 63–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659608425931. Rodríguez, C. (2000). Civil society and citizens’ media. In K. G. Wilkins (Ed.), Redeveloping communication for social change: Theory, practice, and power (pp. 147–160). Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield. Rodríguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the mediascape: An international study of citizens’ media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Rodríguez, C. (2011). Citizens’ media. In J. Downing (Ed.), Encyclopedia of social movement media (pp. 98–103). London, UK: Sage. Rodríguez, C., Ferron, B., & Shamas, K. (2014). Four challenges in the field of alternative, radical and citizens’ media research. Media, Culture and Society, 36(2), 150–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443714523877. Rodríguez, C., Kidd, D., & Stein, L. (Eds.). (2010). Making our media: Global initiatives toward a democratic public sphere, Volume One: Creating new communication spaces. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Schiller, D. (2014). Digital depression: Information technology and economic crisis. The Geopolitics of Information. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Schiller, H. I. (1978). Decolonization of information: Efforts toward a new international order. Latin American Perspectives, 5(1), 35–48. https://doi. org/10.1177/0094582X7800500103. Schudson, M. (1998). The good citizen: A history of American civic life. New York, NY: Martin Kessler Books. Schudson, M. (2011). The sociology of news (2nd ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Schuessler, J. (2010, July 11). Hayek: The back story. New York Times, Book Review, p. 27.

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Schumpeter, J. A. (1976). Capitalism, socialism and democracy. New York, NY: Allen & Unwin. Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Servaes, J. (1996). Participatory communication (research) from a Freirian perspective. Africa Media Review, 10, 73–91. Servaes, J., & Malikhao, P. (2005). Participatory communication: The new paradigm. In O. Hemer & T. Tufte (Eds.), Media and glocal change—Rethinking communication for development (pp. 91–103). Buenos Aires, Argentina: CLACSO. Servaes, J., & Rico, L. (2013). Sustainable social change and communication. Communication Research Trends, 32(4), 4–30. Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York, NY: Penguin Press. Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive surplus: Creativity and generosity in a connected age. New York, NY: Penguin Press. Thomas, P., & van de Fliert, E. (2015). Interrogating the theory and practice of communication for social change. Studies in Communication for Social Change. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. UN (United Nations). (2017). Amid humanitarian funding gap, 20 million people across Africa, Yemen at risk of starvation, emergency relief chief warns Security Council. Viewed 31 March 2017. un.org/press/en/2017/sc12748. doc.htm. Waisbord, S. (2001). Family tree of theories, methodologies and strategies in development communication. New York, NY: The Rockefeller Foundation. Viewed 14 October 2014. communicationforsocialchange.org/pdf/familytree.pdf. Wilkie, R. A., III. (2008). Capital networks: Culture and class in the digital age (Unpublished PhD thesis). University of Albany, State University of New York. Wilkins, K. G. (2011). Participatory media. In J. Downing (Ed.), Encyclopedia of social movement media (pp. 388–392). London, UK: Sage.

CHAPTER 4

Critical Participation and Mediated Solidarity

Participation within community radio is a central and historical aim of the platform globally. More than other media forms, community radio has sought to be actively inclusive of the community—and in particular, those who are marginalised within society—in the production of content and in the running of the station. Through participation in community radio, practitioners and listeners, in theory, are provided with opportunities to engage in public sphere deliberations, to have a voice that was previously not heard, and to determine and direct media content of relevance and interest to them and their communities. Practitioners and listeners are also invited to gain a more equitable share of the communicative power available in the media landscape, in order to assert and voice their visions for social change. In this chapter‚ I want to build on notions of participatory media explored in Chapter 3 to discuss ideas around access, community creation and political citizenship as central to a type of ‘critical participation’. Flowing from participation, the role of solidarity is explored as it arises within media practice and between media practitioners. The purpose here is to uncover the central role a community radio station can play within the formation and development of solidarity movements through on-air connections to listeners, as well as off-air practitioner exposure to diverse communities within the place of the station itself.

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Critical Media Participation As already articulated, participation within a community radio setting, in theory, is concerned with effective, self-directed and self-determined engagement that is played out within a space where power is largely equally shared, and where involvement encompasses a democratic intention. It is necessary to contextualise participation to avoid a reductionist analysis, and, as we noted from Nico Carpentier in Chapter 3, there is a need to reclaim participation’s ‘political-ideological, communicativecultural and communicative-structural contexts’ (2009, p. 407). Taking this standpoint into consideration, I want to consider issues of access, community, engaged citizenship and agency under the umbrella of critical participation (Fuchs 2013). ‘Critical’ is used here to draw attention to radical democracy’s focus on equality and power sharing (Carpentier 2016, p. 75), while the term also takes into account both the pressing need for action and change through media engagement and is used to describe a particular type of communicative involvement that is effective, engaged, political and supported. As Carpentier reminds us, participation is ‘a politically-ideologically contested notion’ (2007, p. 105) and here I am seeking to illuminate the participatory potential of media involvement and communicative power within a community radio setting. Open Doors on Public Streets A key, intentional point of difference within the community radio form is its accessibility to the community. Unlike public or commercial radio, community radio seeks to provide a higher level of access to participation, both in the management of the station, as well as on-air activities. While commercial and public radio offer access via talkback and an increasing array of social media tools through which to engage in ‘conversation’, community radio access is derived from an active democratic intent with a prioritisation on a much greater degree of accessibility, power and involvement. So how does this manifest? Physical access to a station is an obvious place to begin any consideration of accessibility within the community radio form. At first it may appear mundane or outdated to consider the physical access of a media space; however, local place and accessibility reveal themselves as key issues within the case studies. Both stations have an open door to a public street—3CR’s is open during business hours, while RCL’s is

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open mainly during broadcast hours or when staff are working in the station. In its first year of operation, RCL was housed within the United Nations compound in Lospalos. As RCL’s first station manager, Alfredo de Araújo, describes: ‘community radio has to provide space for everyone to access it. But, in the UN, people have their regimes that they need to control, so we asked to leave that place’ (2014). This physical change of location for radio station RCL was an important move in the first year of the station’s life. For Association of Community Radio Timor-Leste President Prezado Ximenes, the physical, and conceptual, accessibility of community radio had a particular impact on young people throughout different locations in Timor-Leste: ‘I think this is the space for them because they cannot go to the public radio, or the commercial radio, but they come to us and they have their own program here’ (2014). Conceptually, community radio has been introduced within the TimorLeste context as a media outlet that the community owns and a platform that can enable and facilitate community agency, voice and power. The physical buildings and studio spaces are owned and managed by the community. Without doubt this manifests in different ways throughout the country, and within different community radio station settings, and limits and barriers are present, as we shall discuss shortly. For 3CR, facilitating participation means trying to provide opportunities for access across all abilities and people. Volunteer programmer Jan Bartlett observes that the fact that it’s wheelchair accessible, it’s accessible to people who have mental disabilities […] people who are sight impaired, we have panels in all the studios with the little Braille [labels] on all the equipment, we have short-statured people here, we have everyone (2014).

In the early years physical access at 3CR also meant providing childcare, as volunteer Liz Caffin explains: ‘we had an area for children so that people who had children could go and do programs’ (2014). Here we can see that, beyond the front door accessible from the street, within the physicality of the station itself, measures are taken to increase access and individual power by addressing a wide variety of possible participant needs. While childcare is now more widely available in the community, and no longer offered at the station, physical access within the 3CR context remains an important factor in participation. One particular challenge that the station continues to face is the location of a meeting room

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upstairs that has no disability access, together with the layout of the old building that limits easy mobility throughout the station. RCL’s central street location and one storey building provide a high level of potential community access. However, other barriers and limits to access within both stations also exist—both intentional and contextual. When RCL began there was a paucity of basic resources. Lolalina da Conceição Freitas, RCL volunteer programmer, noted: ‘So when we came to work, we ourselves had to bring paper. But then, when we arrived, there was notable, so we had to sit on the floor to write’ (2014). Simultaneously this scarcity created opportunities for participation, as reported by Trolta Havana, RCL volunteer programmer: Because human resources were very limited, we could get involved in everything. You could be an operator, also a journalist, doing coverage, doing interviews, also collecting information, and then coming back to write the news. And we read [the news] ourselves […] on the radio (2014).

While a different level of scarcity of resources is experienced at 3CR, there is also the diverse application of human resources: ‘You weren’t just a technician, or you weren’t just an administrator, you actually did just about anything’ (2014), explains early technician Chris Holliday. Ermelinda da Silva Pereira describes the experience at RCL: Because before we didn’t know, right? But when we come to the radio, we’re able to learn many different things. In other radio stations, they [the staff] have positions and each position has to do its role—how to do the news, for example. But, at Radio Comunidade Lospalos, it’s not like that. Everyone’s involved in everything (2014).

RCL’s program manager, Zesorot Delaserna, describes an ongoing fundamental barrier to access and participation experienced by volunteers in Timor-Leste: In community radio, a big problem is that, when the staff are volunteers, it’s really hard. This is a big problem for Radio Comunidade Lospalos. But I also praise their commitment, because in other countries, rich people are volunteers. However, in Timor it’s different. Poor people are the volunteers (2014).

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Within the RCL context poverty is a clear barrier to access, and the concept of volunteering remains an overwhelming challenge in a country with no systematic welfare system and high levels of ‘multidimensional’ poverty (UNDP 2013). RCL chairperson, Jacinto da Costa, agrees that volunteering is a big problem, asserting that now is ‘not the time’ for volunteering, in contrast to the immediate post-independence period when the community was called upon to do what they could to get the nation on its feet again. Currently, the station seeks to overcome this situation by offering their ‘volunteer staff’ of nine people a small honorarium. This creates limits on the number of ‘volunteer staff’ and barriers to new volunteers. Other community members do access and engage with the station, often through a program run by an organisation. This is reflected by one listener who described her interest in participating in the station like this: after listening to Radio Comunidade Lospalos, personally, I’m happy, and I want to take part and be involved. Because the radio invites us, not as individuals, but as an organisation. And we collaborate with Radio Comunidade Lospalos. Radio Comunidade Lospalos has been like our partner for providing coverage of the programs that NGOs are running, specifically the Justice and Peace Commission. They [RCL] always take part and provide coverage of all the activities we run (RCL listener questionnaire participant #4).

While RCL continues to struggle with systemic socio-economic barriers, 3CR has a history of creating limits to access and demarcations that determine who can, and cannot, be involved, and these remain today. A more controversial ‘limit to access’ occurred in the late 1970s when 3CR excluded any organisation it deemed ‘Zionist’, which brought it to the attention of the government, and what followed was the establishment of an Australian Broadcasting Tribunal Inquiry instigated by complaints from the Victorian Jewish Board of Deputies in 1978 (3CR Community Radio 2016). The dispute centred on whether the station’s licence should be revoked or suspended because of broadcast material that was ‘offensive to a section of the public namely the Jewish Community in Victoria’ (3CR Community Radio 1979, p. 10). Officially the Inquiry never began, as an out-of-Inquiry settlement occurred, but there were five months of preliminary hearings. The incident ultimately saw the station challenged on its right to limit access based on

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racism—which it deemed Zionism to be—stating that: ‘It was alleged that 3CR’s program “Palestine Speaks” had incited racial and religious hatred. 3CR, unlike the establishment media, has a specific policy against racism’ (3CR Community Radio 1976, p. 7). Early 3CR volunteer Chris Holliday describes the station’s approach to access in this way: It was to democratise the airwaves, to give underrepresented groups meaningful time on air, to express their views, to argue their cases and from day one it was always underrepresented groups—groups that didn’t get a fair go, or got no go in the mainstream media. And that was probably the rationale whereby the station became very unpopular very quickly with its perceived pro-Palestinian stance and its perceived anti-Zionist stance (2014).

Today, limits are placed on access to programming time by individuals and organisations through the ongoing prioritisation of marginalised or underrepresented groups. On-air, limitations are also placed on the access to airtime for talkback callers. As presenter Joe Toscano from Talkback with Attitude describes, you get ‘the rabid anti-Semites, the Holocaust deniers, so we don’t talk to anybody about anything, we talk to most people about most things’ (2014). While legal limits are also at play here—such as defamation laws—the ethical and moral limits of access are also constantly being negotiated resulting in an ongoing redistribution of media power. Simultaneously, current station access is positioned within a progressive and historical context regarding participation, as articulated here by trans and gender diverse activist and Out of the Pan presenter Sally Goldner: ‘the feminist background, progressive background of 3CR has been very much helpful in supporting Out of the Pan be a part, obviously with lots of other people around the world, of bringing trans issues and now bisexuals turn to the fore’ (2014). Beyond the physical, conceptual and historical accessibility of community radio, there is an assumption that the station will actively facilitate access for the local geographic community. A culture of access within the new community radio sector in Timor-Leste was actively fostered, according to Francisco da Silva Gari of the Timor-Leste Media Development Center: In the community radio station mostly our colleagues facilitate the community, invite them in, or interview the community where they live. Sometimes they come to the radio station for the radio talk show to share their experience in the community—this did not happen in the past (2014).

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The ongoing active nature of providing access is articulated further by da Silva Gari: ‘It is necessary to keep informing the community that their radio station belongs to them, so they feel a sense of belonging to the radio station’ (2014). Informing, educating and supporting community participation within the station is central to my intently action-oriented understanding of the term. As Carpentier describes: ‘Participation should remain an invitation—permanently on offer and embedded in balanced power relations—to those who want to have their voices heard’ (2011, p. 359). 3CR volunteer programmer Joe Toscano reinforces this with the observation that ‘you need to be able to give people an opportunity to become involved in things, and that way you create a community, that you’re actually broadcasting to’ (2014). Another way in which a community radio station embeds equitable distribution of power is through the availability, and accessibility, of material media resources. For early volunteer Trolta Havana it was the attraction of the resources available at RCL that spurred his initial access and led to his subsequent participation: there wasn’t any entertainment for us after ’99, so I wanted to get involved in Radio Comunidade Lospalos to get some entertainment and to listen to music. And once I was there, I saw my colleagues going to do coverage, coming back and doing editing, writing the news, and reading [the news] to the community, and I started to get interested (2014).

Like physical accessibility, the material resources present in a community radio station emerge as central to the concept of critical participation. The resourcing is focused on those at the margins of society, and in supporting and facilitating those issues and peoples who are underrepresented in the wider media landscape. For the representation and inclusion of people with a disability in the media, supported access is paramount. Helen Gwilliam, 3CR volunteer programmer and management committee member, describes the station’s role in this regard: people who’ve never been on the radio before because nobody has been bothered to get a translator for them, or to assist them if their speech isn’t great, or to just be patient enough to go, well, OK this is a really hard voice to listen to, but we’ll listen because this person is another person. And I don’t know where that would happen if it wasn’t here [3CR] (2014).

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The availability of media resources at 3CR presents Melbourne-based political activists with an appealing option for access, media power and critical participation. Fire First program presenter Robbie Thorpe says: ‘this is the perfect activist place to be operating out of, because like I said, the way that it’s configured, it’s accessible by the community, and it assists the community in growing the community’ (2014). As Peter Dahlgren writes, resourcing is vital in order for participation to occur: ‘For people to participate in societal settings beyond their private spheres, there must be sets of cultural resources available to them, to facilitate their agency as citizens’ (2012, p. 39). Here the idea of access goes beyond a polite invitation, or even an open-door policy, to include mechanisms and materials that directly engage and facilitate those systemically denied access to the media more generally. Before moving on it is necessary to address the issue of technology. Arguably, radio remains unsurpassed as an accessible technological format both for the content creator and the user. For a group of builders labourers who presented a weekly show that started on 3CR in 1976, called The Concrete Gang, the simplicity of the technology was a key element, as early programmer Bob Mancor recalls: ‘it was so basic, it was unbelievable. We used to either do it live, or we used to mostly record it on the Thursday night. A teeny tape machine, cassette machine, and that’s how we did it’ (2014). Louie Tabing was a UNESCO adviser who first went to TimorLeste in 1999. He is also considered an expert in the global field of community radio and is author of numerous texts, including The Development of Community Media in South-East Asia (2000). Louie was invited to Timor-Leste to work on community media options directly after the end of the Indonesian occupation and subsequent crisis, and says: we were talking to officials there, including [Xanana] Gusmão, and some of the people from the transitory administration, UNTAET. So we consulted with them and we agreed that perhaps the most logical, or the most practical, way to go forward then was to try setting up radio stations in the more remote districts of East Timor. So by geography alone we said that perhaps Maliana and Lospalos would be ideal (2014).

Other media platforms were considered, such as community newspapers or online options, but taking into account issues of literacy, technology and the existing presence of radio sets, community radio was chosen. Louie further describes the appropriateness of the technology:

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A radio station is so simple to operate. The way we introduced it to them: you only need to put yourself in front of the microphone, put the microphone on and you can communicate […] Radio is supposed to be one that has a potential to reach the most number of people, particularly those who need information. So radio, and community radio, would have a very, very distinct advantage. Both for the receivers and for the users (2014).

Despite rapid and extensive developments in technology, radio’s superior accessibility arguably remains so today, particularly in countries and areas that are poor. Simultaneously, radio easily incorporates new technologies into existing practices, both at the production and listener ends. In the RCL example, one RCL listener noted: ‘I don’t have a radio, but I can use my mobile phone to listen’. That is, a mobile phone with a built-in FM receiver. The continuing advantage of access that radio provides remains an essential element of its role within communication for social change (CfSC), as its reach, simplicity and availability present access to greater numbers, particularly those on the margins. We will return to a discussion of radio technology attributes in Chapter 5 when considering the cycle of transformation. Access is central to participation, and in order to provide for engaged, meaningful and powerful participation—that is, critical participation— access must be resourced, facilitated and constantly offered. This is not to say that barriers and limits won’t exist, or be created, but without actively facilitated access, participatory media remains a passive, apolitical platitude. As Dahlgren describes, while online participation is ever expanding ‘the opportunities for participating in consumption and entertainment are overwhelmingly more numerous, more accessible and more enticing for most people, compared to activities that we might call civic or political’ (2012, p. 31). Participation here is primarily political and civic in nature, as we shall explore in the coming chapters. However, I want to move now to a consideration of the role of community within community radio participation. Building Community Along with access, the idea of community is central in considering effective participation within the community radio form. As discussed in Chapter 2, it is a challenge to define the term ‘community’ in relation to community radio, and finding an all-encompassing definition is not

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the intention of this book. Of interest is how a sense of community is built and how a feeling of community is experienced within a community radio context. While listeners may experience an ethereal symbolic community, the physical place of a community radio station plays a central role for practitioners. Similarly, in considering effective, critical participation, community construction is paramount—both the creation of community through communicative practice, and the creation of community through the associated social life and social space of the community radio station. The building of community is also concerned with the building of power to, in part, address the growing inequalities and marginalisation of many in the community caused by neoliberalism. As Christian Fuchs states: ‘social spaces can only exist in and through human communication that is conditioned by and produces and reproduces social space’ (2016, p. 6). In the following section I want to consider the role community plays in facilitating participation. Firstly, as noted in Chapter 2, there are the policy and licensing impacts of defining and creating community. For 3CR, the station is licensed for the geographic area of ‘Melbourne’—an enormous region of 10,000 square kilometres with a population of nearly 5 million. Does the station seek to represent and service the entire community? The short answer is no. Equally unclear is the station’s ‘Community Interest’, which is listed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) as ‘Community Access’ (2019). Other ‘Community Interest’ categories within the ACMA licensing include: general geographic, music (fine, progressive, country, nostalgia), ethnic, religious, educational, Indigenous, youth, GLBTI, Torres Strait Islanders, print handicapped, senior citizens and sports. Of the 357 licensed stations in Australia in 2019, 3CR is the only one to hold the ‘Community Interest’ category of ‘Community Access’. Clearly community is important, but the licensing and legislative framework under which the station broadcasts does little to define it. For RCL the licensing and policy framework is even more unclear, with the ongoing review and roll-out of media laws and regulations. This is not necessarily unusual, as the sector was only established in 2000. In Australia, while the sector is now more than 40 years old, it was not until 1992 that the Broadcasting Services Act (Commonwealth of Australia 2006) finally brought together community broadcasting services under a single set of licences and guidelines. That said, for Timor-Leste the general understanding is that community radio is servicing a geographically

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local community, while there are disagreements regarding whether they are able to exist within the capital city, or are only in the districts, that is, regional or rural areas (dos Santos Soares 2014; Ximenes 2014). Either way, there is no current policy that defines ‘community’ in the TimorLeste context, nor is there a legal framework that defines community radio’s character or purpose. Licences, at the time of writing, were for a radio broadcaster and were issued during the post-conflict period by the United Nations transitional administration—UNTAET (dos Santos Soares 2014). Let us turn now to a closer examination of the role of community within participation; just as the physicality of access is a determining factor of engagement within a community radio station, so too is physical place a key element of creating and experiencing community. This is clearly articulated by 3CR volunteer Helen Gwilliam: I think one of the really important contributions that the station makes to social life is just being a place. It’s a building where anyone could walk off the street, no one’s concerned particularly if you’re a stranger. Obviously there’s awareness. But you can walk off the street and start being interested in 3CR. And it’s not a threatening place, it’s a welcoming place for all sorts of people who really may not have many places to go and be welcomed (2014).

This sentiment is further explained by volunteer Dale Bridge, who in describing her experience of living on the street, also tells of her strong dislike of society as a whole, and that ‘3CR seemed to be a little bit of an antidote to that. It was like an island of progressive thought in a sea of cretins. It fast became the only place I felt comfortable’ (2014). The role of welcoming and the importance of physical place stand out as central to enabling community, particularly for those marginalised and disadvantaged within society. The notion of access, belong and space (Joseph Mbembe 2016, p. 30) arose in relation to a feeling of ‘home’ with some describing the physical place of the station like a ‘second home’: this is a place where I’m comfortable, it’s sort of like my second home, am I allowed to say that? (Segal 2014). this is my second home nearly. I get so much out of it. I feel like I’m a part of the place, it’s part of me, I part own it as well, if you know what I mean (Thorpe 2014).

100  J. FOX presenting a program at 3CR provided me with a place, which felt like home during a particularly difficult period in my life (3CR listener questionnaire participant #17).

Social alienation can be a key obstacle to participation and this plays an enormous role in people’s capacity or incapacity to engage in the public sphere through a media platform. Identified ways of breaking down social alienation include creating safe and accessible spaces that are welcoming and comfortable, yet this is rarely the domain of a media outlet. There is a considerable concern that ‘new’ and ‘social’ media are failing in many ways to build functioning community and to alleviate alienation (Fuchs 2016, p. 163). Early 3CR station volunteer Darce Cassidy observes: The beauty about a place like this [3CR] is that all of those groups have a connection with one another. If you’re purely working from a little cubbyhole from home, uploading stuff to the internet, that’s fine. You’ve got a means of transmission. You’ve got people who consume the information you put out on the Net. The difference is still, a sort of flesh-and-blood, bricks-and-mortar place in which a community radio station works as distinct from someone at home on their Facebook page (2014).

As a place of diverse people and activities a community radio station has the capacity to weave a space of welcome that encourages further engagement and interactivity. 3CR volunteer Matt Gleeson notes: I walk into 3CR and I realise that there are other people like me, and that there are probably a lot more people who have these types of dreams and goals and aspirations in the community. And it takes something like 3CR to bring them into a place where they can feel safe and comfortable, and able to express these views (2014).

A flow-on effect is also at play here, with West Papuan activist and 3CR Current Affairs Coordinator Ronny Kareni (2014) explaining that he was initially ‘scared to come in’ to the station, but soon started bringing in a ‘tribe’ of West Papuan community members to his weekly program each Monday evening. A place of welcome generates participation and community building. There is a sense that the station places value on the participation of communities, and that the value attributed to a community voice lies beyond a neoliberal value set. That is, that value is placed on the need

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to equitably distribute the power to communicate and participate within the media. Volunteer programmer Dale Bridge describes this element of community building: it imbues those communities with a sense that someone values your voice. That there’s a part of the community that does want you here, that has no problem with you being here, and wants to celebrate your being here. […] knowing that a community within a community is valued by the exterior community (2014).

The presence of a diversity of communities within the station also enables a coming together of strangers who are in turn welcomed into the broader station community. ‘You meet interesting people. You get to meet other programmers, staff, other volunteers who are all passionate and fired up about different causes, different issues, both local challenges and global issues’, says 3CR volunteer programmer Ben Rinaudo (2015). Yet while community at both stations is about togetherness and inclusion, it is equally about exclusion and boundaries. For 3CR, this has always been the case, with early 3CR volunteer programmer Liz Caffin stating that it was ‘implicit that it was a certain part of the community, it certainly wasn’t the right-wing part of the community’. Even within the political field of left-wing organisations there were also exclusions, as Nancy Atkin describes: There were groups that were excluded—I mean, I think 3CR’s never been enthusiastic about religious groupings, and I think you’d find in the early days there were groups whose political tendencies were from a quite diverse group of the Left, [but] you wouldn’t have found Trotskyist groups, socialist workers parties as they were in those days, international socialists were not involved (2014).

Sue Blackburn, early volunteer and representative from Community Aid Abroad concurs at 3CR, and further outlines some of the exclusions at play in the early years: it was never going to give a voice to absolutely every group in the community and it had exclusions. You know, it wasn’t going to give a voice to people who were being racist, or sexist, that kind of thing. So, it was focused on giving a voice to groups, which didn’t normally have access to the media, but they were a certain class of groups (2014).

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Equally, challenges and exclusionary boundaries may be set for newcomers with regard to their participation and what is required of them. The station’s focus on marginalised voices and issues automatically excludes significant portions of the community. The repercussions of exclusion can be both surprising and challenging as one listener describes: When I first got involved with 3CR in my mid 20s I was encouraged to become aware of my own privileged position in society as a white, educated person. It was a challenge as I’d focused a lot before then on the barriers to full inclusion that being a woman and living on a restricted income brought. The people and views and practices at 3CR gave me an opportunity to see a more inclusive model and to think differently about how privilege works in complex ways (3CR listener questionnaire participant #50).

Within Timor-Leste, as I have already discussed, there are systemic exclusions stemming from socio-economic factors within the society. Additionally, there are power-imbalances leading to the further exclusion of certain groups, and community radio has sought to identify and address these exclusions. Timor-Leste Media Development Center’s Francisco da Silva Gari notes that young people and women are targeted for increased participation with some pleasing results, as described here: a good sign is that now there are more girls participating in the radio station and when we are organising training in Dili those who are coming are mostly more girls. So for me it is a good sign that more youth are recognising that this is a good opportunity, an opportunity for them to learn and to share the information [with] each other (2014).

The recognition that the space of community radio serves as an opportunity for youth involvement is reinforced by one RCL listener who says that ‘they run different types of programs that keep us young people involved in the radio’. While place is a central component of community, and the boundaries of community continue to move, and to ebb and flow, it is necessary to also consider the creation of community, the construction of community, through communicative practice. Beyond the physical station itself, how is the act of making radio also an act of making community? For diaspora communities in Melbourne in the 1970s, 3CR was one of the first

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radio stations to provide on-air opportunities, albeit with restrictions in the early days when all programming was in English. Early 3CR volunteer Berta explains that ‘You sort of felt like you belonged to this thing, which happened to be a broadcaster, it was a community. And it gave us the opportunity to have weekly programs in Armenian, for Armenians initially in English’ (2014). In the early years of RCL, building community, uniting community and providing much-needed information were key aspects of the station’s activities and objectives. Volunteer Trolta Havana says: with the community radio presence, at least it could give some understanding to the community, especially as we know that radio, it is information through voice, and it’s principle [objective] is especially for those in the community that can’t read and can’t write. So, community radio’s presence is very important for them to be able to understand what is happening, what is going on in the country, especially within Lautem district [where Lospalos is located] (2014).

Many RCL interviewees speak of the essential role of the station, particularly in those early years, with regard to communicating basic information, and providing a broad audience with the necessary knowledge to engage with the building of a new nation. As early volunteer Lolalina da Conceição Freitas explains, ‘The objective of the station in the early days was to be the people’s voice, meaning it could share information with the leaders at that time’ (2014). First station manager Alfredo de Araújo further articulates that ‘when they introduced [this] to us in Lospalos, first of all, the radio’s objective was to start from a small community that could begin to express its thoughts and its common [shared] needs via the medium of radio’ (2014). In the Lospalos example, the station was unique in that it was often the community’s only option for accessing media content, yet, as Trolta indicates above, there was still a focus on providing for those denied access—in this case due to a lack of literacy— to general media information. From the participants’ observations we can see the station’s function of sharing information was coupled with the dialogical role and social space of exploring and formulating collective community visions. As sector representative Francisco da Silva Gari describes for the community radio stations more broadly: ‘Not to involve the community as a kind of recipient for the information, but asking them to become an actor, taking part in the radio station’ (2014).

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Alongside active participation and voice as agency, listening (Dreher 2017) also presents as a key element of the communicative practice of creating community and social change—a theme we will take up further in Chapter 5. The following questionnaire participant listens only to the Gardening Show, which has flow-on effects for their individual community participation. Listening to the show has helped me become more active in my own community through volunteering at my kids’ primary school. In the garden at first, then in the classroom. The show has inspired me to write letters to government and newspapers back in the day when water restrictions were introduced. I also take more interest in my local area in recent changes in planning laws (3CR listener questionnaire participant #34).

For listeners and practitioners alike, participation is a fundamentally social activity centred on human communication. Stemming from a community radio station as a physical place, along with the communicative practice of presenters and listeners, comes the creation of community through social interaction and social space at the station. This manifests as support, friendship and social life. These aspects present as central to the act of participation within a media setting. As Dahlgren states: ‘All too often analyses ignore the importance of sociality in stimulating and maintaining participation, how interaction with others actually serves to support (or not) participatory activities’ (2012, p. 38). For 3CR volunteer Jan Bartlett, who has been involved in the station for thirty years, participation has meant: the majority of my friends now have stemmed from my time at 3CR— I have very few friends who aren’t connected in some way to 3CR. I mean, maybe if my life had gone a different way I would have had different friends, but it just worked that way that it’s a really close and happy friendship that I’ve got with a great number of people who are former staff and volunteers and listeners too (2014).

The role of a community radio station as a support, a friend, and as a solid base are illuminated through a consideration of everyday agency and the power present in media participation. Participants gave several examples of the station helping them in a time of need—quite separate from the station’s role as a broadcaster. For volunteer Sally Goldner, 3CR staff ‘managed to help me get some access to some union assistance

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that resulted in a good outcome at Fairwork. So 3CRs been just incredibly helpful to me on so many levels’ (2014). Others, including Robbie Thorpe, share the same sentiment: ‘3CRs always supported me in a personal way as well. I’ve come to rely on 3CR to a large degree, I don’t know what I would do if 3CR disappeared’ (2014). Personal power and change are enabled through the material support that a community radio station provides. As previously outlined, on the community radio airwaves, ‘ordinary’ people and their voices are prioritised. Yet the nature of a station providing ‘ordinary’ people with a voice is frequently identified as ‘unprofessional’. However, this can also contribute to a stronger sense of community and, through this, increase access. That is, people identify with the ‘ordinary’ sound, and the grassroots issues covered. This extends to the on-air practice with interviewees, as 3CR volunteer Matt Gleeson explains: ‘I find sometimes having [a] deliberately amateur approach makes people feel more comfortable’ (2014). Ideas of professionalism and quality have long been debated within the Australian community broadcasting sector—should the ‘sound’ follow a mainstream radio model to maximise listenership and community engagement? And if so, how is this balanced with the idea of access and participation by ordinary people? What if the content appeals to a very small minority within the general community—how can this be validated and valued? Ideas and definitions of quality are constantly ‘destabilised’ through, in part, ‘resistance to the power imbalances embedded in the concept of quality’ (Carpentier 2011, p. 343). Within the on-air content that was mapped on 3CR, there are the voices of people with heavy accents and people with disabilities; the majority of voices are female; the issues are often discussed in a conversational, everyday manner. That said, there is also considerable content that is highly produced, scripted and conforming to mainstream ideas of ‘quality’ radio production. Yet on-air as a whole, we can see how community is created and represented based on value sets that challenge dominant ideas of what radio is and seek to contest how communicative power is distributed under neoliberalism. As Carpentier describes: ‘by opening up the definition of quality to their participatory cultures, they unfix and destabilise quality, showing its constructed nature’ (p. 343). ‘Unfixing’ ideas of quality, along with deciding who is part of the community and who is facilitated to participate, intersects with Rodríguez’s conceptions of the role of citizens’ media in fracturing, recoding and restructuring.

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The role of citizens in creating community connects to the act of constructing democracy. I will discuss this further in Chapter 6, in a discussion of the construction of reality, but here it is worth noting that democratic outcomes are evident. The community radio form intends to contribute to democracy, and the experience of practitioners tells a story that supports this claim. Ben Rinaudo, a 3CR volunteer, describes it like this: Well I’m all for anti-oppressive practice and emancipatory practice that liberates people to reach their full potential. And I think that the station contributes to broadening or deepening democracy. As in, often, our existing capacity can be undermined and I think what the station offers is real and genuine participation in community, bringing about having your say about shaping and influencing society and the world. To get it out on-air is pretty powerful and it’s not an opportunity that you get every day (2015).

Similarly, the facilitation of individual agency through democratic structure, as discussed below, together with the building of community and the creation of accessible, participatory media spaces all align with the greater project of democracy. For 3CR’s Ronny Kareni the station’s role in building democracy lies in its capacity to build through skill-sharing activities: ‘the station very much has this focus of, if someone has that skill, it’s passed on, or is shared to the new person who is coming through’ (2014). RCL’s chairperson, Jacinto da Costa, also described the essential role of sharing skills between station volunteers, and how he learnt to produce radio reports, make announcements and conduct training, and that it was ‘a new education for me. And after that, I can teach another person’ (2014). While 3CR’s Viv Malo describes her experience like this: I wouldn’t in a million years [have] dreamed of being a broadcaster five years ago. And it was daunting at first, but you know, it’s something I wanted to do, and [you] throw yourself in there, and you have people around who help you, and next minute you’re flying solo (2014).

In describing the role of community in participation, many practitioners spoke of a ‘sense of purpose’, of value, of worth, that they felt from participating in the radio station. For RCL program manager Zesorot Delaserna: ‘my dream when I was young was to work to serve the people through communication, through media. This was a motivation for me

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to go into community radio’ (2014). Serving the people and performing a useful community role are common themes that emerged through many of my interviews. 3CR volunteer Greg Segal expresses it this way: ‘It’s having a useful role in an organisation […] whose existence I value. I think that’s it in nutshell. But being useful in a place which, I think, is useful to society. That’s the long and short of it’ (2014). Programmer Joe Toscano describes it thus: ‘I have a sense of purpose. How does that sound? […] 3CR has given me a sense of self-worth in a dimension of my life that I would never have been able to gain in any other activity or medium’ (2014). The sense of worth and value described by participants centres on effecting positive social change outcomes and countering inequalities created by neoliberal policies. Community, in the space of community radio, is centred on a sense of place; that is, a physical, local, coming together where community is created both on and off the airwaves. As described, it is the feeling of a ‘second home’ and a social space that breaks down alienation, and that builds a sense of comfort, of home, and of welcome for practitioners at each of the stations. That is not, however, to say that it is without its difficulties or barriers. While a radio station that provides a diverse community of members with a physical ‘sense of place’ and homeliness may appear as a type of utopian dream, it of course comes with its exclusions, challenges and conflicts. Some of these will be further explored in the next chapter, when I consider the cycle of conflict, diversity and cooperation within transformation and social change. Finally, in looking at critical participation, I want to turn to a consideration of the political and the civic within media engagement. Political Citizenship As outlined in Chapter 3, a citizens’ media approach places emphasis on the active nature of citizens as media-makers rather than passive media consumers. Within this discussion on participation it is important to return to the idea of the citizen and what makes an engaged, active participant within media and communication systems, along with what enables effective political citizenship. Such a discussion necessarily connects to the concept of communication rights—a concept I spent some time articulating back in Chapter 2. How, and where, can the rights of citizens to communicate—to freely be informed, as well as to speak—be enacted, and what role can community

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radio play? This leads us to question how we assess effective active citizenship and participation within a community radio station. Access, place and community building play a role as I have already explored, and shortly I will turn to the role of structure in facilitating individual agency. But for now I want to consider the experience of political citizenship both behind the microphone and by listeners. For Clemencia Rodríguez, citizens’ media ‘accounts for the processes of empowerment, concientisation and fragmentation of power that result when men, women, and children gain access to and reclaim their own media’ (2003, p. 190). We need to take into account the type of active citizen—and resulting power—that Rodríguez envisages, which is based on Chantal Mouffe’s conceptions of radical democracy and ‘the political’. Political citizenship, antagonism and the ‘radicalisation of democracy’ provide important lenses through which to consider the community radio experience; and the space of community radio arguably provides a forum for ‘agonism’ rather than ‘antagonism’. As Mouffe describes: It is not in our power to eliminate conflicts and escape our human condition, but it is in our power to create the practices, discourses, and institutions that would allow those conflicts to take an agonistic form (2005, p. 130).

As already noted, I am conscious of avoiding overstated claims of democratic outcomes, while simultaneously continuing to question the democratic intentions of the community radio form and interrogate their manifestations. As Carpentier and Dahlgren note, ‘Democracy itself embodies a utopian dimension, yet those who value democracy do not dismiss it out of hand; its normative vision serves as a compass for political strategy and agency’ (2014, p. 10). In the following section I want to consider the manifestation of everyday citizens’ media experience as it relates to citizenship, democracy and fragmented power. Matt Gleeson, a 3CR volunteer programmer, considers his citizen power as experienced through the practice of radio in relation to the evolution of radio technology itself. While media technology has dramatically developed since the invention of radio, with the growth of multi-faceted digital distribution networks, Matt’s observations arguably remain true: I’m not a celebrity, I’m not rich, I don’t have access to the means of production, the means of contribution or distribution, I’m just a person. So you know, historically speaking, before technology, my voice can only

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extend as far as I can talk […] But here at 3CR I can have a thought that can go straight to my mouth, and down the microphone and out to endless people. And that could be a bad thing, because all my thoughts aren’t necessarily golden, but what a thing in history! When else has anyone been able to do that unless they’re an aristocrat or they’re a political leader? (2014).

For 3CR volunteer Robbie Thorpe, political citizenship is central to his participation, and his ongoing attempts to destabilise existing power structures: ‘I’m trying to wake this country up ’cause I believe that there’s genocide going on in this country, and it’s unresolved. It’s unfinished business’ (2014). Arguably there are no other Australian radio stations that dedicate weekly airtime to a discussion of sovereignty and Australian genocide in the way that 3CR does through Robbie’s Fire First show. Similarly, for 3CR’s Ben Rinaudo on-air participation connects him to an active role in society; he notes the role the platform has in ‘enhancing citizenship and promoting people’s livelihoods and promoting people’s rights. Being involved in the radio station’s really given me an opportunity to engage in social and political life’ (2015). On-air political citizenship also takes its form in the types of discussions and issues raised by active listeners. Talkback with Attitude is the only program on 3CR that is a dedicated program only for talkback callers across one hour a week on Thursday mornings. Presenter Joe Toscano notes that: if you listen to the talkback, you’ll notice that Talkback with Attitude has got a lot of politics. We may have grand final month, nobody rings us about the grand final, nobody rings us about the royal family, it’s all political, except sometimes people find themselves so marginalised they just need somebody to talk to, and we do that too (2014).

More broadly, the station’s role in disseminating protest information and encouraging action is notable (3CR Community Radio 2016) and further discussion of its ‘activating’ role will be taken up in Chapter 6. Some claim that the position of 3CR in organising and supporting protests has been significant in shifting the power balances within particular disputes. The Maritime Union of Australia dispute is cited as one such example: in 1998 waterside company Patrick Stevedores sacked its entire Australian workforce, sparking mass community pickets on the Webb and East Swanson Docks in Melbourne. 3CR coordinated rolling coverage,

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and early volunteer on The Concrete Gang, Bob Mancor, recalls that ‘It was one of the great times where you realise what can be done if you stick together. And that was thanks to 3CR to a large extent and people must never forget that’ (2014). Early volunteer Nancy Atkin cites another example of the station’s early function in coordinating protest and enabling political citizenship: in the very early days when the anti-freeway demonstrations were happening just down the road on Alexander Parade and a call was put on 3CR for people to go down and within an hour or so 150 people had turned up— just an interesting sign of the times and sign of the audience (2014).

One listener described how the station has impacted on their political citizenship over a period of more than thirty years: During the Nurses’ Strike in the 1980s I kept up to date with their street protests by listening to 3CR and I would turn up to support picketers sometimes with food. Likewise, with the Tram Dispute in 1990 and the MUA dispute in 1997 also Richmond High School occupation—3CR broadcasts increased my involvement as they encouraged participation, a sense of excitement and involvement, the reporting was direct, on the spot and 24 h in the case of MUA. You felt that if the broadcasters could be there round the clock, you should be there for at least part of the time! (3CR listener questionnaire participant #33).

Enacting and enabling active citizenship is central to critical participation, and the experiences articulated here spotlight the active role that a community radio station can perform in facilitating citizenship; and the experiences from the case studies attest to a space of activity in the realm of political citizenship. Agency Through Organisational Structure In turning briefly to consider structure at each of the radio stations the intention is to connect the action of the individual to the organisational form, in order to focus on the social practice that emerges at this intersection. That is, to consider both what type of structure is produced through individual practice within the community radio station, and to interrogate the impact of structure on individual agency.

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First station manager at RCL, Alfredo de Araújo (2014) recalls that the establishment of the station structure, with the support of the UNESCO advisers, occurred well before anyone went to air. The participation of organisations, or organisational representatives, within the station structure remains significant with one listener observing that often ‘deeper involvement comes from more active participation in an organisation, for example an organisation who are responsible for the environment, they are the ones who need to disseminate a good action plan’ (RCL listener questionnaire participant #14). The station’s current structure replicates its original design with a Council of representatives from different sectors in the community overseeing the station’s practices. At 3CR in the mid-1970s the structure of the station was collectively determined before the station went to air, and it sought to include representatives from many community organisations. Early volunteer and one of the station’s founders, Bevan Ramsden, says: As the station improved its democratic structure, we had voting by the block of individual organisations, then the listener sponsors’ meeting elected their representatives to the federation, and the workers at the station elected their representatives to the federation. So the workers, the listeners, and the organisational backing created the democratic structure (2013).

Station technician and longtime participant in 3CR Greg Segal describes the current organisation in this way: ‘So it’s got a structure where those groups, can if they wish, formally join the organisation and get involved in the management side of it or they can take a couple of steps back and just be involved in just doing programs only’ (2014). Within 3CR’s station structure, the role of the station manager remains central. Station manager, Marian McKeown (2014), explains that her main purpose is to ‘build consensus within the organisation around decision making’. This stabilising role with regard to structure is crucial, Marian maintains, to providing a space for participation for the ‘crazy diverse range of people who are part of this station’. Here she describes the centrality of structure within the station’s practice: if you look at our programming grid and you look at all the people that we have here, that you have, trade unions, and environmental organisations, and radical feminists and sex workers and everybody all here programming together, and their politics, like, while we’re sort of broadly to the left, not

112  J. FOX everyone agrees about everything, and so, you have to have some mechanism by which people cohabit together. And so I think that decision-making process is really instrumental in bringing that kind of cohesion to what would seem like a really disparate group of people (2014).

The agency provided by the structure at 3CR is given as a reason by Marian as to why the station is ‘thriving forty years later’. Certainly, it appears to have contributed to the station’s ability to weather political upheavals in the late 1970s (3CR Community Radio 2016), but its role in facilitating everyday participation is less documented. The role of a democratic, inclusive, active structure in facilitating participation within a community radio station requires further consideration and investigation. For the purposes here, however, it is clear that the organisational structure is a central contributing factor in successfully providing the material resources that enable individual agency within community radio. Structures provide for the stability and framework that enable listeners and practitioners alike to participate both on-air, and off-air. While structures are firm, they can also provide flexibility and change over time— although at both of the community radio stations discussed here the governance structure developed prior to the beginning of broadcasting remains largely in place today.

Mediated Solidarity The role of solidarity work—of supporting others in struggle and in social justice campaigning—is not a stated aim at 3CR or RCL. However, it does emerge as an outcome of the stations’ participatory nature—both on-air and off-air. The physical space of the station also emerges as a central facilitator, a node at which a broad cross section of active people collides or cross paths, often resulting in solidarity work. It is mediated solidarity—brought about by the presence and practice of the station itself. That is not to say that it would not happen anyway, but it is clear that the station is an active incubator of the type of solidarity on display. In the following section I want to explore the on-air solidarity work, the off-air organising and collective experience, along with unexpected connections created through practitioners being exposed to diversity and difference within their ‘workplace’.

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Active Airwaves For Timor-Leste the role of radio within solidarity struggles has a significant historical context within the country’s own independence struggle. As Francisco da Silva Gari of the Timor-Leste Media Development Center explains, in terms of media access, ‘the people in the country during the resistance were mainly listening to radio’ predominantly via the ABC, Fretilin, Dutch and Portuguese radio stations. ‘These stations were giving more information about what was happening in the country, and also the diplomatic struggle for independence in Timor-Leste’ and it was at this time that the radio was identified as important ‘for those struggling to get independence’. In the current context, on-air solidarity takes the form of bringing the wider local community together on knowledge of local customs and traditions through broadcast content. In the week of programming mapped on RCL there were programs about the history of Lautem, including the origins and meaning of the name, along with content on the source and importance of local water in the region. There was also programming dedicated to the history of struggle, including a rebroadcast of a program about clandestine (intelligence) work with Falantil during the time of occupation, along with announcements about an upcoming local Fretilin ceremony recognising resistance fighters. RCL is also active in guiding and refining collective approaches to community problems. One listener describes this role: RCL gives us ideas about morality and how each of us can be a better person in our own area. Because they broadcast about ethics, often when we create problems, and we listen to RCL broadcasting information about ethics and respecting each other, through this we can reduce problems (RCL listener questionnaire participant #10).

A music request show within the week of programming mapped attracted over 30 callers, creating connections and conversations across the airwaves related to songs and messages dedicated to friends and loved ones. Across the week of programming mapped on 3CR there were 105 new and unique shows. Many programs on-air are specifically about solidarity, including Saturday’s ninety-minute Solidarity Breakfast, Australia-Asia Worker Links’ Asia Pacific Currents and the Campaign

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for International Cooperation and Disarmament’s Alternative News to name but a few. In the week mapped these programs covered issues such as the East–West road link protests in Melbourne, including that day’s rally information; a live cross to Musgrove Park in Brisbane where Aboriginal broadcaster Viv Malo interviewed activist Wayne Wharton about Aboriginal sovereignty and stolen lands as part of the G20 meeting protests; coverage of the L20 protests, also in Brisbane organised by the International Trade Union Confederation; an interview with an Indonesian labour activist about a documentary exposing the sexual violence experienced by garment workers in Indonesia; and the expanding role of the United States military in the Asia-Pacific, together with the push for Australia to be further engaged. Historically, the station has been involved on-air in a variety of solidarity struggles, including Aboriginal land rights; calling for the end of the occupation of Palestine; and independence for the Tamil people in Sri Lanka. Perambalam Senthooran recalls the role played by the Tamil Voice program in the late 1980s and 1990s: the Sri Lankan Tamil community went through civil war and struggle for self-determination […] and in the early years we had post-1983 violence in Sri Lanka, we had a lot of people come in to this country and 3CR was our voice […] we talked about our issues, talked about our reasons for the struggle, and the need for the community to be rallying together […] the 3CR program, also helped organise rallies and the protest marches (2015).

Volunteer Dale Bridge describes a kind of unity and cohesion within the on-air community akin to a solidarity movement: as opposed to just being this platform where one by one each gets a turn to speak, it’s a platform where each voice knows each other and gets to know each other, and gets to feel safe with each other, and gets to know that each other’s got its back, and that’s not exactly in the charter of 3CR, but that’s what ends up happening (2014).

Solidarity through and across the airwaves extends, of course, to listeners. The impact varies from listeners becoming more active in solidarity struggles, to developing a strong sense of solidarity across the airwaves with those marginalised and hidden in society. The following questionnaire participant expands on these impacts:

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There are many 3CR [programs] that give me an insight into areas of life that are foreign to me. The Beyond the Bars series is heartbreaking but very memorable as Aboriginal prisoners speak quite naturally [to] their friends and family outside. It takes the mediator out of the media. If this was ABC radio it would be more condescending—more mediated. 3CR lets you be like a fly on the wall listening in to how it is to be someone else (3CR listener questionnaire participant #52).

The intimacy and intensity evoked by the listener above connects strongly to CfSC and a citizens’ media perspective where community communication creates ruptures and fractures through which illumination flows. The outcomes from the case studies that relate to such ‘fracturing of the symbolic’ (Rodríguez 2001, p. 151) will be further discussed in Chapter 6 in relation to reality construction and resistance to hegemony. But for now I want to turn our attention to the off-air station activities, and their role within solidarity building and movements. Off-Air Organising In the off-air environment of the stations there is a high level of organising and collectivism. The social spaces of the stations function as incubators for community interactivity, creativity and connections, revealing the physical station places themselves to be a hub fostering the emergence of active, engaged community. RCL program manager Zesorot Delaserna says: ‘before I wasn’t an editor. But now, I am able to be an editor. Using your analytical capacity, you can become an editor. Also, [I have learnt] how to organise a lot of people’ (2014). Similarly, RCL station manager Francisco da Costa Hornay, states: ‘I’ve gained a lot of experience about being a journalist. There are many parts to being a journalist. [About] how to be a professional journalist. This is the experience I’ve gained during this time. Another experience I’ve had is how to organise people’ (2014). ‘Organising’, or working in a collaborative, community-oriented manner, is an important component of RCL’s ­ cycle of communicative social practice and collective media production. The role of organising is identified as central to processes of social change, as outlined here by Dutta:

116  J. FOX Organising becomes a gateway for the articulation of community-specific needs and agendas by bringing together the collective under an umbrella and therefore creating spaces of legitimacy within local, national, and global sites. It is a focal point of social change initiatives because it offers the very base on which processes of social change are constituted (2011, p. 224).

Community radio more broadly in the Timor-Leste context provides an organising ‘gateway’ for young people, as Francisco da Silva Gari from the Timor-Leste Media Development Center articulates: They would come to the radio station, share their information, get some information and also they would meet their friends at the radio station. This kind of medium gives an opportunity for the young generation, the youth, to, one, to share information among themselves, second, to get an opportunity to learn from the radio station that they are working with (2014).

At 3CR there is a large station community, which is clearly identified as consciously, and conscientiously, building solidarity. Volunteer programmer and management committee member Helen Gwilliam observes that ‘people are actually thinking about the way they interact with other people, and what’s going on in the world, and what they can do about it’. For 3CR the off-air solidarity networks are part of the federation structure wherein organisations affiliate to the station. Early volunteer Sue Blackburn was the representative for Community Aid Abroad when the station began: there were other very like-minded organisations that were involved in the Federation that Community Aid Abroad thought it was good to support and to be involved with […] you were hoping that there’d be cross-fertilisation across those different groups which would support each other’s causes and learn about what other groups were doing which they would otherwise be completely unaware of (2014).

The coming together of groups within the off-air station environment continues today, as observed by technician Greg Segal: I think 3CR is and has been a focus for activist groups, and activist people, as sort of being a hub where people get together and talk about things, both in a formal sense on-air and in an informal sense, this building was fortunately designed with a couple of really great meeting areas,

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inside and outside. People get together and talk about things, and that in itself is actually wonderful I think, irrespective of what happens inside the studios (2014).

For volunteer programmer Dale Bridge, the off-air environment led her to understand the station’s wider social role as a place of political and social interactivity: the more I learned about the station and where it sits politically, and where it sits within the community, the more […] it started to dawn on me that it wasn’t just a radio station, that it was a political movement almost (2014).

Off-air solidarity is in part made possible by the presence of place—by the physicality and accessibility of the station environment. The social station spaces foster collective organising and enable an interactivity that is essential to the facilitation of social change. It is fair to say that I did not set out to show how community radio acts as an incubator for solidarity movements, but it was a theme that emerged with some voracity through the listening, interviewing and mapping of on-air content. Yet now it appears somewhat obvious that ‘organising’ is fundamental to the mobilising of resources for CfSC. It is through the process of organising that social bonds, collectives and identities are formed and developed that can then be further enacted towards common goals (Dutta 2011, p. 242). Intersections and Exposures Across both stations it was commonly agreed that the activity of a community radio station off-air is just as important as on-air. In turn this affirms the importance of the word ‘community’ within the label—as stated earlier, it is arguably the more important word within ‘community radio’. In the off-air space there is a raising of awareness, a crosspollination, an exposure to strangers, to alternatives and to new ideas that challenge and evoke change within the station community members. This is not necessarily a place of harmony, but it is a space of diversity, of intersections and interactivity, and of engagement. For Perambalam Senthooran from the Tamil Show interactivity led to the introduction to diverse gender politics and sexual orientations, ‘Personally, I was exposed to other communities […] 3CR sort of opened my eyes to the various communities, like, sexual orientations […] in our culture it’s a very different approach.

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That opened my eyes’ (2015). While for trans and gender diverse activist and broadcaster Sally Goldner it was the animal rights program: ‘Freedom of Species has got me thinking a little about my own diet, could I cut my meat consumption and be a little more vegetable-oriented for my own health, but also from a point of view of animal well-being’ (2014). Volunteer programmer Dale Bridge describes the community intersections she encounters at the station: I enjoy having access to people and people’s ideas that the mainstream just does not give you access to. You know, having learnt so much about what’s happening in West Papua, having learned so much what’s happening with our Indigenous folks right here (2014).

The experience of off-air solidarity shown by the 3CR experience relates to contemporary cosmopolitanism discourse. Although the data is not being viewed through a cosmopolitan lens, it is worth considering its relevance to the experiences that emerged. Contemporary cosmopolitanism strives for equality with recognition of difference and universality without sameness and requires of humanity a global recognition from its citizens of their rights and responsibilities in a shared world. As Bronislaw Szerszynski and John Urry write, ‘cosmopolitanism involves the search for, and delight in, the contrasts between societies rather than a longing for superiority or for uniformity’ (2002, p. 468). In a further articulation, Ulrich Beck writes: Cosmopolitan tolerance … is neither defensive nor passive, but instead active: it means opening oneself up to the world of the Other, perceiving difference as an enrichment, regarding and treating the Other as fundamentally equal. Expressed theoretically: either-or logic is replaced by bothand logic (2007, p. 6).

Such cosmopolitan tolerance requires a space for exposure, a bridge to replace the walls, a constant, fluid structure that enables exposure to difference. As Beck concedes ‘cosmopolitan democracy is a realistic, if utopian, project’ (1999, p. 9); he also points out that ‘it is important that cosmopolitanisation does not occur somewhere in abstraction or on a global scale, somewhere above people’s heads, but that it takes place in the everyday lives of individuals’ (2007, p. 1). In this way we can directly relate the solidarity activities on-air and off-air in the 3CR case study to be relevant to the project of cosmopolitanism—a living, everyday example perhaps.

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Volunteer programmer Jan Bartlett recalls her exposure to difference when she began volunteering at the station in the early 1980s: before I started at 3CR I had no idea of the different ethnic groups in Australia, I had no idea of the peoples in other countries that have come to Australia, I had no idea of the struggles that those people are still having in their home countries, and all those things you learn and you’re here, because all those people are here doing their programs, spreading information around (2014).

RCL operates within a small predominantly rural community, and intersections and exposures take multiple forms within the walls of the station. The station is a drop-in place for everything from breaking local news, to call-outs about lost wallets and the delivery of music dedications. Young volunteer staff host community leaders for interviews, while local farmers come on-air to discuss the impact of changed agricultural regulations. The station emerges as a central flow-through location for a myriad of local people and issues. Inevitably this increases community connections, interactions and collaborations. As station manager Francisco da Costa Hornay (2014) observes, the radio is ‘like a bridge, or an instrument of information’, ‘we speak about peace; we speak about stability; we speak about health; we speak about infrastructure; we speak about the work of farmers’. Within each of the community radio stations there is the weaving of a web of solidarity networks. As articulated in Chapter 2, a rhizome structure is relevant to understanding how the myriad of connections and points connect and cross-connect; from prisoners to listeners, from programmer to programmer and across a diverse range of organisations. We can see the reorganising of connections, reformulating of visions, reconnecting of disparate movements—all of which are part of the solidarity work present within the community radio environment. The communicative practices on and off-air mediate solidarity, constructing complex connections and enhancing both individual-level and organisational-level solidarity.

Summary I want to close this chapter with some reflections and acknowledgements. There are limits, challenges and barriers to participation within a community radio setting, and the example of the impact of poverty in

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the Timor-Leste example is a case in point. While the examples above paint participation and its necessary ingredients in a somewhat glowing light with potentially transformative outcomes, the space of participation within community radio remains a struggle. Not only is participation curtailed by macro socio-economic factors, it is also constantly contested and negotiated off-air and on-air. While this has not been the focus above, it is a necessary observation in order to avoid a celebratory tone that is both unrealistic and unhelpful. With regard to the broader socio-economic considerations, it needs to be acknowledged that community radio within the national settings of both stations remains a very small portion of the mediascape, and that neoliberal politics and economics increasingly dominate the landscape and its direction. Here we need to take note of the limits to participation that neoliberalism presents, as Dahlgren points out: ‘When market dynamics come to be seen as the most democratic force in society, the opportunities for meaningful civic participation become eroded’ (2012, p. 29). That said, the type of participation experienced at the two stations is active, engaged, political, supported and, therefore, could be described as critical participation. Through this description I am seeking to contribute to the ongoing discussions and articulations of participation within media and communication research by providing case study data that exhibits the potential type and style of participation that a community radio station can provide. That is not to say that the form automatically provides critical participation, but through a combination of historical, intentionally democratic and community-based contexts and structures we can see how a community radio station can provide a form of critical participatory media agency for its practitioners and listeners. Simultaneously, a cosmopolitan-oriented, mediated solidarity is enabled in a community radio setting in part due to its active facilitation of critical participation and collective organising.

References 3CR Community Radio. (1976). CRAM guide December/January 1976. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: 3CR Community Radio. 3CR Community Radio. (1979). CRAM guide March/April 1979. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: 3CR Community Radio. 3CR Community Radio. (2016). Radical radio: Celebrating 40 years of 3CR. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: 3CR Community Radio.

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ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority). (2019). Community radio broadcasting licences. Viewed 11 March 2019. https://www.acma.gov. au/-/media/Community-Broadcasting-and-Safeguards/Information/pdf/ lic035_community_radio_broadcasting_licences-pdf.pdf. Atkin, N. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer and committee member by Juliet Fox, 14 February 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Bartlett, J. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 7 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Beck, U. (1999). World risk society. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Beck, U. (2007). A new cosmopolitanism is in the air. Signandsight.com–Let’s talk European. Berta. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 13 April 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Blackburn, S. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 26 May 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Bridge, D. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 10 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Caffin, L. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 16 October 2013, Melbourne, Australia. Carpentier, N. (2007). Theoretical frameworks for participatory media. In N. Carpentier, B. Cammaerts, P. Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, K. Nordenstreng, M. Hartmann, P. Vihalemm, & H. Nieminen (Eds.), Media technologies and democracy in an enlarged Europe (pp. 105–123). The Intellectual Work of the 2007 European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School: Tartu University Press. Carpentier, N. (2009). Participation is not enough: The conditions of possibility of mediated participatory practices. European Journal of Communication, 24(4), 407–420. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323109345682. Carpentier, N. (2011). Media and participation: A site of ideological-democratic struggle. Bristol, UK and Chicago, IL: Intellect. Carpentier, N. (2016). Beyond the ladder of participation: An analytical toolkit for the critical analysis of participatory media processes. Javnost—The Public, 23(1), 70–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2016.1149760. Carpentier, N., & Dahlgren, P. (2014). Histories of media(ted) participation: An introduction. Communication Management Quarterly, 30, 7–14. https://doi. org/10.5937/comman1430007C. Cassidy, D. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 21 October 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Commonwealth of Australia. (2006). Broadcasting Services Act 1992. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Australian Government Publishing Service. da Conceição Freitas, L. (2014). Research interview with RCL volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 28 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste.

122  J. FOX da Costa Hornay, F. (2014). Research interview with RCL station manager by Juliet Fox, 25 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. da Costa, J. (2014). Research interview with RCL chairperson by Juliet Fox, 28 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. da Silva Gari, F. (2014). Research interview with Timor-Leste community radio sector representative by Juliet Fox, 20 July 2014 Dili, Timor-Leste. da Silva Pereira, E. (2014). Research interview with RCL staff member and volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 29 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. de Araújo, A. (2014). Research interview with RCL station manager by Juliet Fox, 7 August 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. Dahlgren, P. (2012). Reinventing participation: Civic agency and the web environment. Geopolitics, History, and International Relations, 4(2), 27–45. Delaserna, Z. (2014). Research interview with RCL program manager by Juliet Fox, 26 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. dos Santos Soares, L. E. (2014). Research interview with Timor-Leste community radio sector representative by Juliet Fox, 21 July 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. Dreher, T. (2017). Social/participation/listening: Keywords for the social impact of community media. Communication Research and Practice, 3(1), 14–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2016.1273737. Dutta, M. J. (2011). Communicating social change: Structure, culture, and agency. New York, NY: Routledge. Fuchs, C. (2013). Social media and capitalism. In T. Olsson (Ed.), Producing the internet: Critical perspectives of social media (pp. 25–44). Gothenburg, Sweden: Nordicom. Fuchs, C. (2016). Reading Marx in the information age: A media and communication studies perspective on capital (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Routledge. Gleeson, M. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 26 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Goldner, S. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Gwilliam, H. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer and management committee member by Juliet Fox, 11 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Havana, T. (2014). Research interview with RCL volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 23 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. Holliday, C. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer technician and committee member by Juliet Fox, 4 March 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Joseph Mbembe, A. (2016). Decolonizing the university: New directions. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), 29–45. Kareni, R. (2014). Research interview with 3CR staff member and volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 10 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia.

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Malo, V. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Mancor, B. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 6 May 2014, Geelong, Australia. McKeown, M. (2014). Research interview with 3CR station manager by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Mouffe, C. (2005). On the political. London, UK: Routledge. Ramsden, B. (2013). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer and committee member by Juliet Fox, 11 December 2013, Melbourne, Australia. Rinaudo, B. (2015). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 14 April 2015, Melbourne, Australia. Rodríguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the mediascape: An international study of citizens’ media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Rodríguez, C. (2003). The Bishop and his star: Citizens’ communication in southern Chile. In N. Couldry & J. Curran (Eds.), Contesting media power: Alternative media in a networked world (pp. 177–194). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Segal, G. (2014). Research interview with 3CR technical coordinator by Juliet Fox, 28 August 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Senthooran, P. (2015). Research interview with 3CR volunteer management committee member by Juliet Fox, 10 September 2015, Melbourne, Australia. Szerszynski, B., & Urry, J. (2002). Cultures of cosmopolitanism. The Sociological Review, 50(4), 461–481. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.00394. Tabing, L. (2000). The development of community media in south-east Asia. Promoting community media in Africa (pp. 75–96). Paris, France: UNESCO. Tabing, L. (2014). Research interview with RCL station adviser (via Skype from the Phillippines) by Juliet Fox, 12 July 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Thorpe, R. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Toscano, J. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 10 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. UNDP (United Nations Development Program). (2013). Human development report. Viewed 12 October 2013. hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/ hdr2013/download/. Ximenes, P. (2014). Research interview with Timor-Leste community radio sector representative by Juliet Fox, 19 July 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste.

CHAPTER 5

Cycles of Transformation and Community Radio Agency

Ultimately, community radio is trying to effect change, transform people and systems and increase and deepen democracy through communication. As we have discussed in Chapter 4, this is, in part, done through providing active participatory opportunities and media access—material and cultural resources that enable a social communicative practice that is political, meaningful and collaborative. My purpose here is not to evaluate the ‘success’ of that practice in the space of community radio; instead, of interest to me is the experience of transformation, the personal impact of radio agency, and the broader action of listeners and participants within political social change. In this chapter, I want to engage with the wide lens of communication for social change (CfSC), to better understand the role of transformation within the radio experience, and the individual agency developed through the community radio platform. Drawing primarily on my semi-structured interviews with forty community radio practitioners, along with the seventy listener questionnaire respondents, I will try to unravel the flow and form of transformation. Emerging from my analysis is a cycle of diversity, cooperation and conflict within the community radio form. Also revealed is the transformational role of community radio practice within a post-conflict setting that goes beyond the individual to contribute to social stability and peace.

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Diversity, Cooperation and Conflict It is perhaps surprising to include a discussion on conflict in the exploration of transformation within the community radio form; however, it emerges as a key aspect of the cycle of transformation and is largely unexplored within the academic discourse pertaining to community media and social change. For readers who have been, or are, community radio practitioners, this is, no doubt, less surprising. One exception to the academic discourse of this subject is the work of Nico Carpentier in his considerations of the ‘complexities of participatory practices’ (2016, p. 5) and the ‘struggles over participatory intensities’ (p. 6), which can lead different actors ‘into conflict with each other’ (p. 6). Importantly, Carpentier notes that this can generate ‘a much more dynamic and contingent (or unstable) process’ (p. 6) of participation. Conflict, and in particular personal conflict, emerged as a regular theme in many of the interviews I conducted. In the Timor-Leste context, the theme of conflict is extended to the ongoing debate around what qualifies as community radio, and to the role of media in ongoing conflicts within a transforming society. In considering the role of conflict in the following section, I am again seeking to engage with Clemencia Rodríguez’s citizens’ media approach (2001), which in turn draws on Chantal Mouffe’s work. As already discussed in Chapter 4, Mouffe challenges a ‘post-political’ ‘consensual form of democracy’ (2005, p. 1) and seeks to acknowledge ‘the ambivalent character of human sociability and the fact that reciprocity and hostility cannot be dissociated’ (2005, p. 3). She maintains that antagonism, or agonism, is an essential ingredient of radical democracy, stating: ‘acknowledging the ineradicability of the conflictual dimension in social life, far from undermining the democratic project, is the necessary condition for grasping the challenge to which democratic politics is confronted’ (Mouffe 2005, p. 4). While much of her theory (2000) focuses on a larger political landscape, the role of conflict, of agonism, does relate to the community radio space and its role within transformative change and democracy building, as I will outline below. Community Multiplicity The role of diversity within the cycle of transformation is my starting point for exploring the type of change experienced at the community

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radio level. In the following discussion, the experience of 3CR with regard to diversity will take centre stage. This is in part because of its geographic location and that city’s demographic profile. Greater Melbourne, as already noted in Chapter 4, is a large area with a population of nearly 5 million; representatives of more than 140 different cultures are present in the city of Melbourne alone (City of Melbourne 2016). Whereas Lospalos, with a population of just under 30,000 (National Statistics Directorate & United Nations Population Fund 2011), is primarily populated by the Timor-Leste people and has limited cultural diversity in its demography. That is not to say that it lacks diversity as a whole, or that the radio station RCL is not representative of the community, but there is less diversity and a significantly smaller population. Diversity within the discussion here is centred on the range of people involved at the station, the breadth of programming content and the variety of issues covered on-air. As Carpentier et al. describe: ‘The orientation of community media towards giving voice to various (older and newer) social movements, minorities, and sub/counter-cultures, and the emphasis on self-representation, can result in a more diverse content, signifying the multiplicity of societal voices’ (2003, p. 57). However, the discussion of diversity in relation to the RCL case study requires a different perspective, as, at the time of writing, it is the only local media outlet. In this way, it is supplying information, access and participation that is contributing to diversity in a situation of extreme paucity of information and media access in general. Early RCL volunteer programmer Trolta Havana describes the presence of the station in the early years in the following way: ‘It [RCL] was like a water-well that emerged in a desert without water. So, at least with its presence, it could spread the community’s information, and they could get information about education, and other kinds of information’ (2014). Therefore, basic information becomes representative of the diversity that the station provides, as one listener describes: In my perspective as a community member, specifically at the Lautem district level, this radio station gives good information to all the people. Whether from the state, or from NGOs, it helps all the people of Lautem district […] Health is included [on the radio], education is included—this is a great advantage for the community, information that really helps the people (RCL listener questionnaire participant #1).

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Other participants concur: We only have one radio station in Lautem […] the programs on RCL can increase people’s knowledge, especially about health campaigns. And also about job vacancies, so that everyone can know that, in Lautem district at the moment, there’s a vacancy for this or that position (RCL listener questionnaire participant #5).

Diversity within the 3CR context takes on different permutations. For disability advocate and broadcaster Amanda Millear, 3CR’s diversity relates specifically to its licence requirements as a community broadcaster: all types of different shows, well, there are all kinds of different people. It doesn’t matter what race, colour, or if you’re purple with pink spots, let’s say, 3CR didn’t put you down if you had a disability or you were black with purple spots. It didn’t matter because that is not their broadcasting licence (2015).

As stated above, within the context of Melbourne you might expect media more broadly to be representative of the diverse population, but this is generally not the case in commercial or government-funded media outlets. Community radio, however, specifically seeks to be representative of local diversity, as trans and gender diverse activist and broadcaster Sally Goldner describes in relation to 3CR’s role: The ABC is obviously under perhaps direct political pressure from time to time. And possibly more often than time to time. So that’s where community radio fills a very important space in giving voices to transgender and bisexual and others who normally would not get a voice. And just giving a chance for those views, and not everyone might agree with the views. But, it’s democracy, it’s also I think part of Melbourne, which I think is a diverse city in lots of ways—that 3CR is there to really give some degree of representation to that diversity and that’s really important (2014).

Yet while diversity plays a role in transforming the mediascape as articulated above, it is also a space of potential conflict. For example, in the early years, 3CR excluded programming in different community languages. Greek broadcaster George Zangalis writes that: ‘In Melbourne, the accommodation of ethnic broadcasting at 3CR then the only community radio station, was traumatic’ (2001, p. 62). The rationale for excluding on-air content in a language other than English is politically

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complex and symptomatic of the era in which the conflict takes place. George Zangalis explains: ‘At this time there were strong polemical and divisive debates in 3CR on ideological correctness and purity, mostly among people, parties and groups of the left. Class purity and unity was seen by some in the leadership of 3CR as being single and monolithic in concept, organisation, culture and language’ (2001, p. 63). By November 1977, the issue was resolved (Zangalis 2001, p. 64) and multilingual news and information—initially in six community languages— was officially approved by the station. As early 3CR volunteer Nancy Atkin explains: ‘It was just irritating and insulting and that was changed after a few years […] There was always such a diversity that the station of course survived those arguments’ (2014). This is a salient point—that while on the one hand diversity might bring conflict it is also central to resolving it. Equally, conflict arises in other areas from the latent racism that exists within communities as they attempt to be inclusive and diverse in nature while lingering racist attitudes remain. Early volunteer and Aboriginal activist Gary Foley says: Bruce McGuinness and I were probably happy to push the boundaries with some of the people of 3CR, see how far we could get with them. Because I think it’s safe to say this far down the track that there were people in 3CR at the time who probably had issues of their own in terms of their own racism—that was the norm in those days. Like I say, even for people who like to think of themselves as progressive (2014).

Gary has had a ‘series of disputes’ with the station over the years but still supports the ‘proposition of community radio’. He acknowledges that this could be seen as a ‘contradiction’—‘but to me it isn’t’, he says. Again, this entanglement arguably connects to the role of antagonism and political conflict in spinning a cycle of transformation, and of producing the key elements of CfSC. Diversity and its connection with potential conflict is described by station volunteer Helen Gwilliam in the following way: I think the purpose of 3CR is about embracing diversity and change and speaking out and all of that kind of thing, so you wouldn’t expect everything to go smoothly because people are going to have different views. I think it works extraordinarily well given the range of things it does (2014).

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A diversity of community radio practitioners alongside a variety of on-air content are just some of the building blocks of the cycle of transformation that community radio can establish. Within diversity, cooperation and the capacity to resolve conflict is paramount—as has already been briefly discussed. I want to now turn to a broader exploration of the role of cooperation and collaboration in the community radio setting. Cooperation A key point within the cycle of transformation is cooperation. While the following discussion centres on the practice of cooperation, I want to also position cooperation within both a CfSC and critical political economy of communication (PEofC) context. In considering the role of cooperation in the community radio setting it can be seen as part of the implementation of CfSC, which necessarily requires a high level of cooperation, as opposed to competition. The term ‘social capital’ is often used to refer to cooperation in this context (Figueroa et al. 2002; van Vuuren 2002), drawing on the work of Robert Putnam who defines social capital as the ‘features of social organization, such as networks, norms and trust, that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit’ (1993). A media organisation, such as a community radio station, has a clear mandate to prioritise collaboration and collective cooperation over the market forces of economic competition that may dominate commercial and public media outlets. Similarly, the ongoing commodification of communication is at odds with the cooperative nature of community radio. While most stations, including the case studies in this research project, are embedded within neoliberal socio-economic contexts, their purpose, at least in theory, is to value and prioritise voices, issues and actions—including cooperation—that are often in direct contradiction to those under digital capitalism. It is within this context that I want to consider the role of cooperation within the cycle of transformation. Turning to the early years of conflict in the 3CR example, many volunteers have talked of the level of cooperation needed—and present— in finding solutions to the infighting and working together to resolve issues. Equally, as already mentioned, there is an acknowledgement that within diversity there will be conflict, and this can lead to cooperation. Early technician Dale Butler states: ‘It showed that you always get conflict when you get something like that, it’s a question of how you handle

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it’ (Butler 2013). Indeed the ‘handling’ of the conflict through democratic structures—regardless of what pitfalls there were along the way— enabled the station to survive through the internal community’s ability to effectively cooperate (3CR 2016). 3CR station manager, Marian McKeown (2014), says her role is largely focused on ensuring a high level of cooperation within the station. ‘I think that, while my job doesn’t always go smoothly, that is actually part of my job, is to smooth things over and to build consensus, consult with people and get decisions and […] enact them’. As Dutta notes: ‘Processes of social change are founded on the capacity of local communities to come together as a collective’ (2011, p. 223). Other volunteers observe that while conflict exists in the present era, effective cooperation lessens its impact, as Jan Bartlett describes: we don’t seem to have many hiccups, considering the fact that the station is open for people to walk in, very occasionally you’ll have someone come in who causes a bit of strife. But normally it’s resolved within a very short time (2014).

Another impact of cooperation is the sense that broadcasters are in good hands, and can get on with the work of producing on-air content. Robbie Thorpe, 3CR volunteer programmer, says: We don’t need to get involved with the Board [Committee of Management] because the Board’s looking after us. We know they got the right principles the way they operate. So we’re able to do the stuff we need to do in terms of the broadcasting and trying to get the message out there in the community (2014).

For RCL cooperation is an essential and acknowledged aspect of the station’s off-air organisation, with practitioners talking of the importance of staff and editorial coordination along with external cooperation with government and INGOs. Program manager Zeserot Delaserna spoke of studying ‘the process of building an organisation’ (2014) through the collaborative work he is involved in at the station, while listeners spoke of programming motivating them to ‘involve ourselves in groups’ ‘such as agricultural groups’ (RCL listener survey participant #11). The role of cooperation as it relates to transformation can also be understood within Mouffe’s work On the Political (2005). Agonism,

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or antagonism, as noted earlier, is an essential ingredient of democratic politics, and of conflict, as I shall discuss in the next chapter section. Cooperation plays a key role within what Mouffe describes as the shift from ‘antagonism’ to ‘agonism’, or from ‘enemies’ to ‘adversaries’. ‘The adversarial model has to be seen as constitutive of democracy because it allows democratic politics to transform antagonism into agonism’ (Mouffe 2005, p. 20), and allowing for ‘agonistic legitimate political channels for dissenting voices’ deters dissent from taking violent forms within both domestic and international politics. What springs to mind in this analysis is the growing extremes of political conflict (in, for example, the leadership of American, or Brazil) arising off the back of a systemic dismantling of collective and collaborative approaches. Although I am focusing on the microform of such concepts, it is still pertinent to uncover the elements present in the cycle of transformation. That through a collaborative, collective approach diversity and dissent are enabled, and conflict, as I will address in the following section, is processed as part of a democratic political activity. Conflict On the one hand, with diversity comes conflict. On the other hand, through conflict comes cooperation and transformation that is able to resolve conflict due to its diversity, its multiplicity. For 3CR, as already noted, conflict was a defining feature of its early years, and an ongoing presence as articulated by those currently involved. Conflict is pertinent and present and places a spotlight on the station’s capacity to weather conflict, as well as the role of conflict within the change process. Conflict within the Timor-Leste case study presents itself in a variety of ways and less obvious forms. It could well be that there has been considerable conflict within the RCL example, but it did not emerge through the interviews conducted. This could be related to the relatively limited time spent at the location, my role as a foreign research, or the short lifespan of the station. That said, conflict emerged in other ways. First station manager at RCL, Alfredo de Araújo, describes the station’s key role within the post-conflict environment from the year 2000: the activities and programs in the first five years, there were good programs about awareness-raising for peace, about developing the community’s participation in development to create stability; also [about] domestic

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violence, and children—that you can’t use violence against children; programs about culture, that we have to develop our communities’ culture, such as ‘meci’ ceremonies, ‘samahare’ ceremonies (2014).

The role of community radio in Timor-Leste, as it relates to ‘social control’ and ‘social stability’, was frequently mentioned by station and listener participants. RCL chairperson, Jacinto da Costa, tells the story of how, during the political crisis of 2006, the station played a key role in creating peace in the region. In March 2006, former soldiers from the Timor-Leste resistance forces were sacked from the army and took their dissatisfaction to the streets. Rioting and unrest followed, escalating quickly: twenty-five people died, while 150,000 were displaced, and foreign troops arrived to reinstate peace (BBC 2015). While primarily the unrest took place in the capital Dili, at the time Jacinto invited the opposing groups to a meeting via a radio broadcast at RCL, and in turn he came to the station with key leaders to make announcements about a future community meeting to address the conflict. In this period, he was the district administrator, the equivalent of a local government leader, as well as a key organiser at the station. He says that the radio was helpful in resolving the conflict and identifies the benefit of having the local community radio station in providing a place for discussion. As noted earlier, the community radio sector in Timor-Leste is in its infancy and is yet to have clear laws and policies to clarify and regulate its activities. As it stands, it is a contested form with evidence of conflict between key institutions and leaders making its future uncertain. The conflict relates to two key issues: one is the definition of community radio; the other is the flow of government funding to community radio stations. And, of course, the two are connected, because if a station is not identified as a community radio station, it does not receive government funding. Luís Evaristo dos Santos Soares is the head of Community Radio Centre (CRC), a government agency under the Secretariat of State of the Council of Ministers (Timor-Leste Government 2011). For Luís and the CRC, community radio does not exist within the capital city, Dili: I will say that there are 14 community radio stations and they are only in the districts. I’m not including some of the radio stations, whether they’re community or public, they’re in Dili at the national level (2014).

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For Timor-Leste community radio sector representative, Prezado Ximenes, this stance raises questions and conflict with regard to what qualifies as a community radio station, and who gets to decide. He explains that: ‘Radio Lorico and Radio Rakambia, in Dili, don’t receive support because they say that Radio Lorico and Radio Rakambia are not community radio stations. But I don’t know what the criteria is that they have established’ (2014). It remains to be seen what role this conflict will play within the transformation of understanding of community radio, and the struggle for its permanence within the Timor-Leste mediascape. Will it be part of a constructive adversarial democratic debate? Certainly, it draws people’s attention to the defining elements and characteristics of what a community radio station is, which could be seen to be of great benefit to the future of the sector should it succeed. At the station level, the dialectic process of conflict within the cycle of transformation is captured here by Francisco da Costa Hornay, RCL station manager (2014), who describes his community radio role in this way: This work, sometimes it goes well, other times it doesn’t. These two things accompany one another, it’s a dynamic which always exists. Going well and not going well always accompany each other. But we make an effort to improve as much as possible.

Returning for a moment to the 3CR example—following its first broadcast in 1976, 3CR attracted widespread, mainstream criticism of its coverage of the Palestinian cause, which focused on the station privileging a voice for, and airtime to, coverage of the occupation of Palestine, and calling for justice and land rights for the Palestinian people. In turn, pressure and attacks were launched that culminated in an Australian Broadcasting Tribunal Inquiry, which—as noted in Chapter 4—never actually, officially took place, but nonetheless caused considerable conflict. While much of the conflict covered within the public realm was seen to be between critics of the station and the station itself, there was also considerable conflict within the station. Conflict had already presented itself in the station’s general negotiations over who would and wouldn’t be involved, as early 3CR volunteer programmer Liz Caffin recalls:

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lots of discussions, lots of arguments, lots of people arguing for different things. Who would be invited to join the group that was trying to form the radio station, what the aims of it would be, whether you’d allow some community groups that we didn’t agree with their politics in[to the station] (2014).

For 3CR volunteer programmer Joe Toscano, the process of trying to ‘join’ the station as an affiliate—a station member—was an example of the divisions and sectarian nature of the station at the time: in 1977 the anarchist group I was involved in, the Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society, we made an application to join the Federation. Now 3CR or the CRF was a highly politicised network, in that particular point in time there was a struggle between the Maoists who had the dominated vote at 3CR and the non-Maoists and we were asked by the non-Maoists to join the Federation I assume to have another vote to have a little bit more freedom of expression. And we were denied Federation because we were deemed to be CIA agents (2014).

The question of how to manage the external attacks brought on by the station’s Palestinian coverage exposed the deeper divisions described above by Joe, along with the pre-existing conflicts present within the station community. Early station technician Dale Butler describes it this way: What happened was people became unhappy with the Communist Party of Australia Marxist-Leninist control of the station. There were some mad Maoists who were trying to really control the content too much, right, it was meant to be a community station (2013).

What followed in the mid to late 1970s was a series of rowdy station meetings of listener-sponsors with hundreds of people in attendance, and an eventual change through the station’s democratic voting system in Committee of Management personnel, which saw a settlement reached between the station and the Victorian Jewish Board of Deputies who had instigated the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal Inquiry. For early 3CR volunteer programmer Darce Cassidy the attacks on the station were far from unexpected: ‘You know, we’d foreseen the sorts of things that might happen with the Jewish Board of Deputies, and been prepared to stand our ground, prepared to risk rather than be safe and balanced’ (2014).

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Yet the internal conflict resulting from the external attacks arguably caused greater station upheaval. As early 3CR volunteer Nancy Atkin recalls, even after the change in the Committee of Management, it took some time for the conflict to subside, ‘The people who had lost the election kind of went into a bit of a trench warfare stage and things were a bit unpleasant for a year or so’ (2014). In those following years, it should be noted, Joe Toscano’s Anarchist Media Institute was accepted as an affiliate and remains one today. Returning to the theory of Chantal Mouffe who asserts that ‘agonistic confrontation’ is the very condition of democracy’s existence, we can seek to understand the conflict outlined above within ‘a pluralist liberal democratic society’ that ‘does not deny the existence of conflicts but provides the institutions allowing them to be expressed in an adversarial form’ (Mouffe 2005, p. 30). If we consider that community radio stations are seeking to be democratic media organisations, it is perhaps unsurprising to find the essential element of conflict present at the station level. What is important here, however, is to consider conflict more broadly within the unfolding processes of CfSC. Both 3CR and RCL seek to include the diversity of their local communities within their on-air and off-air station operations. In order to enable and facilitate such diversity, a strong element of cooperation, collaboration and collective effort is required within a community-owned and community-run media organisation. As a largely non-hierarchical and inclusive space, inevitably the combination of diversity and cooperation involves a level of conflict. This is not to suggest that conflict cannot be destructive; but rather to observe the role conflict can play when it is processed through clear lines of governance and democratic decision-making. While conflict may arise as an unwanted element of community media-making, it would appear that it is an essential ingredient of democracy building, and its presence at both RCL and 3CR alerts us to the cycle of diversity, cooperation and conflict that are active elements of the transformative process present within CfSC.

Communicative Agency Change is taking place within the community radio settings of RCL and 3CR; change in the form of awareness, agency, political action and personal transformation. Can we attribute this solely to the radio? In some instances, yes, but with other examples there are, of course, many factors

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at play. What is clear is that transformation on the personal and community level is experienced with a direct link to the communicative agency, or community-based call to action, that the station itself provides. The distinction made in the next section between the types of change taking place at the station level is divided into personal change—that is, self-awareness, discovery, impact with outcomes—and broader community change observed or experienced by the individual. Within personal change I want to make a further division between the change experienced through listening, and the change experienced through communicative agency as a community radio practitioner. On the community level again, separate consideration is given to the transformation taking place through the act of listening, and the change taking place through the practice of community radio presentation and participation. Put differently, a distinction is made between change through communication, that is, the gaining of information, knowledge and awareness, and change through the communicative act and the experience of making media in a community radio setting. In some ways these are arbitrary divisions and there are crossovers, but my rationale is to explore the experience of change and transformation both at the personal level, and at the community or societal level through the individual experience both of creating community media, and that of the individual listening to community radio. The cycle of transformation articulated in the first part of this chapter remains a factor in the points I am making here, as the outcomes of change as to diversity, cooperation and conflict. Additionally, there are instances of the promise of change not being fulfilled, and with that, associated disappointments and frustrations. Finally, in this section, I want to turn to the transformation of technology and the impact, or expected impact, of new technologies. The emergence, throughout this chapter, of community radio’s role as a change agent, peace builder and empowerer is hopefully made clear, in part, through the prism of critical PEofC, which draws our attention to the transformative potential of communication power that sits beyond profit imperatives. The Listener and Individual Impact The act of listening to community radio content often has practical, awareness-raising outcomes, as evidenced by many of the responses of the seventy participants of the listener questionnaire. Particularly on

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a personal level, listening can lead to individual engagement in global land rights struggles, or broad-based environmental movements and actions. Within the Timor-Leste case study of RCL, the radio had an initial unique role in the post-conflict environment of helping to establish peace and communicate peace to resistance fighters still living in the jungle. ‘In [such] turbulent times [it was] very difficult to communicate [with] each other. To establish peace at the time. [There was] no communication, no media. Even UNTAET radio [did] not exist at the time, so we agreed to establish this radio [station]’ (2014), explains RCL chairperson, Jacinto da Costa. While interviews were not conducted with those who have personal experience of listening at this time, we can expect that station broadcasts played a critical role. RCL’s first broadcasts were in May 2000, just six months after the violent departure of the Indonesian occupiers. The station was one of two community broadcasters established with the support of UNESCO—the other was at the opposite end of the country on the border to Indonesia in the town of Maliana. Newspaper reports in early 2001 noted that: ‘A community radio station is being used to counter propaganda from pro-Indonesia militia groups and convince thousands of refugees who fled Timor-Leste or were deported after the 1999 independence vote to return home’ (Dodd 2001). This role continues today as described by sector representative Prezado Ximenes: ‘the presence of community radio in Dili, it’s supporting the community to still keep peace, to still have confidence that we can say to people what we want’ (2014). Listening, in addition to voice, or as the ‘other side’ of voice, lacks analysis within community media scholarship. Tanya Dreher and others have done much to address this, and while listening is an important part of this research project, it is somewhat peripheral and lacks an appropriate depth of analysis. However, here, listening will be briefly addressed with the acknowledgement that further research would provide a deeper understanding. Dreher uses the term ‘political listening’ (2009) to complement ‘a voice that matters’ (Couldry 2010), and describes ‘the importance of attention and response, openness and recognition to complete the circuits of democratic communication’ (2012, p. 159). In the following section, I will focus more on the crucial role of listening for communicative democracy specifically within a community radio context. As mentioned earlier, listening is an important, but oft neglected, element of the communicative process.

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The connection between personal listening, and individual action and power, is apparent within the present-day RCL experience. Within the week of RCL program mapping, there was no dedicated environment program, but environmental issues were covered. For example, a feature was broadcast about the production of local soap and the benefits of local, sustainable products; another told the traditional, local story of where water comes from in the Lautem district, with the overriding message being that water is sacred and requires respect and protection; in news bulletins throughout the week there was information from the local agricultural department regarding the introduction of fences for livestock. For one listener, information broadcast on RCL regarding climate change has had a personal empowering impact: the experience of listening to the radio means we can change our minds and also understand a particular issue. My experience about an issue is, for example, receiving information about the impact of climate change and the environment, which often changes our thinking and mentality so that we act and think about the lives of future generations who can be more sustainable (RCL listener questionnaire participant #14).

On a more general level, another RCL listener expressed a desire to be involved ‘so that we can share individual people’s experiences’ in order to increase the number of people who have access to new information ‘so it can be an [opening] for their self-development in the future’. For present-day 3CR listeners, content provides vital information and detail about complex political, social and historical concerns that evidently enable and facilitate action and agency for some listeners. [3CR] has been responsible for giving us a REAL education when it comes to the issues faced by the First Peoples of this country (past, current— ongoing). Sadly, our formal schooling deprived us of truth and honesty over many years. The information we learned over time has allowed us to engage with First Peoples in what is hopefully a respectful manner and also to add our voice and physical presence to theirs when called for (3CR listener questionnaire participant #41).

Palestinian issues continue to be aired on 3CR, and within the on-air mapping period were covered on shows Palestine Remembered and Tuesday Hometime with content including: an interview with

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Palestinian-Australian-Canadian playwright Samah Sabawi on the Melbourne premiere of her play Tales of a City by the Sea; a discussion with Dr. Sam Bowker from Charles Sturt University on Islamic visual art; and visiting Palestinian woman Olfat Malmoud discussing the Palestine Women’s Humanitarian Organisation, a long-time partner of Apheda, Union Aid Abroad, which works in refugee camps in Lebanon. Clearly, this issue continues to resonate with listeners and in turn increases their engagement and action within the broader cause as described here: Listening to 3CR has made me more aware of the injustices experienced by Palestinians. This has led to me becoming more involved in the fight for justice for Palestinians. I have participated in a range of activities of Australians for Palestine, fundraised and visited Palestine and undertaken educational tours to better understand the issues and situation. Listening to Palestinians talking about their situation and listening to progressive commentators were important contributions to me understanding the issues and becoming involved (3CR listener questionnaire participant #53).

While changing attitudes and initiating action are outcomes indicated by the previous respondents, there is also evidence of a much deeper impact through the connection that community radio content can bring. Out of the Pan broadcaster and trans and gender diverse activist Sally Goldner recalls one such example: And someone could be listening in a country where it’s still very difficult to be trans, or for that matter gay, lesbian or bi or similar, and it could give that sense of hope and connectedness. And I do have an e-mail from early on in the show where someone was in a very bad mental health space, and found the show and it was a life turner (2014).

The act of individual listening in the community radio context has, through the examples above, considerable impact on the actions and lives of listeners. While the above cannot be taken as representative of a larger pool of listeners, it does provide evidence of the type of impact on-air broadcasts can have on listeners, and the relationship this has to the field of CfSC. It also raises questions around the type of listening enabled in the community radio space due to the political economy of the platform. Perhaps more than the politics of listening (Dreher 2009, 2010), which we will come turn to shortly, the issue of what and who can be listened to beyond commercial imperatives and neoliberal agendas remain paramount.

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Community Radio Practitioners and Personal Impact From the act of listening on an individual level, let us now turn to the act of making media, of producing community radio, and its impact on the personal level. This relates to the essence of CfSC theory, which describes how through access to community communication ‘people define who they are, what they want and how they can get it’ (Deane and Gray-Felder 1999, p. 8). Social change is defined as change in people’s lives as they themselves define such change. This work seeks particularly to improve the lives of the politically and economically marginalized, and is informed by principles of tolerance, self-determination, equity, social justice and active participation for all (Deane and Gray-Felder 1999, p. 8).

For Aboriginal activist and 3CR broadcaster Robbie Thorpe, the change experienced on a personal level continues to emerge and develop through his ongoing on-air programming with Fire First and other weekly shows: I’ve seen myself grow. When you’re on radio, you’ve gotta have something in your head to say. So that’s forcing me to think a little bit more, and be a little bit more […] conscientious about how I’m presenting myself. It’s making me think a lot more about what I say, and that’s growing me up, it’s made me a little bit wiser. I get so much out of this place. And you’re affecting people out there who are listening, ’cause I get comments from people. That’s so good to hear that, and it gives you heart (2014).

Current volunteer staff at RCL talked about the impact of their work at the station as content producers and presenters, and the effect it had on their skills and presence in the community. Romenia Mimosa (2014) spoke of having the opportunity to meet lots of people and to build her skills because of the need to communicate clearly with community members, particularly local government representatives. Julio Seixas and Ermelinda da Silva Pereira (2014) spoke of the experience they gained, but also the public profile they received from their activities at the station. Julio says: ‘normally, people don’t really know me. But when I came to the radio station, people began to know who I was’ (2014). Matt Gleeson, a 3CR volunteer programmer, expresses a similar sentiment: ‘it’s not so much a massaging of the ego, but it’s a real sense of accomplishment […] it gives me a sense of purpose and accomplishment’ (2014).

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Building confidence, experiencing personal growth and developing a public profile beyond the station are all common experiences that emerge from speaking to people at both stations. Volunteer programmers and presenters, who previously had no access or engagement in the production of radio, transform and gain power through the practice of media creation. This was also the experience of long-time volunteer Jan Bartlett. Well, when I came here, I had no confidence in myself at all, I was very meek and mild, I’m not meek and mild now […] just having the confidence to go on-air and to talk to people from all over the countries of the world, and just to know that when we go somewhere now, people know you, they say your name and they say you’re from 3CR, that’s a real buzz, because I don’t go around telling people what I do. And I just think it’s that confidence and knowledge that you’re sort of making a contribution to a better world (2014).

As I have discussed previously, particularly within the 3CR setting, the experience of engagement with the station can go well beyond personal development. For some participants, as I will explore further in Chapter 6, it initiates a type of political activation. For others, the individual experience of making media, of participating within a community radio organisation, provides a reason to live and to engage with the world, as 3CR station manager, Marian McKeown (2014), explains: And you see this transformation of people […] there are people here that […] didn’t have a reason to get out of bed each day, and then suddenly you’re programming and you have to be here at a certain time.

The particular experience of Dale Bridge is perhaps a more acute example, but nonetheless indicative of the possible personal impact and the individual transformation that community radio participation can bring. When asked, ‘reflecting on your involvement at the station—what have you got out of your experience?’, Dale shared the following: it would probably be easier to say what didn’t happen, OK, what didn’t happen, was that I stayed on the streets being a crack whore, what didn’t happen was hating this society that I wanted to take myself out of it. What didn’t happen was the lack of hope, the surrounding by cretinism. What didn’t happen, it didn’t get to me! You know. And that’s huge, ’cause we

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all have our ups and downs and you know, some people feel things more than others. But if it wasn’t for this place [3CR], I don’t know that I could’ve gotten through another summer […] this place makes you want to try, makes you want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem (2014).

Dale also speaks of the respect cultivated for other people within the space of 3CR that elsewhere is ‘really easily lost’, along with the passion of other presenters and programmers that inspires and moves her into action. From public recognition, to a sharpening of thought; from a reason to get out of bed in the morning, to a reason to live—active participation through making media in a community radio setting is transforming practitioners on a range of levels. For the field of CfSC, the examples build on the experience in other community radio settings, such as through ‘microradio as electronic activism’ in the United States (Howley 2000), or within the transition to democracy in Indonesia (Birowo 2010), or the democratisation of communication through community radio in Thailand (Elliott 2010), or the creation of a community public sphere (Meadows et al. 2005). At RCL and 3CR the range of uplifting feelings experienced by participants centres on the power gained through the making of media at the respective community radio station. Social Change Disappointments and Criticisms Yet the experience of engagement—even with the select participants at the two stations—is not always satisfactory, particularly as it relates to the expectation, and promise, of social change. As I noted earlier, community radio—as an international platform seeking change—has not been able to prevent the severe impacts of capitalism on the poor and marginalised in society, or to bring about lasting world peace or a deeply egalitarian society. While earlier it was also articulated, through the work of Clemencia Rodríguez, that it is unrealistic to expect community or citizens’ media to create a gaping crevasse in global capitalism or to systematically breakdown the injustices it brings, there is a promise of change, and perhaps a more significant change than has been outlined through the experiences above. When such change doesn’t manifest, people experience disappointment regarding the lack of impact of community radio. Early 3CR volunteer Chris Holliday explains:

144  J. FOX I suppose, perhaps naively, probably naively, my expectation of 3CR when I got involved and really for all of my involvement at 3CR up until 1987, was that it would aim to educate and convince and sway people to a more progressive viewpoint across all sorts of politics and social issues. And I suppose when I left I concluded that it wasn’t really doing that. It had become, and this is probably going to sound really harsh, it had become almost a safety valve for groups, and mainstream society would tolerate that safety valve being able to put programs to air. In some ways it’s safer to say something on-air rather than being out on the streets actually doing something about it. And that was I suppose my main criticism of 3CR by the late ’80s. I thought, and still believe, that it had been taken over by a small faction of the Left, in particular of the Labor Party, and it wasn’t particularly interested in educating, persuading, the broad population of Melbourne as to progressive causes (2014).

More recently participants have lamented the political nature of 3CR’s programming content—interestingly with two long-time volunteers criticising the station from two completely different perspectives. Jan Bartlett, on the one hand, sees that the station is ‘not quite as radical’ (2014) as it once was, while Greg Segal observes that the station is ‘on the fringe of even the thinking of people on the Left’, which ‘if there’s a threat to 3CR’s existence, that’s the one’ (2014). Other criticisms, that still pertain to people’s expectations of a community radio station as a place of change and transformation, relate to the station’s on-air sound, including issues of quality, as early volunteer Nancy Atkin describes: ‘sometimes I tune in to 3CR and I hear people who are just like left-wing Neil Mitchells [a Melbourne-based conservative commercial broadcaster]—I can’t bear listening to these opinionated macho men who think they know everything’ (2014). On another level, volunteer programmer Joe Toscano believes 3CR, and community radio in Australia more generally, is under-using its power through playing too much music. today 99% of community radio fills a niche, it doesn’t believe it has the power or the capacity to act as a battering ram on mainstream society. Now of all the programs I do, I’m not filling a niche. I’m there to actually […] create a battering ram to influence mainstream society (2014).

Disappointment was also expressed through the listener questionnaire participants at RCL, as well as some of the early volunteers. They raised

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concerns about the near absence of local language programming (there are many local languages in the Lospalos region including Papuan languages Fataluku and Makasae); a lack of local community news coverage; the absence of reporters at key community events; and a lack of enthusiasm by volunteer workers themselves. ‘When the radio first started […] those first few years were really active, and I saw many youth involved in the radio, and the programs were always changing […] Some programs are great, but nowadays when we listen, there aren’t many programs’ (RCL listener questionnaire participant #6). Early RCL volunteer Pedrucu da Cunha says that a station like RCL ‘should be the ears of the community, but now, I don’t know [if it is] closing off the opportunity for the community to be involved’ (2014). Here Pedrucu articulates the inclusive participatory model that he believes the station needs to be more active in: to gather people together to make a program in their presence. Get them, themselves, to discuss it, and the radio enables them to have a discussion. They have to ask each other, ‘Why is this like this?’ Then they themselves have to make a decision about how to develop their [village]. This is the type of program that the radio should be doing now (2014).

Many of these issues are related to a shortage of resources at the station, and within the community more broadly, but nonetheless they remain as disappointments from the listeners and volunteers with regard to the impact and ongoing function of the station. Certainly, this was not the overwhelming sentiment, and all listener questionnaire participants and early volunteers who criticised the station also praised the working of the station and its volunteer staff. But it is apparent that there was a range of expectations for change and transformation that, for now, the station has not been able to adequately provide. There is an expectation of change and of transformation from participants and listeners alike at both stations. While disappointment is not an overwhelming attitude, it is important to consider such sentiments, and to connect the disappointments both to the expectations associated with the form, and also to the limits and barriers presented by wider social, economic and political factors. This is not to say the study participants are not also aware of these limits—their responses strongly suggest they are—but it does raise questions about community radio’s potential impact, or not, under digital capitalism. This is a point I will continue to problematise in the coming chapters.

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Political Listening and Community Action While community radio listening, as outlined above, can result in profound impacts on an individual level, in this section I want to consider their outcomes on a wider community basis. What political or social concerns within society are raised for listeners, and how might they then manifest in community action, social change or the raising of community awareness and development? For RCL, participants strongly suggest that right from the outset the station’s content was contributing to critical listening and participation that in turn played a role in changes and developments within the small, local community. Early RCL volunteer programmer, Lolalina da Conceição Freitas explains: when it began, many things were lacking; it was hard to get information. But when the radio station was founded, things that happened in other places could quickly be broadcast on the radio. Also, at that time, when the ‘ema boot’ [leaders] wanted to share information, often they did it through the radio. And also, two-way communication: the people speak and the government responds. So, radio was like two-way communication (2014).

Current RCL program manager, Zesorot Delaserna, confirms the present-day role played by the station for listeners, and the intentional engagement that the station’s content is seeking with the local community: our radio’s objective is to broadcast information so that the whole community can be informed. This is the ultimate objective. When they are informed, they can participate in the development process […] because development is for the community. They can participate in this development based on the laws that exist and also based on their contribution (2014).

A local listener also tells a story of the impact of listening to particular issues and content, and the resulting focus on community-based issues of broader societal concern and the changes and transformations taking place within this emerging cycle of listening, awareness and action:

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the programs that are broadcast through Lospalos Community Radio motivate us, the listeners, to think about how we can take steps towards more positive behaviour, specifically in regards to the radio program, about how to reduce violence in society (RCL listener questionnaire participant #8).

For 3CR listeners, there are numerous anecdotes that illuminate the wider community impact of individual listening. Volunteer programmer Dale Bridge, who is a regular presenter on the station’s weekly Talkback with Attitude program, describes the process, as she sees it, that some listeners are engaged in: so many times, you hear people say, it’s like, I heard this, and it make me think, ‘What if…’ And then they’ve gone on to make their own research. And that makes a massive difference politically and socially, for an individual to be spurred into their own thought processes, to be spurred into their own research, you know, especially on a political level (2014).

Awareness raising, revelations with regard to corporate activities and listening that results in involvement in local social movements are all present within the listener questionnaires for the 3CR case study. As I mentioned earlier, no doubt many factors were at play with regard to some of the community action spurred on by community radio listening, nonetheless there is a direct correlation, in some instances, between individual listening and community action. The following provide two short examples: City Limits: Hearing how things are manipulated by politicians and corporate interests endeavouring to get their way. E.g. EW [East–West] tunnel. I have as a result managed to drag myself out of bed at 5am to protest against the drilling (3CR listener questionnaire participant #28). The coverage of the Community Picket at the docks in support of the MUA action […] I (sadly) missed the Friday night broadcasts but early Saturday morning Bill Hartley made the urgent call to ‘get down to the docks’—and the next 36 hours reinforced the effectiveness of united action by unions and the community (& encouraged since by other 3CR OBs [outside broadcasts]). 3CR’s direct coverage was critical to the public awareness of the issues—my own included (3CR listener questionnaire participant #30).

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The first example above is from the 2010s, and the second from the 1990s; interestingly, similar experiences are present from listeners and practitioners across the lifespan of 3CR, indicating that it is an ongoing outcome across a period of significant technological change in the media environment. One listener states: ‘Hearing 3CR for the first time (1978) was an awakening that set me on a life-long course of political activism […] [In] 1978 I became active in the movement against uranium mining, Friends of The Earth and other groups as a result of listening to 3CR.’ Within both case studies, listeners are motivated to engage and take action within their local communities by the community radio station’s on-air content. This might be through engaging with local issues and local government, addressing social problems within the community, or taking direct action in local disputes and social movements. The act of listening at the two stations manifests as a realm of political power, where listeners gain community knowledge that facilitates action and change within their own lives. I want to move now from individual listeners and their engagement with community action and other transformative practices, to the community radio practitioners, and their engagement with the wider community level via their community radio practice. Media-Makers and Social Movements For many community media practitioners, the act of determining and delivering their own media content via a community radio station is in itself an act of CfSC. Ben Rinaudo is one of the presenters on 3CR’s mental health program, a show produced by and for people with a lived experience of mental ill-health. the station is really a platform or a tool for activism to bring about social change. And you know, on the grid, so many programs are represented because the station is really on about giving voice to people who otherwise would be denied access to mainstream media and who are, particularly if I give Brainwaves as an example, people with mental illness are often negatively portrayed or prejudicially portrayed in the mass media (2015).

Communicative practice and the potential transformation experienced by practitioners within the 3CR example is also connected to my previous observations regarding diversity and cooperation. While the on-air

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presentation of radio is paramount, it is also exposure and collectivism as part of the broader station community that impacts practitioners and the communities more generally. Marian McKeown, 3CR station manager, says: I think the physical space of 3CR is really interesting and actually quite a unique place where you have all these different groups come together, and you can see people make connections with each other, different campaigns and different activists. And that’s a really crucial part of what we do as well, because we’re not just about broadcasting the news, or whatever, we actually are agents of social change (2014).

While ‘agents of social change’ may appear overstated, it is a sentiment presented by many of the interview participants who are community radio practitioners. Joe Toscano, from the Anarchist Media Institute and presenter of the weekly program Anarchist World This Week, describes the station’s potential role in social change in the following way: We at 3CR need to understand that we have a licence to mould opinion. We have a licence to change opinion, we have a licence to change the world. All the things I do I could not have been done without 3CR. And it’s the same with every other presenter. The things they do as individuals they could never have done without the power of radio. Because it’s so immediate. Bang! It is an exceptionally powerful medium. You know how the genocide was organised in Rwanda? Through radio. Simple (2014).

There is a level of frustration regarding the potential power that is yet to be used by 3CR as expressed above by Joe Toscano, yet other practitioners also provide examples of the impact their practice has already had on the community around them. Sally Goldner, a 3CR volunteer programmer, says: Coming back to Out of the Pan, at a time when trans voices in particular were not being represented, the fact that there was a space here for me. And now, last couple of years, particularly in the last 6 months, at the time of recording this, trans seems to be on a relative crest of a wave, but I would like to think that 3CR has helped build up the surf to that crest, because it wasn’t there for a long time. And now people are very much aware of the show (2014).

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The wider impact of community radio content, and its possible uptake by the mainstream, while not my primary focus here, is positively evidenced through numerous accounts from practitioners and listeners. This aligns with other scholarly observations, including Carpentier et al. who here describes the work of community media: the critical stance towards the production values of the ‘professional’ working in mainstream media leads to a diversity of formats and genres and creates room for experimentation with content and form. In this fashion, community media can be rightfully seen as a breeding ground for innovation, later often recuperated by mainstream media (2003, p. 57).

John Downing believes that radical alternative media serve as ‘developmental power agents’ as they are ‘much more central to democracy than commentators bemused by the easily visible reach and clout of mainstream media will typically acknowledge’ (2001, p. 44). Within the Timor-Leste context we can also see broader democratic practice and innovation in programming in action. Prezado Ximenes of the Association of Community Radio Timor-Leste describes the diverse activities emanating from youth involvement in community radio: We have programs like cleaning the city together, we have a program visiting orphans, we organise to get support from the community for them, like giving money or clothes or shoes or books and then we donate it to the orphans. I think in that way we change the young people, because they come from different places, they have their own problems but we involve them together, we develop our own plan together, and this helps us to get strong, and our community to get strong, through the radio station (2014).

Many Timor-Leste–based participants spoke of the ‘mental transformation’ at work through the creation and dissemination of information and knowledge via community radio in their country. The practice of community radio, many asserted, aimed to establish healthy and peaceful communities in order to build a strong democracy. Francisco da Costa Hornay explains the cycle of transformation this way: An important role is to cover information from the community and share it back to the community, then you become like a bridge of information and transformation in the social reconstruction (2014).

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Whether ‘agents of social change’, ‘developmental power agents’ or a bridge for ‘social reconstruction’, the role that community radio plays within CfSC—while varied—does in part manifest through the actual practice of producing community radio content. Technological Change and Its Impacts Before concluding this chapter, I want to return to the issue of technology—particularly as we are considering change and transformation in an era of such intense technological development. That said, it will by necessity be somewhat limited and focus on issues raised by the community radio practitioners themselves. I did not pose any direct questions to practitioners or listeners relating to issues of technology, so the following themes emerged more generally from the viewpoints they shared. While published in 2012, Bessire and Fisher’s assertion that ‘Radio is the most widespread electronic medium in the world today’ arguably remains true today. ‘Its rugged and inexpensive technology has become invested with new import in places on the other side of the “digital divide”, where topography, poverty, or politics limit access to television, computers, or electricity’ (Bessire and Fisher 2012, p. 1). Certainly, the experience in Timor-Leste, as discussed below, confirms this analysis. Equally, it remains necessary to consider the social shaping of technology, and the political and economic influences determining its development and use. A techno-determinist approach remains dominant in relation to communication technologies and their possible positive contribution to democracy, access and participation. The promise of new technologies in solving the world’s problems is ever-present, yet rarely materialises under the current system. As previously explored in Chapter 4, with regard to accessibility, radio remains a technology that is free and accessible to many. While this is generally considered to be most relevant in poor countries, it is also pertinent in a wealthy, large city such as Melbourne, Australia. Long-time 3CR technician Greg Segal reflects: it’s important to try and occasionally stop and think, hang on, in all this exercise, exactly what are we trying to achieve? We’re trying to get audio from point (a) to point (b)—is all this effort really worth it, given all the other technological options to achieve this? And I’m still able to convince myself, yes, because once it’s finished it’s simple to maintain and it’s cheap

152  J. FOX to run and it does the job. And the equipment that it’s going to use is very generic. And none of the other options that I can think of, tick all those boxes (2014).

That said, within the 3CR case study there is evidence of a widespread take-up of new technologies and diverse platforms for delivery and social media connections. The station has an active Facebook, Twitter and Instragram account, and distributes its programming online via podcasts available on its website and through iTunes and other podcast platforms, as well as audio on demand on its website. Live streaming as well as a digital DAB broadcast simulcasts the station content distributed via the 855AM frequency. As early volunteer programmer Bob Mancor observes: ‘It’s adaptive in a changing world, but I can’t see it being any less important’ (2014). Early 3CR station volunteer Nancy Atkin sees the benefit of using a variety of new technologies: It’s just fantastic to see that there’s still this important role for a whole different range of groups broadcasting on 3CR, and I think it’s really interesting how social media’s used to expand the audience […] The whole podcasting thing is fantastic because you can always go back and catch something that you haven’t heard. That’s really expanded the role, and got away from the problem that you can’t listen to two things at once (2014).

While the ‘death of broadcasting’ continues to be anticipated—although less so amidst the rise of the podcast and the revival of the vinyl record and cassette tape—little concern was expressed by participants at both stations as to the end of community broadcasting. Early 3CR volunteer Darce Cassidy observes: I don’t see the internet and all of that as being a huge threat to community radio at the moment. I guess there’s a potential for all sorts of things there, particularly if we were ever to lose the broadcasting licence, the station would have a means of existing via the Net. In a sense that gives us a plus, so I don’t really see all of those developments like the internet as being to our disadvantage. I think the station, as many other stations, are still proceeding quite well (2014).

The observations here point to community radio’s importance and relevance beyond technological advancements, and the ability of

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community-oriented research to reveal priorities and experiences beyond the digital. Of course, there is a real risk that community stations will lose their broadcast licences in the future if we look to the current experience of community television in Australia. In 2014 the federal government announced that licenced (full and trial) community television stations in five capital cities would no longer be allocated spectrum as of 2016; however, they would continue to hold a licence until 2019. Following a campaign from the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia and others, the timeline was extended until 2016, and then June 2017. Currently, community television licences have been extended to 2020 (C31 Melbourne 2018). However, the push to move these services to the internet remain, as does their future with regard to licensing and funding. Should the shift to the internet occur, the stations would no longer have access to publicly held television spectrum and therefore no longer be freely available to the community (ACTA 2016; C31 Melbourne 2016). In Timor-Leste, for now, there is little evidence to suggest that community radio stations would lose their access to FM spectrum. Additionally, access to new technologies remains a challenge in the Timor-Leste context, and for Francisco da Silva Gari of the Timor-Leste Media Development Center there is a range of factors to consider. ‘Well for me I think the new technology that’s introduced to the community in Timor-Leste on the one hand it’s bringing a good positive aspect which allows the people to communicate across a long distance, and to share information’ (2014). However, he explains that the 2010 census in Timor-Leste shows that radio was the most common way people accessed information. He also expresses a concern regarding the ‘individual links’ that new technology, as opposed to a community radio station, make within the community: When I say individual links, you’re sitting next to me, I don’t care who you are or what you’re doing, I’m communicating with my friend who I’m talking to at a long distance. And I make them close to me, and I make you far away from me. For me this is a big difference that I can see between a community radio station and a technology like Facebook. It’s totally different. I say big difference, also because, one, access to the internet is still a big challenge for people in the country, and, second, the number of literate people in the country is still low (2014).

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Francisco’s comments highlight the changing nature of rapidly expanding technology and its impact on communication. They also lead us to question what is at play with the growth of digital technologies—where does the power lie, as technologies are developed and expanded?

Summary From early CfSC literature, James Deane and Denise Gray-Felder, together with the Rockefeller Foundation, suggested a series of measurement indicators. The indicators would be used to assess the CfSC outcomes of, for example, community radio practice and production. • Expanded public and private dialogue and debate • Increased accuracy of the information that people share in the dialogue/debate • The means available that enable people/communities to feed their voices into debate and dialogue • Increased leadership and agenda setting role by disadvantaged people on the issues of concern • Resonates with the major issues of interest to people’s everyday interests • Linked people and groups with similar interests who might otherwise not be in contact (1999, pp. 21–22).

As articulated earlier, it is not my intention to formally ‘measure’ or assess outcomes from either 3CR or RCL; however, it is interesting to reflect on the original intentions and expected outcomes of the CfSC agenda in considering the idea of transformation and agency. From the indicators above, and the experiences described in this chapter, we can see that the community radio experience within RCL and 3CR has many elements of expanding access, participation, agency and community connections, with a particular focus on those marginalised by wider media arenas. The role of conflict, however, is not widely considered within CfSC literature and is deserving of further consideration within the field. Hopefully the articulations here with regard to the cycle of transformation that includes diversity, cooperation and conflict have provided some original findings and perspectives to elaborate and expand on the understanding of CfSC and the role of conflict within that.

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156  J. FOX Couldry, N. (2010). Why voice matters: Culture and politics after neoliberalism. London, UK: Sage. da Conceição Freitas, L. (2014). Research interview with RCL volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 28 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. da Costa Hornay, F. (2014). Research interview with RCL station manager by Juliet Fox, 25 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. da Costa, J. (2014). Research interview with RCL chairperson by Juliet Fox, 28 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. da Cunha, P. (2014). Research interview with RCL volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 7 August 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. da Silva Gari, F. (2014). Research interview with Timor-Leste community radio sector representative by Juliet Fox, 20 July 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. da Silva Pereira, E. (2014). Research interview with RCL staff member and volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 29 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. Deane, J., & Gray-Felder, D. (1999). Communication for social change: A position paper and conference report. New York, NY: The Rockefeller Foundation. de Araújo, A. (2014). Research interview with RCL station manager by Juliet Fox, 7 August 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. Delaserna, Z. (2014). Research interview with RCL program manager by Juliet Fox, 26 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. Dodd, M. (2001, January 30). Radio fights campaign of fear as East Timor faces loss of security forces. Sydney Morning Herald, p. 8. dos Santos Soares, L. E. (2014). Research interview with Timor-Leste community radio sector representative by Juliet Fox, 21 July 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. Downing, J. (2001). Radical media: Rebellious communication and social movements. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Dreher, T. (2009). Listening across difference: Media and multiculturalism beyond the politics of voice. Continuum, 23(4), 445–458. Dreher, T. (2010). Speaking up or being heard? Community media interventions and the politics of listening. Media, Culture and Society, 32(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443709350099. Dreher, T. (2012). A partial promise of voice: Digital storytelling and the limits of listening. Media International Australia, 142, 157–166. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1329878X1214200117. Dutta, M. J. (2011). Communicating social change: Structure, culture, and agency. New York, NY: Routledge. Elliott, P. W. (2010). Another radio is possible: Thai community radio from the grass roots to the global. Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media, 8(1), 7–22. https://doi.org/10.1386/rjao.8.1.7_1. Figueroa, M. E., Kincaid, D. L., Rani, M., & Lewis, G. (2002). Communication for social change: An integrated model for measuring the process and its

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outcomes. New York, NY: The Rockefeller Foundation and Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs. Foley, G. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 28 May 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Gleeson, M. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 26 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Goldner, S. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Gwilliam, H. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer and management committee member by Juliet Fox, 11 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Havana, T. (2014). Research interview with RCL volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 23 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. Holliday, C. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer technician and committee member by Juliet Fox, 4 March 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Howley, K. (2000). Radiocracy rulz. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(2), 256–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/136787790000300214. Mancor, B. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 6 May 2014, Geelong, Australia. McKeown, M. (2014). Research interview with 3CR station manager by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Meadows, M., Forde, S., Ewart, J., & Foxwell, K. (2005). Creating an Australian community public sphere: The role of community radio. Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media, 3(3), 171–187. https:// doi.org/10.1386/rajo.3.3.171_1. Millear, A. (2015). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 14 April 2015, Melbourne, Australia. Mimosa, R. (2014). Research interview with RCL staff member and volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 29 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. Mouffe, C. (2000). The democratic paradox. New York, NY: Verso. Mouffe, C. (2005). On the political. London, UK: Routledge. National Statistics Directorate & United Nations Population Fund. (2011). Population and housing census of Timor-Leste, 2010. Volume 2: Population Distribution by Administrative Areas. Dili, Timor-Leste: National Statistics Directorate & United Nations Population Fund. Putnam, R. (1993). The prosperous community: Social capital and public life. The American Prospect, Spring, pp. 35–42. Rinaudo, B. (2015). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 14 April 2015, Melbourne, Australia. Rodríguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the mediascape: An international study of citizens’ media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

158  J. FOX Segal, G. (2014). Research interview with 3CR technical coordinator by Juliet Fox, 28 August 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Thorpe, R. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Timor-Leste Government. (2011). National Conference on Community Radios. Viewed 27 December 2015, http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=5664&print=1&l ang=en. Toscano, J. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 10 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. van Vuuren, K. (2002, May). Beyond the studio: A case study of community radio and social capital. Media International Australia, 103, 94–108. Ximenes, P. (2014). Research interview with Timor-Leste community radio sector representative by Juliet Fox, 19 July 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. Zangalis, G. (2001). From 3ZZ to 3ZZZ: A short history of ethnic broadcasting in Australia. Fitzroy, VIC, Australia: Ethnic Public Broadcasting Association of Victoria.

CHAPTER 6

Reality Reconstruction and Resistance to Hegemony

The media, in all its forms, is increasingly a primary space through which reality is created, presented and reflected. Neoliberalism relies on communication networks to perpetuate strategic messages that prioritise the benefits of markets and free trade, and downplay neoliberalism’s ongoing, negative structural effects. For many people, especially those marginalised by social, political and economic factors, life presented in the media through television, radio, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, newspapers or magazines does not represent their reality. In fact, quite often it is in stark contrast to their experiences and the world they see, touch and feel. Why does this matter? In this chapter I want to focus on the importance of ‘voice’, and how it is necessary for an individual to be present in the world, and be represented in the world. As Christian Fuchs notes: Communication is the way that humans relate to each other in a symbolic way in order to interpret the social world, make sense of each other, construct joint meaning, and transform social reality. Communication is a complex, nonlinear process of reflection (2016, p. 37).

Since its inception community radio, in theory and often in practice, has taken up this mantra to provide a space for diverse realities to be presented, and unheard voices to be broadcast. In this chapter I want to engage again with the theory of political economy of communication (PEofC) as utilised by Fuchs above, together with Clemencia © The Author(s) 2019 J. Fox, Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17316-6_6

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Rodríguez’s ‘fracturing of the symbolic’, to understand the experience at the two case studies in relation to reality reconstruction and resistance to hegemony. Do the stations present alternative viewpoints through their on-air content, and if so, how are these experienced by the listening community? How do practitioners experience the communicative practice of creating their own reality through the radio medium? Selfrepresentation emerged strongly as a theme within the case studies, where control of the airwaves provides an opportunity for diverse identities to be developed and articulated. Alongside community radio’s role in reality construction, and reconstruction, come the stations’ roles in resisting dominant paradigms, presenting dissenting voices and engaging listeners in counter-hegemonic thought and action.

Symbolic Fracturing ‘Cultural codes and social discourses’ are used to describe the sets of symbols and processes that individuals and communities use to make sense of their worlds. Through these labels and grids, reality is constructed, or perhaps reconstructed: that is, rather than creating society, codes and discourses re-create it, as ‘these structures which pre-exist us are only reproduced or transformed in our everyday activities’ (Bhaskar 1989, p. 4). Dominant paradigms, stereotypes and hegemonic discourses inevitably emerge within the jostle of signs and symbols that seek to bring order to the world. Consequently, the cultural codes and social discourses come to represent power within society, and often fail to reflect those most marginalised within the communities. Within a citizens’ media framework, ‘symbolic fracturing’ describes the process whereby ‘symbolic resistance and contestation can potentially take place’ (Rodríguez 2001, p. 151) against these hegemonic discourses. This might take the shape of recoding, reprioritising, relabelling and fracturing of the dominant symbols. In the following section I want to discuss three separate categories that emerged from the data. First, and most prominently, is the recoding that occurs within the presentation and reception of alternative viewpoints that are produced and broadcast at the two case studies. Second, the creation of a ‘reality’ is revealed as central to community radio practice, together with the experience that brings for both the practitioner and the listener. Third, self-representation and identity formation emerge as fundamental within the practice of building new meanings and challenging existing paradigms.

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Alternative Viewpoints The representation of alternative viewpoints within community radio is relatively well studied, frequently with positive outcomes, but sometimes with disappointing results: while community media maintain their intention to present ‘other’, ‘different’, ‘alternative’ or even ‘radical’ reporting on issues, at times they are unsuccessful. This has been documented within community radio in Ireland (O’Brien and Gaynor 2012), East Africa (Conrad 2014) and Australia (Anderson 2015), as well as in alternative media more generally (Groshek and Han 2011; Atton and Wickenden 2005). The success, or otherwise, of the two case studies in presenting ‘alternative viewpoints’ is not at the centre of my concern here. Within the 3CR example, it is evident through the listener, practitioner and content mapping that there is considerable ‘alternative’ coverage of issues and a diversity of voices. Whether this is sufficient or successful is not my focus. The case of RCL presents a problem with regard to a discussion of ‘alternative viewpoints’, as it is the only local broadcaster in the region. When there is, in effect, no coverage of local issues, is it then accurate to label any coverage as ‘alternative’? That is, ‘alternative’ to what? The experience at the RCL case study does reveal alternative viewpoints, as discussed below, with the caveat that they are not seeking to provide an ‘alternative’ perspective to other media representations, and therefore the very notion of the station providing an ‘alternative’ stance to other media is out of place. However, the example highlights the need to consider community radio in and of itself, rather than comparing it with other media outlets. Certainly, the station is performing a role in presenting information and creating knowledge that is often ‘alternative’ to the community held views on particular issues. As we shall see the RCL example in this section does illuminate how locally produced and presented content via a community radio station creates a reality for listeners and practitioners that was previously missing. Turning first to 3CR, a number of issues emerged from listeners with regard to ‘alternative viewpoints’ presented on-air. These included exposure to new or different ideas unheard elsewhere; exposure to information that recoded or redefined existing knowledge; and coverage of issues that ruptured existing understandings and shattered current views held. Exposure to issues not covered elsewhere is described here by three 3CR listeners covering topics ranging from international politics to diverse sexualities, from bike riding to nuclear testing:

162  J. FOX 3CR gives me information that I do not get elsewhere. Two issues very important to me: cruel treatment of refugees and inhumane wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (3CR listener questionnaire participant #26). shows about pan/transsexual issues and the Yarra bike group show. I would have never heard of them without 3CR (3CR listener questionnaire participant #15). Many of the historical programs ‘lift the lid’ on issues that have never been addressed e.g. nuclear testing in the Pacific, the toxic dump at Mukaty and the analysis of economic issues (3CR listener questionnaire participant #3).

The first listener above draws our attention to how mass media coverage of refugees or wars in Iraq or Afghanistan certainly exists, but the community radio coverage depicts the ‘cruel’ and ‘inhumane’ nature of these situations. The implication is that the coverage provides a different angle, another viewpoint. At RCL, listeners described coverage of climate change information as an example of content they had not received elsewhere. Issues that RCL covered within the week mapped—such as the introduction of fencing for animal stock, the legal requirement for motor bike helmets, or the unacceptability of violence against women— are all topics that could be received as ‘alternative’ to the local listener— that may challenge their current understanding on an issue. Recoding or redefining knowledge is described by one 3CR listener as a ‘re-education’, as previously they had relied on opinions from ‘experts’ such as politicians and academics: ‘3CR has helped me to have a critical ear and mind. I now appreciate that a community voice often speaks about the “true” experience’. Content that redefines people’s knowledge is not always in relation to new and radical thoughts, but sometimes simply a critical analysis of a current issue, as this listener experienced: ‘I was made more aware of the shortcoming of the 2014 horror budget’ (3CR listener questionnaire participant #39). One RCL listener described the radio content as ‘our guide to information, and they exchange ideas with us, the listeners’ (RCL listener questionnaire participant #12), highlighting not only the educational but also dialogic role the local broadcaster is playing. While 3CR prioritises giving Indigenous, or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, people a voice, within that community it is the marginalised, alternative voices that are heard: ‘3CR represents an alternative voice other than the mainstream Aboriginal people that you’re hearing. And they’ve had it all their own way, they’re government backed employees, whereas we’re community people who’ve been denied

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resources, so it’s a breath of fresh air for us’, says volunteer programmer Robbie Thorpe (2014). Some 3CR listeners describe the rupturing, or disruption, of social knowledge in relation to contested political struggles both locally and nationally. Rodríguez notes that a ‘community can be oppressed not only by exploiting its labour force, but also through the imposition of symbolic systems’ and that democratic struggle thereby necessarily includes ‘practices of dissent in the realm of the symbolic’ (2001, p. 20). The struggle for Tamil independence is one such example, as described here by a 3CR listener: Hearing Tamil Manifest on Saturday afternoons made me aware of what was happening in Sri Lanka. While the mainstream media played the game of ‘objectivity’ in covering the conflict, or simply failed to cover the atrocities, listening to Tamil Manifest exposed me to the truth about the Sri Lankan government’s brutal assault on the Tamil territories and the true extent of the atrocities (3CR listener questionnaire participant #24).

The alternative coverage of community issues on-air is also observed by practitioners themselves, as the station engages with coverage of political struggles and social movements, as outlined here by early 3CR volunteer programmer Sue Blackburn: I mean of course the anti-freeway movement got a fair bit of publicity at that moment because there were protests and a lot of demonstrations and so on, but the mass media would report it in a certain way, in a pretty sensationalist and just grabbing the bits where there was anything that looked like it was violent […] and you never really got extended access to the people involved, and why they were doing it, and the range of people who were involved. So it was important for 3CR to do, and very interesting to listen to (2014).

Additionally, alternative coverage fosters a capacity among volunteer programmers to critically analyse and actively engage with recoding and rupturing hegemonic knowledge systems. Berta at 3CR notes that her practice at the station enabled her ‘to look beyond my areas of interest and then acknowledge that there are other things going on […] To be analytical—to look at the story, beyond the story’ (2014). It is clear that alternative content is closely connected to the unique stance community radio is able to take in countering neoliberal agendas

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and determining community priorities beyond profits and ratings. Volunteer programmer and Committee of Management member at 3CR Helen Gwilliam notes, for example, that there is a growing awareness of the rights and interests of people with a disability, along with better representation, in the mass media. However, she also observes that it’s ‘the first thing that gets cut’: disability programming never survives, there’s not yet enough stickability to say people with disabilities are fully paid up members of the human race who should be seen and heard all the time […] I think it will only really survive in places like 3CR […] there’s practical support that’s required to do that kind of programming and I just don’t see where else it will happen consistently, because the mission of 3CR is so much about enabling diversity and different voices, and also representing these political challenges (2014).

Community radio is active in creating content based on a set of priorities collectively conceptualised by those marginalised within society, thus breeding innovation and democratic practices as noted in the previous chapter. For RCL listeners we also hear the importance of information being ‘new’, and ‘not heard elsewhere’, which resonates with the 3CR experience, as these two short examples show: RCL share[s] a lot of information, so I like to listen to it, and information that you don’t [otherwise] hear, they can deliver on the radio (RCL listener questionnaire participant #2). Yes, I think that since RCL has been active in this district, it really has helped the people, because they get good information from the radio, and also information that’s new to them (RCL listener questionnaire participant #3).

Whether it be simply ‘new’ information that is not presented elsewhere, or content that exposes the listener to different viewpoints, on-air at both stations, listeners are exposed to ‘alternative viewpoints’ that challenge or reconfigure existing knowledge. Both ‘recode’ general understandings of what media is in a number of ways, beginning with their presence in the community. As Foxwell observes: ‘Community radio stations challenge the power of the

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mainstream media via their mere existence and through their operations’ (2012, p. 142). RCL and 3CR, through their policies and structural practices, redefine ideas about who gets to speak, what issues are covered and what topics are prioritised in the media. As already described, they challenge ideas of professionalism as they relate to the media environment by giving airtime to ‘ordinary’ voices—including, within the 3CR example, those with heavy accents, women, young people, very old people and people with disabilities. Early station volunteer Nancy Atkin recalls hearing about the station in 1976: I was completely astonished. I remember hearing about it in the staff room and thinking that’s really weird having a radio station that’s just got ordinary people making programs—how is it possible? Surely you can’t go on the radio without being really highly trained in how to speak and what to say? (2014).

3CR has a unique, democratic, representative structure that in effect redefines what a media outlet is and how it is run. Evidently this is not without its closures and obstacles, yet the station is truly owned and operated by the community, for the community. It is clearly inclusive and collaborative which requires a high level of cooperation as described here by station manager Marian McKeown (2014): all of those sub committees are making decisions about their work areas and those decisions go through to CoM [Committee of Management] where we again get a group of people that sort of have oversight or get to have a say whether that’s a decision the station makes. It’s never just one person who makes a decision, it’s a whole range of people make it and have input, and it might get changed along the way.

RCL is also commonly run and owned by and for the community, with a board overseeing the station’s operations and no single entity or organisation controlling the station. For many of the RCL practitioners, receiving media training and resources, presenting programming on-air and becoming a journalist were an unexpected opportunity. Many of the early staff members have gone to be journalists or media professionals in the nation’s capital, Dili. The presence of the station from the year 2000 and the possibility that local people could be trained and present live radio to their community challenged the local population’s ideas

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about what media was, where information came from, and who did— and didn’t—have the authority to make and disseminate ‘the news’. This was not without its (ongoing) challenges. During my time as a volunteer at the station in 2001–2002, the station covered a controversial local issue in its daily news bulletin. As a consequence, some locals arrived to throw stones at the station, claiming that the content on-air had taken sides, when in fact it had outlined both sides. This highlighted the lack of general community understanding—and the need for wider socialisation—regarding the role of the local broadcaster and the media more broadly. The listener and practitioner experiences at both case studies demonstrate how ‘alternative viewpoints’ manifest through community radio practice. Let us now consider the impact of community radio practice on people’s realities and how it enables their worlds to be reflected back to them.

Reality and the World Reflected Within the discussion on ‘alternative viewpoints’, I noted listeners’ experiences of hearing information that disrupted their current knowledge. Here I want to consider such disruption, along with recoding and relabelling, in relation to people’s construction of reality, as well as the role of the community broadcaster in reflecting people’s realities back to them. As already observed, Rodríguez describes the fracturing of the symbolic that can involve ‘selecting, rejecting, reaccommodating, and reappropriating […] relabelling the world, reorganising reality, and reconstituting a new order where preestablished social and cultural codifications of power cease to make sense’ (2001, p. 151). In 1971 Berger and Luckmann described how reality is constructed and outlined that the ‘sociology of knowledge’ must analyse the process in which this occurs: ‘It is from Marx that the sociology of knowledge derived its root proposition—that man’s consciousness is determined by his social being’ (Berger and Luckmann 1971, p. 17). While the assertion that ‘human thought is founded in human activity’ (Berger and Luckmann 1971, p. 18) forms part of the basis for understanding reality here, it is the everyday practice and the social construction of reality (Berger and Luckmann 1971, p. 27) that are of concern in examining community radio practice and engagement.

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Reality is socially defined. But the definitions are always embodied, that is, concrete individuals and groups of individuals serve as definers of reality. To understand the state of the socially constructed universe at any given time, or its change over time, one must understand the social organization that permits the definers to do their defining (Berger and Luckmann 1971, p. 134).

In considering the construction, and reconstruction of reality, we necessarily need to contemplate issues of political economy and power, and the role that community radio seeks to play in giving ‘ordinary’ people the power to determine their own stories, present their own realities and have their worlds’ reflected back to them and their communities. Before turning to some of the data from both case studies where ‘reality’ arose as a key theme, it is necessary to consider more closely the process of ‘socially constructed reality’: the relationship between individuals and the social world, between producer and product, and the dialectic nature of the interaction. The process of reality construction—of product acting back upon producer—involves a ‘dialectical process’ of ‘externalisation and objectivation’ then internalisation and subsequent socialisation of the new reality into one’s consciousness (Berger and Luckmann 1971, pp. 78–79). The media play a central role within this process through legitimising realities, institutionalising ideas and theories, confirming social orders, crystallising and stabilising society’s signs and language (Berger and Luckmann 1971, p. 53), and providing the intersubjectivity, typifications and temporality to socially construct reality. With this in mind, let us consider the role and impact of community radio on the construction, and reconstruction, of the realities of those involved. RCL program manager Zeserot Delaserna speaks of the station’s role in presenting ‘the real situation that is happening’ in the community: Our work can only be based on the experience we have and that links to the current reality. Through the reality that we see, we hear, we smell, we feel—this is what we use when we sit together with all of our members to create a program that responds or corresponds to this reality (2014).

Both the construction and the reflection of reality is central to Zeserot’s understanding of the role of RCL. Early station manager Alfredo de Araújo (2014) spoke of the station’s first broadcast in May 2000

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covering the collapse of a local bridge after heavy rains, literally reflecting the physical, local reality facing the community. One RCL listener observed that: ‘They can find out information about the current situation in the district or nationally or even in other countries. So, this is good information for our fellow citizens and our elderly people in the rural areas’. While such presentations of reality may seem simplistic with their literal representations of local occurrences, simultaneously we can see that the station contributes to the construction, development and socialisation of a local community’s knowledge and understanding of itself. Within the Timor-Leste case study, the construction and reflection of reality is often focused on the role the station plays in building society and community. RCL volunteer programmer Pedrucu da Cunha describes the ‘real role’ of community radio as ‘a guide’ ‘at the forefront of the community’, while also acknowledging its critical role in reflecting the community’s reality: ‘When there was an issue that affected the community, but was hidden, we always looked for a way to, not get justice, but the truth’ (2014). Further to this, RCL station manager Francisco da Costa Hornay describes the role of the content distributed via RCL this way: I think the objective is about how to spread the truth to our communities so they can increase their knowledge. So that they can become more knowledgeable, can change their mentality with all the information we give to them. [This is] so that we can achieve our vision which is to establish communities full of peace, healthy [communities] (2014).

Within a poor nation, community radio inevitably takes on a development focus, particularly with regard to pressing health issues. As Timor Leste Media Development Center’s Francisco da Silva Gari describes: they encourage the community to ask parents to bring their children to school, and also to teach them how to keep healthy, and have good hygiene. For example, to wash their hands before eating, things like that. The stations also share information about diseases that are of big concern in the country, like TB [tuberculosis] issues, and the HIV virus, which has now spread in the community. So people can also listen into this information from the radio station (2014).

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Local and international NGOs have long recognised the key role that a trusted local broadcaster can play in disseminating information and educating the community on health and other concerns (Lennie and Tacchi 2001; Tacchi 2002, 2008; UNESCO 2013). Equally, however, the information shared is about the role communication plays within the construction of meaning, of cultural norms and of society. Within the 3CR case study there are numerous examples of reality reconstruction, which inevitably overlap with considerations around rupture and recoding, or even transformation and communicative agency. However, in the following section the examples will focus on the social process of reality construction—the dialectic cycles of externalisation, objectivation and internalisation that form part of the process of communication for social change (CfSC). Here, a listener’s understanding was altered, and a new social reality constructed, through the diversity of information they heard on-air: On 3CR I heard coverage of the Hazelwood coal mine fire, big protests against coal seam gas, efforts to stop the SPC cannery closing, Aboriginal campaigns to stop nuclear waste dumps, there are so many […] It changed my sense of the political dynamics in society. You don’t realise from other media how active people are in their communities and just how much work is being done to turn society in a better direction (3CR listener questionnaire participant #25).

In the same way that the transformative experiences outlined in the previous chapter cannot be attributed to one single event, it is unlikely that radio listening was the sole factor in the impact described above. Yet the experience of the 3CR listener above does point to the significant role played by the community radio station in reorganising their reality. Similarly, below, for the disability community, 3CR has played a role in both presenting the realities of people with disabilities and providing listeners with exposure to new realities, as broadcaster and disability advocate Amanda Millear outlines: It’s got the members of Raising our Voices [a 3CR show that is produced and presented by people with a disability]—something that they can live by, something to look forward to and something to do and get involved and all of this. It gives an extra arm and a leg, it allows them to be involved and be creative. It’s like—‘Hey, what’s this magnificent world?’ And they

170  J. FOX go tripping into it, and they go, ‘Oh, this looks good. I might join it. A voice on the airwaves? Ooh, very good. I like this!’ And it also allows on the other end as being a listener too. ‘Oh, what’s this? Voices of people with disabilities on 3CR? Ooh! That’s a new world’ (2015).

For programmer and committee member Helen Gwilliam, 3CR is ‘a kind of touch stone of reality to be honest’: it’s just a way of meeting people and staying aware of issues that you wouldn’t otherwise know about when you work 9 to 5 and you have a good job, which I do have. It could all be very easy and you could just kind of do your own thing. So for me it’s much more about ‘back to reality’, 3CR, and the rest of the world is kind of about earning a living (2014).

Berta, Armenian program volunteer at 3CR, felt that engagement at the station off-air expanded her reality: ‘it’s amazing when you realise over time there are so many topics, so many things, that just don’t get registered anywhere else’ (2014). Early union programmer on 3CR Ian Bolton describes how ‘you watch the television, you listen to the radio, and it’s another world and you don’t expect to be there’, and points to the reality presented in the late 1970s by working people and unionists on-air: it was the first time ever you’d had trade unions on […] those blokes had fought to get a civilised way of working and regular work instead of that casual labour that used to be on the ships. And they used to tell some great stories. They were all real, it was good. Reality. And the plumbers had their show, there was a whole range of workers who had their own shows (2014).

Ian further articulates this in Radical Radio: Celebrating 40 Years of 3CR: Any time there was a strike or other issue it was always grossly distorted by the mass media … and the fact that we could give out the real news and what was happening behind the scenes to our members and other listeners was a great asset. For the first time in history workers could broadcast their own news and culture, free from censorship (2016, p. 16).

For early 3CR programmer Sue Blackburn the station enabled her, having recently moved to Melbourne, ‘to hear what was happening in all kinds of nooks and crannies […] which gave you a really different insight

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into the city. I mean I just learnt so much about Melbourne from being involved in the station’. The realisation of the breadth of musical talent and performance was one element of ‘insight’ that Sue was exposed to, as she discovered via the radio just ‘how much Australian music there was around which you never got to hear otherwise unless you actually went to concerts, or pubs where they played’ (2014). The station’s role in constructing and reflecting reality is not, of course, necessarily a consistently positive experience, and volunteer programmer Dale Bridge describes how a ‘smug sense of “I’ve got the real news”’ comes together with ‘a desperation, realising how little real news most people are getting’ (2014). 3CR listeners also experience a sense of receiving ‘real coverage’, for example of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) dispute in 1998: ‘That powerful coverage gave us no option but to join that struggle which involved people from all walks of life to support MUA workers’ (3CR listener questionnaire participant #41). There is also a sense of hearing from ‘real people’: ‘3CR constantly makes me more aware about an issue. I get to hear about the finer details and about the debate from many sides, from real people telling their story about how issues affect them directly’ (3CR listener questionnaire participant #54). Within both of the case studies, the role the radio played in people’s construction, and reconstruction, of reality, along with its function of reflecting diverse realities, emerged as a key issue and theme. It is one that closely connects to my next thematic focus of self-representation and identity formation, and how community radio facilitates their unique permutations.

Self-Representation and Identity More than other media entities, community radio stations have a focus, in theory, on the role that media self-representation plays within the empowerment of communities and individuals. Again, at the two stations, this manifests in different ways. For 3CR, an incredible diversity of voices and issues is frequently ‘self-represented’ by the communities themselves—be it Tamil, trans and gender diverse or those with a lived experience of mental ill-health. For RCL, ‘self-representation’ takes on the form of ‘ordinary’ community members in contrast to ‘ema boot’ (Tetum for ‘important people’), and in this way the station ‘self-represents’ the local community. In both instances, self-representation—both

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the act of, and the listening to—contribute to individual and collective identity formation through communicative practice within the community radio environment, and their articulation on the airwaves. The theoretical and philosophical approaches to the field of ‘experience’ are many, and raise issues about authenticity, subjectivity, embodiment, exteriority and interiority. The approach taken here is positioned within an understanding that the narrative dimension of self is both ‘intersubjectively grounded yet individually experienced’ (Couldry 2010, p. 96). As with Couldry, the account of voice here starts from ‘a notion of embodied experience that emerges through an intersubjective process of perception and action, speech and reflection’ (2010, p. 96). This approach, as outlined in Chapter 3, is informed by ideas of power, action, consciousness, freedom and democracy (Butler 2005; Cavarero 2005; Freire 1972; Sen 1999). Self-representation through voice emerges as a special aspect of the community radio environment, within which structure, community engagement and democratic intention determine that people are able to speak for themselves. This requires space, politics, material resources and intentional time to facilitate the self-production of self-representation. Clemencia Rodríguez describes the impact of such engagement as observed within citizens’ media settings in Colombia: ‘Social change happens as each participant explores new ways of being, facilitated by the new ethos they are able to inhabit and embody’ (2011, p. 114). A focus on self-representation within CfSC also acknowledges the ‘capacity of marginalised communities to consciously and strategically participate in processes of change that are meaningful to them’ (Dutta 2011, p. 3). For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programmers at 3CR, self-representation is paramount, and contributes to the prioritisation of key progressive Aboriginal concerns over the airwaves, and within the station itself. This is apparent in a range of ways, including on-air acknowledgements of Aboriginal sovereignty across a diverse range of programming, an Aboriginal flag in the window, and a preamble approved for the station’s new Memorandum of Association, or Constitution: Community Radio Federation Limited acknowledges that at the time of European invasion the totality of lands now known as Victoria were occupied by sovereign Indigenous nations who owned, cared for and

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enjoyed them in accordance with their laws, customs and traditions. The Indigenous nations’ sovereignty as well as their peoples’ right of ownership, occupation, use and enjoyment of lands have not been ceded (3CR Community Radio 2016).

In addition, a range of weekly programs on-air are produced and presented by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander broadcasters, as well as a series of annual events, including the Beyond the Bars prison series, and Invasion Day commemorations on 26 January each year (otherwise known as Australia Day). Fire First programmer Robbie Thorpe states: We get a good go here, we’re one percent of the population, Aboriginal people, we’ve got roundabout ten one-hour programs. That’s an incredible percentage of the air-time here and that’s the nature of the place (2014).

For early RCL program maker Lolalina da Conceição Freitas, station content provided important opportunities for certain sectors of the community to communicate their concerns and issues. Lian Feto Kinamoko was an RCL-produced radio series that featured ‘stories about women’s participation in the war’ and heard ‘their demands of the Timor-Leste state’. Youth and children’s voices, self-representing their experiences and expectations, both of the time of occupation but also of their developing nation, were also important for Lolalina, ‘because they represent the peoples’ qualities at that moment in time’ (2014). Louie Tabing, who was involved in establishing RCL as an adviser, stressed the simplicity of self-representation within the community radio form in his early training sessions at the station: Because radio is simply people talking with people. And that you just have to be you, be new and be true. Be yourself, say something that people would like to listen to, [that] would benefit the people. Things like that. Very simple, non-academic instructions that we gave them (2014).

This emphasis on self-representation, while simple, does present as a unique opportunity with significant consequences. For programmer Dale Bridge, who was homeless and living on the street, community radio went beyond a basic representation of her, and her reality.

174  J. FOX I’ve never been represented in the mainstream media. Well, obviously because it goes against their agenda to represent people like me with any sense of positivity, and to find that 3CR not only wants to present the differences, to have all the differences put next to each other, but to celebrate them as well (Bridge 2014).

From its beginnings 3CR was a multilingual broadcaster—not without its problems, as already noted—but the point of difference with regard to self-representation is noted by early programmer Sue Blackburn: ‘Of course there were other stations where you could hear multilingual programs but here were these groups making their own programs’ (2014). Broadcaster with program Brainwaves Ben Rinaudo saw the benefit of self-representation and applied for a program on 3CR with the aim of: raising awareness about mental illness, reducing stigma and discrimination and breaking down barriers because, the literature and the research says that a meaningful way to do that is through having contact with people who have experienced mental illness themselves. And so hence why [the Brainwaves program is] peer-led and peer-run. So, the whole show is entirely produced and delivered by people with lived experience of mental ill-health (2015).

Similarly, identity and connection are uniquely fostered and facilitated in the community radio environment, as described here by volunteer programmer Helen Gwilliam: I have a disability, and then I moved out quite quickly into mainstream schooling and you kind of drift away from your identity. You’re still someone with a disability, but it becomes less acknowledged because you’re passing exams or you’re getting a job and all that kind of stuff. And to me 3CR’s provided a way that I don’t get in the rest of my life, to kind of come back and be with people that I still feel a strong affinity with, even though my life is in many ways much more privileged, so that’s been very important to me (2014).

Through community radio participation, the experience of a marginalised or isolated individual is connected into an intricate tapestry, and the collective can start to emerge. The commonality of experience, the joining together of parts, to create a collaborative reflection of the current situation can lead to the imagining of a changed yet common future and

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the carving out of a slice of media power. Equally, the experience of connection and community for the listener can be profound, as described here by one 3CR listener: discovering 3CR has made me feel more validated with my views/ideology […] I felt deeply alienated as a history teacher and geography teacher with colleagues who used terms like ‘you’re a half caste’ to Aboriginal students, or who perceived African students as being innately non-academic, or who’d never encountered the term ‘globalisation’ let alone a critical perspective of it. I could go on and on. Driving to work each day and listening to the breakfast shows’ analyses of the newspapers always made me feel like weeping with relief (3CR listener questionnaire participant #27).

Having one’s own reality reflected back or having the opportunity to construct and present a new reality, can be life-affirming, or even life-changing. The examples show that community radio produces a space to perform reality with the power of voice, and to construct reality with the power of words. Despite the limitations that neoliberalism presents, community radio—as illuminated through the narratives of practitioners and listeners here—does give power to marginalised issues and voices. Through the lens of citizens’ media and ‘symbolic fracturing’, we can identify some consistent key elements: alternative viewpoints and practices; the construction, and reconstruction, of new realities; and the enabling of self-representation that challenges existing paradigms. In building upon considerations around the fracturing of the symbolic, I want to now further interrogate the counter-hegemonic practice that emerges at the station level when viewed through the wide lens of critical PEofC.

Resistance to Hegemony Alternative media play a central role in resisting dominant ideas that perpetuate injustices, with varying degrees of success, as previously noted. Their positive contributions are due, in part, to their non-commercial form, as well as their intention to contribute to democratic communication. But what shape does this take for practitioners and listeners, and how can we understand its function through the lens of critical PEofC? For critical PEofC, media and information are at the core of capitalism’s

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dissemination of ideologies that produce and reproduce the neoliberal agenda. Media and information are therefore sites of contestation, struggle and resistance. As outlined in Chapter 2, Fuchs and others see a particular role for alternative media in resisting capitalism, one that community radio may, or may not, adequately perform. Similarly, Mosco (2009) states that: ‘Two major tasks for political economy are to identify the sources of instability in the dominant hegemony and to assess the range of forms taken by oppositional and alternative hegemonies’ (p. 208). The study of community radio is rarely the focus of such analysis, in part because it is volunteer-run, and small scale. However, here I am seeking to insert community radio more firmly into the field of critical PEofC in order to highlight its relevance and potential contribution. In the following section I want to consider how community radio practice can contribute to challenging the commodification of media and information. This is done in three distinct areas: first, through the historical intent of the form, and the ‘resistance’ performed in claiming a media space; second, through on-air content that seeks to counterhegemony and present a ‘dissenting voice’; and third, through contributing to social struggles by enacting specifically counter-hegemonic activities. These activities are in contrast to the individual action outlined in the last chapter, although there may be some overlap.

Radio Resistance In exploring the role of resistance and counter-hegemony, the aim here is to outline community radio’s intentional role as a democratic medium and the opposition that it faces (historical and present-day) under neoliberalism. In examining the 3CR experience, it is necessary to historically contextualise the struggle that took place to establish the station in the mid-1970s. Practitioners articulate a sea of opposition, complaints, threats and obstacles that the station faced in its formative years. Resistance to this opposition presents as a key characteristic within the historical context of the station and remains pertinent within the current framing of the station as a community-owned and community-run entity. In drawing on Gramsci’s term ‘counter-hegemony’, the Marxist and ‘class-based’ struggles associated with the term are acknowledged, and the term defined in line with McSweeney as ‘the building of a movement which challenges control over state power and, moreover, to the structures of capitalism’ (2014, p. 276). As Couldry notes:

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Neoliberalism, though it can serve specific ideological ends, is much more than an ideology as traditionally understood (a set of values or illusory beliefs). It is better understood as ‘hegemony’, Antonio Gramsci’s word for the broader horizon of thought that sustains, as acceptable, unequal distributions of resources and power by foregrounding some things and excluding others entirely from view (2010, p. 6).

Many have challenged alternative media’s ability to enable ‘counter hegemonic public spheres’ (Groshek and Han 2011, p. 1523), highlighting failings and exclusions—much of which is not disputed here. It should be noted that I am not proposing that 3CR is representative of the Australian community radio sector, nor of global incarnations of community radio. However, it does provide some insight and evidence as to the historical and intentional resistive nature of a community radio station, and its ability to produce counter-hegemonic content and experience. In considering the content and outcomes of the 3CR experience, I want to draw on a more radical interpretation of community radio, positioning it under the broader sphere of ‘alternative media’ that challenges ‘the capitalist media industry’ and aims to create ‘critical content that challenges capitalism’ (Fuchs 2016, p. 339). As already mentioned, the impetus for the creation of 3CR Community Radio can be directly related to a critical PEofC analysis. That is, in line with other global movements of the time within media and communications, including NWICO as discussed in Chapter 2, the governing body of 3CR—the Community Radio Federation—set out to counter the monopoly of media ownership and the ideas perpetuated by the capitalist media. Early volunteer Bevan Ramsden explains: I got involved because I had experienced, together with many others, the inability to get any information through in the press during the anti-war periods and anti-conscription days. And as a trade unionist in the teachers’ union, we knew how difficult it was to get a union’s viewpoint across in the media, and how it was distorted by the media and how really the great bulk of people in the community couldn’t get their voice heard, or make a comment, or get something sensible said about their organisation through the mass media. So we thought—if there was an independent, community radio station which gave access to those that can’t be heard, wouldn’t that be a good idea! (3CR Community Radio 2016, p. 19).

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The 3CR licence was granted under a federal Labor government in 1975, and reluctantly issued under a Liberal government in 1976 (3CR Community Radio 2016, p. 7). Once on-air, the challenges continued, taking the form of legal challenges, attacks and complaints, as already discussed, administered by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (3CR Community Radio 2016, p. 9). Early broadcaster with The Concrete Gang building-union show Ian Bolton explains: we were constantly under attack. You know the Jewish Board of Deputies was one of them, Catholic Church was another one […] So with the Jewish Board of Deputies they’ve got access to every mass media in the world, they’re not discriminated against in any way shape or form in the mass media, so we just, we thought, they didn’t have a right to appear on our station and eventually the Broadcasting Tribunal agreed with us (2014).

For present-day listeners, 3CR’s role in resistance and counter-hegemony remains prominent, with one listener to Anarchist World This Week stating: ‘The history of humanity is a history of the few exploiting the many. Anarchism terrifies the “few” because it undermines their authority and force. The mainstream media will not bite the hand that feeds it, that’s why 3CR is important’ (3CR listener questionnaire participant #47). Similarly, another listener describes the ongoing, on-air analysis in this way: Listening to 3CR has made me more aware of industrial and Indigenous issues as well as some of the major international political issues. The reasons for this include hearing the voices of those who are involved in an issue giving a different view. Hearing news that aren’t given air in the mainstream media. Information that focuses on the underlying issues—the causes and the possible solutions. Views that analyse the power dynamics and look at the issue from the perspective of the oppressed or the implications for ordinary people (3CR listener questionnaire participant #53).

As Fuchs notes, ‘the dominance of the use-value of the media by exchange value creates a role of the media in the legitimatization and reproduction of domination’ (2016, p. 340). 3CR volunteer programmer Viv Malo notes that ‘if there aren’t these little voices fighting back […] there’s nothing. At least we’re holding ground somewhere and there might be more of us one day’ (2014). The present-day manifestation of this resistance, and the intentional prioritisation of use-value over exchange-value, is summarised here by current broadcaster Robbie Thorpe:

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I’d rather listen to a local community radio any time’cause it’s real. It’s on the ground, it’s not manufactured stuff, it’s not beat up stories just looking for media and ratings. This is providing a service for the people, and that’s the difference that it represents to me. It’s not out to make money. It’s out to present the community’s voice. And provide that platform (2014).

Communication’s central role in maintaining—but also resisting— hegemony is recognised and utilised within the case studies towards the construction of ‘counter-hegemonies’ (Mosco 2009, p. 210). The experience of 3CR indicates that historically the station aimed to counter the hegemony of the time and establish a media space of resistance for social movements and struggles against oppression and exploitation. Such activities align with the presence of ‘dissenting voices’, speaking up and out against not only emerging injustices but also systemic inequalities. In the next section I want to explore the idea of ‘dissenting voices’ by considering both the on-air content of present-day programming, and the experiences of listeners and practitioners.

Dissenting Voices For many years 3CR has used the byline ‘spreading the seeds of dissent’, and its logo is a dandelion (designed by Tom Civil). Together they symbolise an intention to disseminate and germinate different viewpoints and alternative perspectives through processes of production and reproduction, content creation and distribution, and listening and sharing. There is evidence of this practice from the interview participants, the listeners and the on-air content. My intention here is not to prove beyond doubt that 3CR ‘disseminates dissent’, but to uncover how this is done, and what the experience for a practitioner or listener is, and how we might understand the station’s role and abilities with regard to dissent through a PEofC lens. As described in Chapter 1, I mapped a week of on-air content at both 3CR and RCL. Across the week the content presented numerous examples of ‘dissent’—that is, issues, perspectives, opinions, voices that go against the broad consensus on certain political and social issues commonly held in society, and that challenge systemic injustices and inequalities. These ‘dissenting’ or ‘counter-hegemonic’ voices span diverse issues, including animals having a political voice; stolen lands and opposition to ongoing colonisation; the realities of uranium mining in South Australia;

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attacks on public education; the costs of off-shore refugee detention; Australia’s integration into the United States military system in the Pacific; the deaths of deported Hazara refugees; forest protests; cultural diversity in the transgender community; Australian genocide; prisoners’ voices and rights; assisted suicide from a disability perspective; failed special autonomy in West Papua; plastics pollution; the role of music in the Palestinian revolution; criticism of Gandhi and his support of the caste system (a presentation by Arundhati Roy via Alternative Radio); corruption in sport with vote buying in FIFA; and the prevalence and dangers of genetically modified foods. Volunteer programmer Matt Gleeson recalls the station’s role during the S11 World Economic Forum protests held in Melbourne in September 2001: Without 3CR being there, all you would have is the voice of the rest of the media, which was a single voice, and there were no divergent views, there was no dissenting opinions, it was a well-coordinated propaganda effort, and 3CR I think again, during S11, really showed how powerful it can be. And again, drew attention to the fact that people can be mobilised at very short notice with a community radio station (2014).

Dissenting voices are also present in the community language programs. That is, in programming on-air in a language other than English. The Armenian show discussed the often-forgotten history of genocide 100 years on, while the Tamil Voice show covered the ongoing independence struggle within Sri Lanka. Other shows gave airtime to issues that would more than likely be censored in their own countries, such as a historical account of Ethiopian forces killing Ogaden people during the civil war, or an update on the situation facing Chin refugees on the Thai–Burma border. More broadly, the station is identified by practitioners as supporting communities in struggle in Australia and around the world, as Perambalam Senthooran, 3CR volunteer programmer and management committee member, says: supporting different cultures, different ethnic communities who are new migrants, and also communities that are struggling for freedom, like the Tamil community, the Papuans, […] the Timorese, that’s what 3CR is all about. And there is no other place, particularly with the concentration of media across Australia in one or two hands (2015).

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As noted above, refugee and asylum seeker issues are a present-day focus for the station in its on-air content, with regular weekly shows such as Refugee Radio, hosted by the late Trevor Grant, reminding listeners that ‘Please remember it’s not illegal to seek asylum and the only illegals in this issue are our political leaders’ (16 November 2014). In the past the station has sought to materially contribute to the refugee cause as an act of dissent against government policies, as described in the 3CR publication Radical Radio: Celebrating 40 Years of 3CR: 3CR stood committed to asylum seekers, not only through the broadcasting of issues they were facing, but also materially in offering financial support to refugees, through a donation of $13 000, or 10 per cent of Radiothon income, to both the Thornbury Refugee and Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and the Refugee Action Collective in 2002. As station manager Tim Tolhurst said in the CRAM Guide October 2002, ‘The donation represented an opportunity for people to lend humanitarian assistance to detainees in concentration camps and to show dissent to the Howard Government’s inhumane asylum seeker policy’ (2016, p. 176).

Some listeners recognise the dissenting role the station takes on, commenting that: ‘3CR’s commitment to widely resourced and frequently updated reporting of the first invasion of Iraq by Bush (senior) […] was unique in Australian media; a rare dissenting voice that informed and gave voice to those like me who were appalled by this action’ (3CR listener questionnaire participant #51). While another listener notes: Joe Toscano’s Anarchist Weekly show on Anzac Day and the failure to recognise wars against Aborigines. I had heard some of the ideas before, some were new to me, but I liked that he said it on Anzac Day when the rest of media was going crazy with nationalism (3CR listener questionnaire participant #9).

3CR’s very existence contributes to a culture of dissent that prioritises people above profits. 3CR practitioner Viv Malo identifies the station’s capacity to maintain its community-oriented goals as an act of dissent within mainstream society: It’s a ray of sunshine to me. It’s a bubble of goodness that’s remained grassroots for so long and that’s an anomaly, really. Because, you know nothing really stays the same, it seems to be convoluted and then it

182  J. FOX becomes messy and hijacked by the system, and this is a beautiful example of how things can be done, a demonstration of staying true to your original intention. That’s what I see and of course then there’s the platform for the alternative voice here (2014).

PEofC’s ultimate purpose is to understand and navigate ‘the central relationship of communication to the broader economy and political system’ (McChesney 2008, p. 20). The examples given here highlight the role alternative media, or in our case community radio, can perform with regard to providing a space for dissent and a political intent that is often absent within the broader media landscape. This brings me to my third and final area of discussion in this section on resistance to hegemony, which is the engagement of listeners and practitioners in political action.

Radical Politicisation and Activation In Chapter 5 we considered how community radio practice impacted on listeners and practitioners. Here again I want to return to consider the resulting ‘impacts’ and ‘outcomes’ of community radio practice with a focus on counter-hegemony. Rather than personal confidence–building, individual awareness raising, or the private disappointments associated with a perceived lack of change and progress, I want to address the macro environment and the struggle against exploitation and inequality. Are the activities of listeners and practitioners focused on macro problems and solutions as they relate to global capitalism and neoliberalism? Can we expect small, local community broadcasters to challenge global capitalism and contribute to wider social movements? 3CR’s fortieth anniversary book titled Radical Radio, and the following description from McChesney, highlight the sense in which the word ‘radical’ is used: if people act like it is impossible to replace capitalism with something better, they all but guarantee it will be impossible to replace capitalism with something better. Demoralisation and depoliticisation are the necessary conditions for a ‘healthy’ neoliberal society. That is why just to stand for elementary democratic practices and principles marks one as a radical (2008, p. 17).

McChesney’s assessment of capitalism draws our attention to two relevant issues: the wider role of communication within capitalism; and the

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necessity for radical, that is, with a focus on system change, viewpoints to be explored and extrapolated within the media environment. In the following section I want to consider some short examples that connect the local, community-based experience at 3CR, to the wider politicaleconomic space, as well as articulate the role of a broadcaster in politicising and activating its listenership. We have already heard many times throughout the book from 3CR programmer Joe Toscano, along with references to his shows, such as Anarchist World This Week. Here Joe describes the active, organising role that the station takes on in countering hegemony: I believe 3CR actually influences political discourse in this country. Not by the fact that people hear something that is different, but by the fact that 3CR actually organises things, the people who broadcast on 3CR use their ability to broadcast to organise, whether it’s a music venue, gig, or a political action, they’re actually using the radio to organise things in real time in the real world (2014).

Politicisation and activation, and the role of the community radio station within that, is again described by broadcaster Dale Bridge, as she in turn articulates the political activity of listeners through engaging with the station: here at least you’ll get facts you won’t hear anywhere else. And that in itself can be enough to a listener to inspire, hey, that bit more research on their own, that little bit of action too […] That’s gold because Australians just love not to think, especially about politics. You give them an opinion that fits in a spoon and then they’ll swallow it, you know. For a fact to be disseminated on this station and to be picked up by a listener, that ball taken and run with, that’s gold (2014).

Listeners confirm Dale’s comments, stating, for example, that the station’s ‘promotion of various events, social, political, music, Indigenous events, etc. has encouraged me to go to rallies, community events and research information that I want to know more about’ (3CR listener questionnaire participant #14). Numerous other listeners expand on the politicisation and activation role the radio station plays within their own lives:

184  J. FOX I have definitely joined in more rallies having heard about them on 3CR (3CR listener questionnaire participant #11). 3CR has offered me divergent views and enhanced my awareness of an issue or an event (3CR listener questionnaire participant #13). Listening to 3CR I am more informed and able to engage in conversation about issues (3CR listener questionnaire participant #22). I rely on 3CR to keep me abreast of rallies and demonstrations (3CR listener questionnaire participant #28). usually when I listen I confirm views I already have, but occasionally it changes my views by exposing me to more radical ideas than I [would] otherwise be aware of (3CR listener questionnaire participant #29).

An exposure to the politics of struggle against exploitation and inequality is in evidence here, as is a subsequent activation. Another listener shares a longer account of the process of counter-hegemonic activation and radical change experienced as a direct result of engagement with the radio station: I always considered myself a very well inform[ed] person. One day I was having a conversation with a good friend. We disagreed [on] a specific topic but I got [a] shock when she said that my argument was base[d on] lies, and she kindly recommend[ed] that I […] look into other media sources like 3CR. As you can imagine I got very offended and angry. And that was the end of our conversation. It took me a few weeks to decide to listen to 3CR. Since [I] started listening [to] 3CR my life change[d] completely. I continued reading all the newspapers just to compare the information; it is a shame that newspapers, other radios and the television ignore what is happening and provide news about irrelevant things just to misinform people. Yes it really change[d] my life (3CR listener questionnaire participant #4).

There is a clear acknowledgement of power within these observations and experiences, which aligns with 3CR volunteer Matt Gleeson’s observation that ‘an educated population is harder to fool, and with all the dissenting voices that are coming up, there might not be a single coherent message, but the plethora of voices together add up to something quite powerful’ (2014). The content and experience of practitioners and listeners points to a countering of the demoralising and depoliticising elements of neoliberalism as described earlier by McChesney. Does this

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mean that the station through its programming actually counters capitalism? The examples from listeners and programmers suggest that it does. The extent and scope of the reach and impact would require a much larger study over longer loops of time. Another way of approaching this issue is to question whether there is evidence of the incorporation of neoliberal principles within the on-air practitioner and listener experiences. Nancy Fraser raises concerns regarding what she terms the emancipatory movements and their absorption of neoliberal principles and ideals. She references ‘anti-racism, anti-imperialism, anti-war, the New Left, second-wave feminism, lgbt liberation, multiculturalism’ (2013, p. 124). While many of these types of movements are present at the 3CR case study, such as Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament, Australia-Asia Worker Links, or Beyond Zero Emissions, there is little evidence via the twentysix interviews, fifty-six listener participants and mapping of the week of on-air content that the station itself has either absorbed or seeks to regurgitate the key tenets of market liberalism or propagate neoliberal attitudes. It is, therefore, perhaps positioned to be part of a ‘coherent counter-project to neoliberalism’ (Fraser 2013, p. 121). As previously mentioned, PEofC does not often engage with the space of community radio, resulting in a lack of constructive analysis of small, local sites of community media production. I hope that the example given here shows that these can be sites of relevant activity and action, and further consideration of their impacts and outputs in relation to counter-hegemony and resistance should be taken up within the research agenda of the critical PEofC field.

Summary The case studies presented in this book are small and local, and their practice is often chaotic and frequently fleeting in the lives of those involved both with the station and on the airwaves. They are but drops within a vast ocean of information, knowledge creation, signs and symbols. Community radio is concerned with the sharing of information, the social processes of communication and expression, and the gaining of knowledge. It clearly positions itself as a social good. This places it in conflict with the absorption of media and communication systems under digital capitalism. The result is the allocation of less ‘value’ to community media content within a society based on monetary exchange.

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Communication that asserts itself as a social good and as a community need, by its nature, directly resists and ‘challenges the commodity character of the media’ (Fuchs 2016, p. 340), thereby subverting the demands of a neoliberal agenda that seeks the ‘commodification of everything’. I am acutely aware, through both my research (Fox 2017) and my practice, that community radio does not extinguish marginalisation, nor is it the sole facilitator of social reality construction, or alternative viewpoints, dissenting voices or counter-hegemonic media. The examples given here present instances—significant instances—of providing marginalised people and issues with a form of self-representation, presence and power through the media. Thereby confirming the profound impact that community radio content can have on people’s understanding and reconstruction of realities, as well as providing a unique space— as a non-commercial, non-government media outlet—where community radio contributes to counter-hegemonic challenges. It is worth noting, as Rodríguez does, that: all this rupturing and alternating of codes and discourses does not mean that instances of exclusion and marginalisation have vanished. It only means that the boundaries have been displaced, and although this move has ‘swollen the democratic’ … the new boundaries are probably marginalising and excluding other, different groups (2001, p. 152).

The experiences illuminated here and considered through the lenses of citizens’ media and critical PEofC, confirm community radio’s potential as a site for both the everyday experience of social reality construction, and the building of power and disruption through media practice and agency. Community radio practice also enables dissenting voices and counter-hegemonic content that contributes to social movements and anti-capitalist struggles. If we accept that the world faces unique and significant crises at the present time, then we must consider the role of media and communications within the current predicament. If, as Schiller notes, ‘digital capitalism has strengthened, rather than banished, the age-old scourges of the market system: inequality and domination’ (1999, p. 209) then we need to identify spaces that challenge injustices and actively seek a temporally appropriate mode of social change. In the next chapter I want to turn our focus to the distinct and rejuvenating outcomes that flow from the unique set of attributes a community radio

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station can possess. The following chapter is, in part, a weaving together of the community radio capacities revealed thus far, to uncover a key instrument for CfSC.

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Mosco, V. (2009). The political economy of communication (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage. O’Brien, A., & Gaynor, N. (2012). Voice of the people? Objectives versus outcomes for community radio in Ireland. The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media, 10(2), 145–160. https://doi. org/10.1386/rjao.10.2.145_1. Rinaudo, B. (2015). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 14 April 2015, Melbourne, Australia. Rodríguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the mediascape: An international study of citizens’ media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Rodríguez, C. (2011). Citizens’ media against armed conflict disrupting violence in Colombia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Schiller, D. (1999). Digital capitalism: Networking the global market system. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Senthooran, P. (2015). Research interview with 3CR volunteer management committee member by Juliet Fox, 10 September 2015, Melbourne, Australia. Tabing, L. (2014). Research interview with RCL station adviser (via Skype from the Phillippines) by Juliet Fox, 12 July 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Tacchi, J. A. (2002). Transforming the mediascape in South Africa: The continuing struggle to develop community radio. Media International Australia, 103, 68–77. Tacchi, J. A. (2008). Voice and poverty. Media Development, 1, 12–16. Thorpe, R. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Toscano, J. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 10 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation). (2013). Tuning into development. Paris, France: UNESCO.

CHAPTER 7

Regenerative Voice

The purpose of this chapter is to expand on the analysis of voice in community radio, and further consider the unique relationship between structure and agency that the space of community radio presents. In particular, I want to focus on the nature and impact of communitycontrolled and community-run radio, and the emergence of what I call a ‘regenerative voice’. From my research, I propose that a regenerative voice emerges as an important contribution to the field of community radio and communication for social change (CfSC). What can we understand a regenerative voice to be? And what might the conditions for a regenerative voice within alternative media look like? Such an analysis once again draws on both citizens’ media and critical political economy of communication (PEofC), but a wider consideration of the direction and potential of ‘social’ media, and the dire and pressing needs for social change, in combating the global climate emergency, war, poverty and inequality, are also relevant. Is there such a thing as a ‘community radio voice’? Not necessarily, but in the second half of this chapter I will argue that there are conditions and pre-conditions for a regenerative voice and these conditions can exist within a community radio setting. I am not suggesting that community radio has a monopoly over facilitating a regenerative voice but I am asserting that there are particular needs that must first be fulfilled in order for active, political and participatory voice to come to the © The Author(s) 2019 J. Fox, Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17316-6_7

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fore. Before turning to the idea of a regenerative voice, let us consider community ownership and community control as key foundations for the emergence of a community radio voice.

Community Control Within the following chapter section, I want to firstly consider the value that can be placed on voice within a community radio setting, in contrast to the notion of ‘neoliberal agency’ that coopts and distorts voice into performing neoliberal agendas. From there I will move to a discussion of a democratic, communicative agency that can result in a regenerative voice that has transformative and significant CfSC potential. The aim here is to illuminate the socio-economic complexities of having a voice within contemporary media environments, along with the potential everyday, individual power of having a voice within a communitycontrolled media setting. From Community Ownership to Content Autonomy For Radio Communidade Lospalos (RCL), community ownership means there is a board, or council, made up of representatives of the community, including acknowledged community sectors, such as youth, women, education and religion. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) introduced this structure to the community in 2000. As early station adviser Louie Tabing describes: we organised groups of people based on criteria, certain criteria, so that they would constitute the main participants, the ones who would be making programs and the ones who would be part of the management group. The management group would be leaders in the community from different sectors, including the Church (2014).

Interestingly, station community knowledge of the INGO intervention is often unclear, with current RCL chairperson Jacinto da Costa recalling that it was UNICEF rather than UNESCO. In fact, UNESCO’s role is not part of the commonly held historical narrative of the station, as evidenced here by early RCL volunteer programmer Pedrucu da Cunha:

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our station manager always said to me that the radio was not ours, that it was community radio, because it was built by community representatives: representatives from youth [groups], women’s organisations, religion, many [groups]. They came together to join their ideas, and then they approached, I don’t know whether they approached UNESCO or UNESCO approached them, I don’t know. But, they got support from UNESCO with equipment, not financing, but with equipment, then they created the radio station (2014).

There is no signage or plaques or anything else acknowledging UNESCO’s contribution, although other participants, such as the first station manager, Alfredo de Araújo, speak clearly about UNESCO’s role in setting the station up, and its support in the early years. The limited historical understanding of UNESCO’s role in the station may, or may not, be significant in the ongoing high level of ownership that the community has over RCL. Certainly it removes, in part, the need to tightly consider the station as an INGO media intervention, and the oftenfraught consequences and ongoing problems that can arise from such interventions. The board structure within the community radio sector nationally in Timor-Leste continues to be refined, but not overhauled in the case of RCL, by current government initiatives. Luís Evaristo dos Santos Soares, head of the government-supported Community Radio Centre (CRC) describes the board structure being rolled out nationally in 2014: ‘The board is representing the community in order to receive the agreement with the government, to say that it belongs to the community. The board is there on behalf of the community to receive all things that are given to the community radio station’ (2014). The government work within the sector is not without its concerns, which we will come to shortly, but the board structure is a key feature of the community ownership model. What all this means for RCL is that there is both a real and perceived community ownership of the station. All interviewees, along with listener questionnaire participants, clearly understood and articulated that the station belonged to the community. 3CR Community Radio’s (3CR) structure is also community-owned and community-controlled. It holds a federally issued community radio licence and, in line with legal requirements, is an Australian public company. It has an elected Community Radio Federation made up

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of affiliate, subscriber and station-worker representatives, and from this an elected Committee of Management. The Committee of Management members are the station’s (and for legal purposes, the company’s) directors. It is 3CR as a legal entity that owns the station building, the transmitter site and the station’s equipment. Annual elections for the Community Radio Federation and Committee of Management, with a transparent and open nomination and voting process, are held each year. Within the 3CR case study there are clear legislative and legal frameworks governing the on-air broadcasts by the station. Defamation laws, religious and racial vilification legislation, along with the ­sector’s own Code of Practice for community radio stations (Community Broadcasting Association of Australia 2008)—among others—all guide, and restrict, the station’s broadcast content. However, flowing on from the above discussion of community ownership, the purpose here is to consider the experience of volunteer programmers in producing and presenting their shows within a community-owned media outlet. How does the notion of a ‘community-run’ radio station manifest in its on-air content and the experience of broadcasters? The experience of ‘autonomy’ and ‘independence’ emerged as a common theme among 3CR practitioners with regard to their ability to control and self-determine the on-air content of their shows. Sally Goldner has produced 3CR’s Out of the Pan show, a program focusing on pansexual issues, since 2005: The relative autonomy that 3CR gives, I think I got about three guidelines when I started which was don’t defame anyone, very good guideline! Play some community announcements on about the quarter past and the quarter to of the hour, between noon and 1 on Sunday, and stick to the brief of your program (2014).

The ‘program brief’ is jointly agreed upon within the process of program application to the station’s Programming Sub Committee, facilitated by the paid staff position of program coordinator. The Programming Sub Committee consists of around six volunteers with representation from subscriber and station workers, and the Committee of Management. All program applications flow through this process, with the Sub Committee making a recommendation to the Committee of Management for a show to be approved. In 2016 around 400 volunteer programmers were

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engaged in producing approximately 120 shows each week at the station. While 3CR has clear legal requirements regarding its content, and a process of program application, there are no executive producer roles overseeing content on behalf of the station. Trained volunteers are the producers and presenters of the station’s programming content. Longtime broadcaster Joe Toscano states: ‘And I’d like to say one more thing: I have never been told in thirty-seven years what to broadcast’ (2014). Joe also extends the idea of the community self-determining station content to his listeners. Following the observation that listeners didn’t have the opportunity to interact with presenters in a way that specifically revolved around a particular issue, he explains: ‘The idea of the Talkback with Attitude [radio show] is to get our listeners to ring up and talk about an issue that concerns them’ (2014). 3CR’s Tuesday Hometime show is a weekly, ninety-minute current affairs show produced and presented by Jan Bartlett. In the week of mapped on-air programming, Tuesday Hometime included an interview with Shirley Winton, a member of the Spirit of Eureka, about the sixtieth anniversary of the Eureka Rebellion; coverage of the arrest at G20 with an interview with activist Ciaron O’Reilly; Part 2 of an interview with biochemist Coral Wynter about the situation for bee populations, which are currently in trouble worldwide; an interview with visiting Palestinian woman Olfat Malmoud discussing the Palestine Women’s Humanitarian Organisation, a long-time partner of Apheda, Union Aid Abroad, which works in refugee camps in Lebanon. Jan describes the control she has over the content of her program: the freedom to come and go as I like, to do a program the way I like, no one says you can do this, do that, as long as you stick within the rules, I can virtually do what I like. I can spend as many hours as I like preparing the program, it’s just great (2014).

Such freedom also fosters a communicative space conducive to new political imaginaries, a theme already touched on with observations around innovative and wide-ranging democratic practice. 3CR volunteer programmer and management committee member Helen Gwilliam further contributes to our understanding of the station in this regard, describing it as a place to ‘push campaigns and help support them, even if you’re not leading them’:

196  J. FOX it’s also a place that is open to […] new political thinking, or new social thinking, and asking people to express it. There [are] waves of things, whether it’s gay or lesbian rights shows, and then transsexual, pansexual, all of that sort of stuff, we move through all of those public debates […] it’s a place to be at the bleeding edge, I think, of some social movements (2014).

At RCL, the small staff team regularly comes together to discuss possible programming issues and content, and to collectively decide on directions for on-air shows for the coming period. This process is perhaps less about pushing new political thinking or imaginaries and more about taking on the responsibility of communicating on behalf of the local community. Elements of freedom and autonomy are present in creatively determining and delivering the content. RCL station manager, Francisco da Costa Hornay (2014), describes the different types of shows that the station accommodates: This radio station has two program models: priority programs, and partnership programs. For example, local news: this is a job we have to do every day, without anyone paying us [for it], but it’s a priority program for the station, so we have to do it. Partnership programs have to go through a proposal process before we can work with the donors that are interested.

Arguably, community control over the broadcasts at RCL is a more complex and contested space than at 3CR. Within the Timor-Leste context, stations continue to operate without sufficient legislative and legal frameworks, while the population continues to be ‘socialised’ as to the form and purpose of a community radio station more generally. This has led to misunderstandings and conflicts, as already outlined in previous chapters. It also heightens the awareness for station management with regard to standing firm on community control of the station content during periods of potential political instability and change. First RCL station manager, Alfredo de Araújo explains: When Timor-Leste started holding general elections—the first general elections were in 2002, [then] 2007—there were many attempts, many challenges that threatened the radio, but I believe that you can’t use the radio for particular interests, but rather it has to respond to the national interests, common interests. For this reason, I didn’t want any [political] party to use the radio to create instability […] We never respond[ed] to party interests. That’s why we didn’t have any problems, even though

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there were attempts, verbal threats, but the radio was fine. People didn’t attack [the radio station] during the whole election period. In the 2007 election Radio Lospalos led coverage of the election (2014).

Within the week of mapped on-air programming on RCL there was no evidence of content produced or presented as a result of external commercial or political influences. The staff team collectively determined the content through group discussions and meetings, and programs were autonomous in this regard. Community ownership and control of station programming are clearly understood at the two case study locations. Both stations, and station communities, exhibit a strong understanding of community ownership of the broadcaster itself and work hard to maintain its independence. Equally, the content at each station—while differently managed— remains focused on community need and community control resulting in largely autonomous content free from direct government or commercial control. Following on from this, let us consider the financial independence of each station, and the priority placed on this aspect of community radio for practitioners and listeners alike. Financial Independence It is not my intention here to thoroughly investigate the financial income and expenditure at each station, but rather to consider the importance of financial independence as perceived and experienced by the station community members. Is financial autonomy important, and if so, why? Right from the planning stage of 3CR in the mid-1970s, financial independence was paramount. This was in part because the station was formed in direct response to the concentration of media ownership and the resulting lack of diversity within the media landscape at the time. Early station volunteer Bevan Ramsden explains: The station was also prepared to stand on its own feet financially and technically and that was a key thing. If you want to have independence in the media you must stand on your own feet, ’cause otherwise he who pays the piper calls the tune, is the old story (2013).

A key element of the station’s financial independence was, and is, volunteer labour. ‘Dedicated people who volunteer their time are a very valuable resource, and 3CR is a living monument to the quality of that

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input’, states Bevan (2013). This aspect, while not without its problems, affirms a unique aspect of the type of financial independence a community radio station run by volunteers is capable of. Pam Vardy, a 3CR volunteer, confirms the importance placed on financial independence, explaining that they felt this safeguarded the station from having any programming content ‘sabotaged. That’s a very strong word, but to be influenced by having money coming in, or sponsorship coming in. So, we were very, very strong about absolutely no sponsorship, including back then, no government funding at all’ (2013). Presently the station is allowed five minutes of paid ‘sponsorship’ announcements per broadcast hour but chooses to have only announcements dedicated to community events or services rather than commercial products or enterprises. The station does apply for government and other grants for discrete programming or project-related activities and can also apply for ‘operational subsidies’ through the Community Broadcasting Foundation (CBF), which administers federal government funding dedicated to the Australia community broadcasting sector. While the station lacks significant financial resources (3CR Community Radio 2016), it is also in a relatively strong position in owning its premises in Fitzroy which houses its studios, as well as a transmitter site at Werribee, which hosts its AM transmission. This level of financial independence and non-commercial autonomy is well understood and respected by the practitioners on-air. Here 3CR broadcaster Robbie Thorpe describes its importance: I gotta say it’s the most Aboriginal organisation that I know. Even though it’s not an Aboriginal org, but its principles are about community control, community being community based, and being self-determining in terms of raising their own money. And those sorts of things really attracted me, ’cause that was the sort of things that we were hoping to set up with our organisations, in fact we did set them up that way, but they changed back into corporate entities, which we lost control of as a result (2014).

Other participants also reported the ‘empowering’ nature of raising one’s own funds without reliance or dependence on ‘government handouts’. Viv Malo, 3CR volunteer programmer, says: ‘It’s real ownership, […] You know that everyone here contributes that way. It’s not somewhere you just rock up and do your show, it’s ours’ (2014). For the listener, the importance of financial independence and its connection to content autonomy also resonates, as illustrated by this example:

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being able to listen to opinions and ideas without having to worry about what are they trying to sell me is refreshing. I feel like I can trust the information I hear on [3CR] because it is free from the imperative to consume (3CR listener questionnaire participant #14).

For RCL, financial independence is more complex and precarious given the socio-economic context in which the station exists. From the beginning, there was a keen awareness of the benefits of financial independence despite the acknowledged challenges. First RCL station manager, Alfredo de Araújo, says that in the early days many people asked, ‘Why don’t you become a commercial radio station?’: I knew that the radio’s objective was different to commercial radio’s [objective]. Community radio is non-profit. That means it isn’t about making money, but rather it’s role is to benefit the community, specifically for families to be involved, and feel that children can also help, can also come to the radio to share their feelings and their thoughts (2014).

Again, without wanting to consider the station from an income–expenditure vantage point, it is fair to say that very little finance flows through ­station. The small staff team are each paid an honorarium, not a salary, while the building the station occupies was previously ‘owned’ by the government, and according to Luís Evaristo dos Santos Soares (2014), is in the process of being formally transferred into the ownership of the station. Transmission equipment exists on-site at the station. That said, financial sustainability is a key concern for the station volunteers, already articulated in earlier chapters with regard to the unsustainable nature of volunteer labour in a country without social security or welfare provisions. While costs are minimal in the present, everyday running of the station, there is little financial capacity to deal with significant technical incidents or personnel shortfalls. Station staff and management are acutely aware of this situation, and the importance of establishing independent financial arrangements in the future. RCL chairperson, Jacinto da Costa (2014), articulates some of his ideas on this issue: So maybe in the future we can get money, by ourselves, for example, this room we can use for training, teach English, maybe another [organisation] like UNICEF […] can support this radio [so] we can [deliver an] English course or computer course in here so we can support this station.

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The government of Timor-Leste has, according to Luís Evaristo dos Santos Soares (2014), allocated some funds to the community radio sector, and these are expected to flow to RCL for limited operational use. Chairperson of RCL’s ‘Council’, Jacinto da Costa explains that the station personnel put in proposals to the board for operational costs, while station manager Francisco da Costa Hornay states that while the board ‘controls’ the finances, the station staff manage the finances. As indicated in an earlier chapter, the flow of funds from government to individual local community radio stations is an area of concern for some in the Timor-Leste community radio sector. Their concerns centre on issues of eligibility, accountability and financial independence. These are real and current fears that remain unresolved. While not central to my focus here, it is worth touching on the issues raised and contextualising them within the current financial predicament of both RCL and the community radio sector in Timor-Leste more broadly. From the CRC government agency’s perspective the government plays a clearly delineated role within community radio operations, as articulated here by its head, Luís Evaristo dos Santos Soares: Community radio is owned by the community, it should not be influenced by another institution or government institution. It should be free from everything and exist as a social control. It can be a critic, about all things that are not really good in the society, they will criticise, and then they’ve got the freedom to explore their needs, their wants in the broader arena (2014).

However, such positions have not placated the ongoing concerns regarding the government’s role within the developing community radio sector. Prezado Ximenes is president of the Timor-Leste Community Radio Association and works closely with a Dili-based community radio station that the government does not recognise as a community radio station due to its urban city location. Here he describes one aspect of his concern with regard to government funding for community radio: the government has money and then they give it to the community radio but the community radio has to broadcast the programs by the government. So it seems like they don’t understand, they’re using the community radio not to develop the community but to develop the government ­program (2014).

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Similarly, Francisco da Silva Gari, director of the Timor-Leste Media Development Center (TLMDC), is concerned with the government’s involvement in facilitating the community radio station boards, or councils, and what this might mean for their future relations. My big concern is that there might be some kind of intervention from the government into the management of the radio stations. I say this because I have received some indicators on this—for example, the government said that they are helping the stations to establish the structure in the community, especially the board of the community radio stations […] But my big concern is that they are more likely to work closely with the government, and there needs to be some kind of Memorandum of Understanding between the radio station and the government. I’m worried that less voices from the community will be heard because of the intervention by the government. That they [the government] will maybe dominate the space of the broadcasting in each radio station (2014).

Such concerns mirror remarks above from early 3CR volunteers with regard to the significant need for independence from government, including government funds. For the Australian sector, one way of seeking independence was through the establishment by the peak body, the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA), of the CBF as an independent, arms-length, funding body that receives and distributes government funds. The CBF was established in 1984, and in 2017 distributed $14.3 million in public funds to the sector (Community Broadcasting Foundation 2017). Prezado Ximenes recognises this structure as an important element in ensuring the financial independence of the Timor-Leste community radio sector: if the government has money maybe they can give it to an independent organisation and then let the community radio make a proposal for money that is based on the community interest and based on what the community want. And I think that’s a good thing, to promote the community, to work with the community radio, because if you give money directly to the community radio station, I believe that for the future people will say that this is not community radio, but this is the government (2014).

Concerns around financial independence at both case studies are real and ongoing. Similarities exist with regard to the acknowledged need to distance the stations from government, and commercial, funds in order

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to maintain content and management independence. Financial independence at both stations is closely connected with community ownership and thereby a type of media power that gives voice to community issues and concerns. Financial independence is recognised as an essential ingredient in ensuring the capacity to provide a voice for the community, highlighting community radio’s ongoing point of difference to public and commercial broadcast outlets within diverse international settings. It is with this clear understanding of the concerns and issues surrounding community ownership and financial independence that I want to now turn our attention to the issue of a regenerative voice in a community radio setting.

Community Radio Voice The value of voice is diminished under a neoliberal logic that prioritises markets and commodities over social cooperation or communication for a common good. As discussed in Chapter 3, neoliberalism elevates exchange-values above use-values, thereby reducing the value of voice within a community radio setting where use-value is prioritised. Similarly, a notion of agency under neoliberalism is subsumed under profit imperatives. Agency—people’s ability to act on the world around them—is not only increasingly a question of an ethical imperative (Keane 1997, p. 674) within a world of injustice and inequality, but it is also central to an engaged and effective democracy. Voice as agency is thereby critical in addressing these concerns, along with facilitating effective CfSC. The Value of Voice and ‘Neoliberal Agency’ What effect does neoliberalism have on agency and, in particular, on voice as agency? One effect is the absorption and cooption of agency into the space and rationale of neoliberalism. ‘Neoliberal agency’, as Ilana Gerschon explains, entails engaging—and even performing—concepts of neoliberalism, such as people acting as if they were the business managers of their abilities and alliances in a free market (Gershon 2011, p. 539). In this environment, voice is part of a portfolio of assets for ‘self-branding’, where increasingly the commodification of the self is fundamental to the expansion of networked capitalism. Spaces such as Facebook, Twitter and online blogs offer possible places of reflection, play and sociality,

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but instead the primary outcome is the presence of a digital place where people perform a neoliberal logic, ‘fusing the space of the self with the path of a commodity’ (Couldry 2010, p. 131). Similarly, Christian Fuchs challenges the notion of a ‘democratic Internet’, instead describing Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube as ‘capitalist Internet platforms’. As for ‘social’ media, Fuchs asserts that: Most of these platforms are, however, mainly focused on individuals who show off who they are and what they do. These are platforms for impressing others and performing identities and fostering individualism; this sets individuals against each other as competitors who accumulate friends, attention, and visibility. Such media could therefore better be called individualistic, neoliberal media, not social media (2016, p. 163).

Neoliberalism also has significant impacts on political agency, as it presents ‘a structure of feeling in which perpetual optimism converts inequality and contradictions into a promised future that is said to be already happening’ (Benson and Kirsch 2010, p. 463). The appropriation of the discourse of harm and risk as conditions of modernity lead to heightened cynicism about the ability to effect change, alongside a ‘politics of resignation’ that Peter Benson and Stuart Kirsch say has become the dominant mode of political action (2010, pp. 461–474). ‘Even one of the defining social movements of our time, the response to the contemporary environmental crisis, has been converted into an opportunity to earn more money’ (Benson and Kirsch 2010, p. 474). Therefore, resignation could be seen to deflate voice as agency, as individuals become complacent, and inactive, in a political, social and economic world perceived as fixed, and within a cycle of harm that involves further exploitations. It is worth recalling here Robert McChesney’s (2008) assessment, noted in Chapter 6, of neoliberalism’s need for a demoralised and depoliticised population. If, as stated earlier, voice has the capacity to sit ‘beyond’ commodification, we might consider that voice is ephemeral, allowing it to flow unconstrained and emerge as interrupter, truth-teller, or exposer within present-day digital capitalism. Voice as agency thereby has a destabilising and challenging capacity. Jo Tacchi, in exploring voice within the contexts of international development and development communications, defines voice as:

204  J. FOX inclusion and participation in social, political and economic processes, meaning making, autonomy and expression. We can think of ‘voice poverty’ as the denial of the right of people to influence the decisions that affect their lives, and the right to participate in that decision making (2008, p. 12).

Such an articulation situates voice within ongoing explorations of communication rights, and, for our purposes, grounds it in a space outside rampant communication commodification. Before further exploring a concept of voice within a community radio setting, it must be acknowledged that there are limitations, constraints and challenges for community radio in general. In no way is it suggested that a utopian space exists within community radio that is able to coherently facilitate voice as agency without restrictions. However, it is a media platform that is globally recognised as being both committed to social change and social justice, as well as enabling of the voices, aspirations, ideas and opinions of everyday people, and in particular, marginalised and underrepresented peoples. In this way, perhaps, it can escape the ‘commodification of everything’ that appears inherent in neoliberalism. In recognising a crisis of voice as agency under neoliberalism (Couldry 2010), it is necessary to identify spaces that provide for effective voice, for the valuing of voice and for the emergence of voice as a dynamic process of social cooperation dedicated to speaking and listening. As Athena Athanasiou explains: ‘Unsettling the hegemony of capitalism involves opening up conceptual, discursive, affective, and political spaces for enlarging our economic and political imaginary’ (Butler and Athanasiou 2013, p. 40). Having a voice requires both resources, in the form of language and status, in that one must be recognised by others as having a voice. ‘Both are part of the materiality of voice, the “matter” without which voice is impossible; like most matter, they are unevenly distributed’ (Couldry 2010, pp. 7–8). Community radio is in a position to challenge and resist the unequal resource distribution in terms of both language and status, thereby moving beyond a structural commitment to the status quo by providing everyday people with a voice, regardless of their material and cultural resources. In fact, it is its specific purpose to do so. A community radio voice is thus not neutral but political (Couldry 2015), and as such is central to notions of social change. It can be critical while also able to be both sustaining and validating (Couldry 2010,

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p. 112). Rather than emerging at the intersection of human and machine—as is the case with digital and online communications—community radio voice is temporally and organically situated in the rhythms of the natural world. As such community radio voice claims space, demands time and is intrinsically present. It is incapable of being sped up, and unintelligible when severely reduced or edited. To reiterate, if we follow the thread connecting voice to ­self-knowing and a sense of individual agency, to the threat that neoliberal ideology poses and the implications this presents for fulfilling democratic ideals, then what is required are spaces that contest neoliberalism while providing an effective voice that is at once collective as well as socially oriented. Community radio is one such space that holds potential to facilitate valued voices. Attributing a regenerative agency to voice articulates community radio’s potential in effecting change. When ‘having a voice’ means contributing to the production and constitution of society, a community radio regenerative voice can contribute to CfSC. In defining regenerative voice, I consider it to be multi-faceted including: agential, deeply rooted in social practice and connectedness, holding intrinsic value external to market calculations, and enabling of self-represented expression while capable of performing power: If, through an unequal distribution of narrative resources, the materials from which some people must build their account of themselves are not theirs to adapt or control, then this represents a deep denial of voice, a deep form of oppression (Couldry 2010, p. 9).

If we concur with Couldry’s analysis, then the stakes are high if we allow the continued devaluing and diminishing of an embodied, regenerative voice that has agency. Many scholars highlight how social media is not in a position to coherently respond to the crisis of voice, due to its embeddedness in neoliberal digital structures, and its highly commercialised status. In a community radio setting, voice is collective, and communal; it is held and enacted in common. Voice on community radio is practised as a form of social cooperation and can facilitate an access to agency and inclusion in social change. From the experiences at both RCL and 3CR it is apparent that practitioners and participants are acutely aware of community radio’s potential reach and effect. It remains for its capabilities to be more deeply documented, critiqued and fully utilised so that we might understand the outcome of an effective practice of voice as agency

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in a community radio setting. In the following chapter section, I want to contribute to this gap by further defining regenerative voice and analysing its practices and outcomes at the two stations. The Emergence of a Regenerative Voice The community radio form—which is, in theory, not-for-profit, participatory, inclusive and socially progressive—has the potential to provide for a regenerative voice and a communicative agency capable of moving beyond both a neoliberal value-set and an individualised, commodity-based agency. By using the term ‘regenerative voice’ I am describing a type of value and process of voice that acknowledges the need for rebuilding community, for a rebirth of political voice, as well as the generation of alternative opinions, ideas and imaginaries. I believe the term connects voice to the need to act on the world’s environmental emergency—climate change—while also acknowledging the widespread denial of communication rights that requires readjustments, reworkings and reorganisations of the flows and facilitations of global media and communications. In the following section, I want to outline the emergence of a regenerative voice at both RCL and 3CR through the experiences of the practitioners and listeners, as well as interpret and define the concept of regenerative voice through the frameworks of PEofC and citizens’ media. For the community radio sector in Timor-Leste, regeneration and rebuilding of communities and the nation is a key theme that is revealed both in current literature and the collected interviews, surveys and content. For community radio practitioners, community radio is an important element in the ongoing process of ‘nation building’ and of developing the community’s capacity and access across all sections of society. Here Francisco da Silva Gari of the TLMDC reflects on the role of the sector as a whole, and the flow of voice within that: For us the existence of community radio is like a small light that exists in the dark of the community. In the past the community heard voices from the centre going down to the village, but now when they see the presence of the community radio, they feel like their voices are heard, that people listen to them. So, when they have something that they want to express, they come to the radio station, or they invite the community radio journalists to visit them in the rural areas (2014).

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A similar assessment is made on the emergence of 3CR in the mid-1970s during Australia’s ‘nation building’ years under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, which were followed by the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 and the subsequent conservative rule led by Malcolm Fraser. Activist and early 3CR broadcaster Gary Foley describes the period: there was a brief Spring flowering of freedom for three years while Whitlam was there and then suddenly the clouds descended again. And so, groups who were at the margins of society in that period were looking to alternative structures and I suppose in terms of broadcasting 3CR was perceived as, you know, a little shining light in a fairly extensive world of darkness at that point of time (2014).

As part of Timor-Leste’s ‘nation building’, democracy remains a key concern within the national setting, and again radio is identified as a way to develop democratic understanding, participation and practice. Here Assosiasaun Radio Komunidade Timor Leste’s (ARKTL) Prezado Ximenes considers the work of Radio Bucoli in the Baucau district of Timor-Leste, and the role of the radio station in moving beyond party politics: Historically they are Fretilin people, but with the presence of the community radio they talk about democratisation, they talk about peace, they talk about a lot of things relating to how to make their nation strong (2014).

Prezado also identifies the reconnecting and regenerating role a local community radio station can play for listeners as they share their voices through talkback: the community can call into the radio and talk to them about what they are facing, what they want, and then they can give their information, if they have things to say to the government or to other NGOS, they can use community radio to talk about their own problems (2014).

Through engagement with community radio, listeners generate discussions that contribute to the social and political constitution of society. They make their issues, and themselves, visible through voice, and affirm their capabilities in asserting voice’s role in the ‘construction of

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the capacity to aspire’ (Bifulco 2012, pp. 181–182). Aspiration can be seen to be a key element of a notion of a regenerative voice and appears within the experiences at both stations. The process of voice is reciprocal and cyclic as it weaves a capacity to aspire, articulated here by Arjun Appadurai: It is through the exercise of voice that the sinews of aspiration as a cultural capacity are built and strengthened, and conversely, it is through exercising the capacity to aspire that the exercise of voice by the poor will be extended (2004, p. 83).

Aspiration within voice as process connects a regenerative voice to the attributes of expression, confidence-building, self-determination, humanisation and activation. RCL program manager Zeserot Delaserna describes how ‘for people without a voice, this [the radio] is a bridge for them’ (2014); while RCL volunteer programmer Romenia Mimosa situates community radio voice within the cycle of gathering and sharing information, with a view to activating the community: ‘the information you receive from the community, you have to also share it back to community. In my perspective, the contribution that RCL makes is the contribution of sharing information with the community’ (2014). As RCL chairperson Jacinto da Costa explains, the sharing of information can result in transformation for the community, ‘a mental transformation’ (2014). Many RCL listeners and practitioners spoke of the importance of the radio facilitating on-air content in the local language of Fataluku. Here we can relate the regenerative role of voice to the wider significance of the biodiversity of languages and knowledge, as described here by Thomas and van de Fliert: ‘There is a close correspondence between language diversity and bio-diversity given that languages enable communities to “name” their worlds into existence’ (2015, p. 135). 3CR listeners speak of the radio’s unique role in allowing the community—and in particular those marginalised within the community—to identify and speak to what they want and what they need, ‘Aboriginal programs such as where Aboriginal people tell their stories, their politics and speak honestly of their feelings and what they want and need—I don’t hear it anywhere else’ (3CR listener questionnaire participant #2). Another listener speaks of discovering a voice of ‘truth’:

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I wanted to know more about the Iraq war and was not getting much info from other radio stations, while turning the radio dial many years ago, I came upon people talking about why the Americans and many other nations were going to send troops to Iraq, because there was oil there. Finally, I heard the truth about the war and not the propaganda the other radio stations where saying. This is why I have kept listening to 3CR (3CR listener questionnaire participant #35).

Regenerative voice represents a type of rehabilitation from corruption and coercion, where truth-telling is reasserted as a defining feature of democratic media and communication practice. The experience of listeners at 3CR provides insight into the impact of content on-air, again connecting to issues of fracturing, resisting and regenerating. Here a listener responds to the question: Can you describe a time when listening to 3CR changed your views, or made you more aware about an issue? Listening to 3CR often challenges and expands my views and understanding of political events and current affairs. Informed—environmental issues are covered in a way they are not elsewhere. Challenged—on aboriginalwhite relations in Australia. On 3CR I hear voices I don’t hear anywhere else. I work in government and sometimes marvel at the contrast between the lack of spin heard on 3CR and the saturation of spin I deal with (and peddle in) every day at work (3CR listener questionnaire participant #22).

The example illustrates the constitutive and material nature of information and communication and community radio’s unique role in generating meaning and understanding. We can observe that ‘new meanings, interpretations, and judgements emerge through communication’ (Fuchs 2016, p. 7). The material process of information and communication cognition is apparent in the experience of the 3CR listener above, resulting in ‘changes of meanings and interpretations of the world’ (Fuchs 2016, p. 7). The emergence of a regenerative voice is a material consequence of the democratic communicative practice—but equally a regenerative voice is a crucial ingredient for the democratization of the media. For listeners, as we have observed, this results in the production of meanings, but also the regeneration of self-identity, self-fulfilment and self-representation. ‘Listening to and volunteering at 3CR connected me with a broad range of ideas many of which were new and interesting to me. This was a richly

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rewarding experience for me, which fundamentally altered my “world view”’ (3CR listener questionnaire participant #17). In a similar way to the above listeners and practitioners, 3CR programmer Ben Rinaudo recounts the restorative aspect of his involvement with having a voice on the airwaves, as well as having engagement with a community media organisation: it’s done a number of things for me, it’s given me a voice, ’cause the impact of mental ill-health was life changing and traumatic and I guess I felt that I had a lot of grief and loss […] just the impact of the illness, whereas 3CR helped me to regain, well, gain new skills, but also regain my confidence and meet a whole range of people who I otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to (2015).

I am not suggesting that the regenerative nature of voice within the community radio setting is a recent attribute, but rather a fundamental element present from its early formation. As Bob Mancor, volunteer programmer in the mid-1970s with the building workers program The Concrete Gang, says of his participation in the program: ‘It used to rejuvenate us, we used to really look forward to doing the show’ (2014). Radio voice is embodied, real-time sound and 3CR volunteer programmer Joe Toscano notes that ‘sound is survival’ maintaining that we have a ‘genetic predisposition’ to listen or talk. ‘People are gravitating to the net, thinking that somehow communication on the Net supersedes radio. It doesn’t. […] Talkback radio is so popular [because] people think you are talking to them, directly and individually’ (2014). Within the 3CR case study, a community radio voice presents the regeneration of self, but also the (re)generation of political and social ideas. 3CR programmer Viv Malo outlines the way her community radio practice on the one hand taught her ‘to speak’ as well as to ‘refine’ her words, but also presented an ‘an opportunity to humanise people’ more generally. Particularly Aboriginal people who are in prison: ‘We’ve got incredible incarceration rates, and it’s easy just to think of people as numbers, as people in prison, when we’ve got a story, and everyone in there has a story’ (2014). Viv’s experience of the role voice plays in humanising connects to another 3CR practitioner’s analysis of community radio voice in self-interpreting, self-determining and exposing. Robbie Thorpe, 3CR volunteer programmer, says:

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this state is always trying to control the Aboriginal people, physically and their voice. Our voice hasn’t been really heard […] And how important is it to have your own voice? We know as Aboriginal people, it’s so vitally important. Our history’s been spelled out for us, interpreted by other people, we need to have our say here […] So 3CR’s done a lot, exposing, you know, hearing our voice. ‘Oh, we didn’t know Aboriginal people could speak like that, wow, they’re academic aren’t they.’ We’ve got all these abilities as well, and this country was built on denying our humanity, our existence. 3CR is so important in putting our voices out there, with an opinion, an attitude, and just reminds the whole community, oh these Aboriginal people may have an argument here (2014).

For Robbie the voice coming through is illuminating, democratising and truthful. He also makes the direct connection between financial independence and the type of independent voice that is enabled: ‘my enemy is the government, so it’s pretty hard to bite the hand that feeds you. And a lot of our people are restricted in that way. And therefore, our voice, our independent voice, is affected. But not here’ (2014). We can also find this sentiment from early programmer Gary Foley, who describes that his on-air content sought to ‘tell the truth about politically what was going on in the Aboriginal political scene’ (2014). Concurrently, there is a validating and valuing of voice occurring within the community radio sphere that is identified as unique by its users. This regenerative voice, as described by Dale Bridge, is positive, rewarding and altering: I don’t know another radio station, I’ve never heard of a show for and by people who are homeless. And to have not just a catchy by line, ‘give a voice to the voiceless’, but to actually see it and be part of it in action, and to feel exactly the positive effects from that because the positive effects are virtually impossible to replicate elsewhere, you need to feel valid, that your voice is valid, and in order to feel that your voice is valid, it helps to have a space for it (2014).

Within all of this is, of course, an historical context. A regenerative voice can seek to redress the historical denial of voice within sections of the community, specifically in subaltern communities. As early radio practitioner and Aboriginal activist Gary Foley observes, 3CR was in part established to give voice to ‘people who had something to say but had been historically denied that opportunity to say it’ (2014).

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Early practitioner at RCL, Lolalina da Conceição Freitas, identifies the historical context of oppression that lead to the silencing of many within communities in Timor-Leste, and the role that the station plays in hearing them now: ‘it can give voice to the many people that couldn’t speak during the time of war’ (2014). Dutta (2015) asserts that the question is not whether the ‘subaltern speaks’, but how, when they do speak, they are heard. A community radio station can provide a space for the subaltern to be heard, because they are separate to the ‘elite structures that systematically profit through the erasure of subaltern voices’ (Dutta 2015, p. 136).

Summary Drawing once again on Clemencia Rodríguez’s analysis of citizens’ media (2001), here we can interpret community radio’s role in providing a space where community control is asserted over the media space with transformative consequences—resulting in the definition of a fissure for regenerative voice. Voice that presents more than just an adaptation, or resilience, to existing power structures; instead it seeks to regenerate everyday, individual power, and to reimagine ideas and priorities that counter those affirmed in a corporatised, colonised world. In turn, regenerative voice connects us to the project of media democratisation and the need to revitalise ‘the public sphere, as part of the project of decolonizing the life-world’ (Hackett 2000, p. 74). Regenerative voice generates change, fracture and transformation, reimagining and redetermining a world wherein human and environmental voice can survive and thrive. In this way, it is communication that is ‘grounded in the valuing of nature and rooted in the democratic politics of the people’ (Dutta 2015, p. 136). Community radio is a social space and temporal medium where a regenerative voice can emerge. This analysis unites considerations of community radio ownership, content autonomy, station structure and associated agency in order to view and understand the type of voice that can be spoken and heard. A regenerative voice appears capable of positively contributing to communicative democracy, of holding value beyond high-speed commodified communication, and—potentially—of contributing to the project of countering neoliberalism. It is, of essence, slow, requiring breath and time, and sits in contrast to commercialised ‘social’ media that seeks to move beyond time. That is not to suggest

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that only community radio, as a global form, attracts these normative characteristics. On the contrary, it is proposed that both case studies presented, while ‘successful’, are not representative, and that other media forms could also be capable of holding these attributes.

References 3CR Community Radio. (2016). 3CR Community Radio Annual Report 2015. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: 3CR Community Radio. Appadurai, A. (2004). The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition. In V. Rao & M. Walton (Eds.), Culture and public action (pp. 59–84). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bartlett, J. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 7 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Benson, P., & Kirsch, S. (2010). Capitalism and the politics of resignation. Current Anthropology, 51(4), 459–486. https://doi.org/10.1086/653091. Bifulco, L. (2012). Citizen participation, agency and voice. European Journal of Social Theory, 16(2), 174–187. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1368431012459695. Bridge, D. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 10 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Butler, J., & Athanasiou, A. (2013). Dispossession: The performative in the political. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Community Broadcasting Association of Australia. (2008). Codes of practice. Sydney, NSW: Community Broadcasting Association of Australia. Viewed 11 January 2016. https://www.cbaa.org.au/sites/default/files/media/Community%20 Radio%20Broadcasting%20Codes%20of%20Practice%202008.pdf. Community Broadcasting Foundation. (2017). Annual Report 2017. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Community Broadcasting Foundation. Viewed 20 November 2018. https://cbf.org.au/documents/2018/08/cbf-annual-report-2017.pdf/. Couldry, N. (2010). Why voice matters: Culture and politics after neoliberalism. London, UK: Sage. Couldry, N. (2015). Alternative media and voice. In C. Atton (Ed.), Handbook of alternative media. Manuscript in preparation. da Conceição Freitas, L. (2014). Research interview with RCL volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 28 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. da Costa Hornay, F. (2014). Research interview with RCL station manager by Juliet Fox, 25 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. da Costa, J. (2014). Research interview with RCL chairperson by Juliet Fox, 28 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste.

214  J. FOX da Cunha, P. (2014). Research interview with RCL volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 7 August 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. da Silva Gari, F. (2014). Research interview with Timor-Leste community radio sector representative by Juliet Fox, 20 July 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. de Araújo, A. (2014). Research interview with RCL station manager by Juliet Fox, 7 August 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. Delaserna, Z. (2014). Research interview with RCL program manager by Juliet Fox, 26 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. dos Santos Soares, L. E. (2014). Research interview with Timor-Leste community radio sector representative by Juliet Fox, 21 July 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste. Dutta, M. J. (2015). Decolonizing communication for social change: A culture-centered approach. Communication Theory, 25(2), 123–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/comt.12067. Foley, G. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 28 May 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Fuchs, C. (2016). Reading Marx in the information age: A media and communication studies perspective on Capital (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Routledge. Gershon, I. (2011). Neoliberal agency. Current Anthropology, 52(4), 537–555. https://doi.org/10.1086/660866. Goldner, S. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Gwilliam, H. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer and management committee member by Juliet Fox, 11 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Hackett, R. (2000). Taking back the media: Notes on the potential for a communicative democracy movement. Studies in Political Economy, 63(Autumn), 61–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/19187033.2000.11675233. Keane, W. (1997). From fetishism to sincerity: On agency, the speaking subject, and their historicity in the context of religious conversion. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 39(4), 674–693. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0010417500020855. Malo, V. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Mancor, B. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 6 May 2014, Geelong, Australia. McChesney, R. W. (2008). The political economy of media: Enduring issues, emerging dilemmas. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press. Mimosa, R. (2014). Research interview with RCL staff member and volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 29 July 2014, Lospalos, Timor-Leste. Ramsden, B. (2013). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer and committee member by Juliet Fox, 11 December 2013, Melbourne, Australia.

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Rinaudo, B. (2015). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 14 April 2015, Melbourne, Australia. Rodríguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the mediascape: An international study of citizens’ media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Tabing, L. (2014). Research interview with RCL station adviser (via Skype from the Phillippines) by Juliet Fox, 12 July 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Tacchi, J. A. (2008). Voice and poverty. Media Development, 1, 12–16. Thomas, P., & van de Fliert, E. (2015). Interrogating the theory and practice of communication for social change. Studies in Communication for Social Change. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Thorpe, R. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 8 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Toscano, J. (2014). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 10 September 2014, Melbourne, Australia. Vardy, P. (2013). Research interview with 3CR volunteer programmer by Juliet Fox, 2 November 2013, Melbourne, Australia. Ximenes, P. (2014). Research interview with Timor-Leste community radio sector representative by Juliet Fox, 19 July 2014, Dili, Timor-Leste.

CHAPTER 8

Conclusion

This book has investigated community radio’s contribution to communication for social change (CfSC), asking the question: How, and in what ways, does community radio contribute to CfSC? Despite enormous changes in media and communication technologies, the research demonstrates that community radio remains ubiquitous within the global media landscape, generating social spaces of cooperation where the cognition and production of communication present new social and political interpretations and meanings. I have argued that within the field of CfSC, community radio embodies a distinct set of principles, practices and requirements, which, despite diverse historical trajectories and different manifestations within local communities, demonstrate a powerful contribution to local and national democratic processes. In this final chapter, I want to reflect on my aims, as well as the emerging themes from the experiences at both stations and, finally, to turn the focus to future needs and possibilities within the communications field. Interrogating community radio under the wide lens of critical political economy of communication (PEofC) is a necessary and illuminative approach to understanding its historical underpinnings, present-day capabilities and the social processes at work. Investigations into media and communication’s democratic possibilities need a sharper perception of the impact of commodification on communicative practice, along with a deeper understanding of media spaces that remain committed to ideals of communicative democracy and communication rights. The PEofC © The Author(s) 2019 J. Fox, Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17316-6_8

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prism reveals that community radio practice withstands, circumnavigates and counters the negative neoliberal effects of the incessant commodification of communication. The experiences documented here exemplify the material nature of informational processes, and community radio’s capacity to reconstruct social and political information and contest existing capitalist ideologies. Political economy’s focus on the material nature of information and communication brings to light the ability to create new meanings within existing social systems. The perspective highlights the potential for ‘social struggles’ to de-commodify (Fuchs 2016, p. 25) media practice through sustained communication and the creation of new social systems. Here we have seen community radio to be a point of access rich with material and cultural resources that connect participants to the wider politics of structural transformation. Equally, this study demonstrates that in investigating experience and practice within a community radio setting, a citizens’ media view is a necessary complement to the PEofC approach, enabling the practitioner to be seen as an active citizen engaged with the power of self-determined and self-controlled voice. The citizens’ media lens highlights the power of the practitioner, and gives insight to the researcher, to see the experience of everyday media practice more clearly. Layers are exposed, and nuances uncovered, enabling community radio’s potential to be understood within a complex setting of participation, access, and the ‘interpenetration of structure and agency’ (Dutta 2011, p. 266). Clemencia Rodríguez reserves the term ‘citizens’ media’ ‘to refer to community media that purposely cultivate processes of transformation and empowerment in their producers and audiences’ (2011, pp. 24–25) and it is through the lens of everyday community control that the experiences at both RCL and 3CR are revealed as rich sites of citizens’ media activity. For the field of CfSC, community radio has long been a key contributor. Yet the terms and practices of CfSC—like many other things under neoliberalism—are sometimes focused on the effective and efficient implementation of market economy compliance and expansion. Contributing to the reclaiming of CfSC’s radical intentions from a Western development agenda has been an unintended outcome of the work undertaken in this book. Akin to Dutta’s ‘culture-centred’ approach, here I have highlighted the capacity of ‘marginalised communities to consciously and strategically participate in processes of change that are meaningful to them’ (2011, p. 3) in ways that depart from

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top-down, development-led approaches to the CfSC agenda, thereby reclaiming and repositioning CfSC within democratic ideals. International research demands new approaches and methodologies. Here I have sought to interlink the global and the local in my approach. The specific methodology developed here provides for a deep, multiperspectival, international viewpoint. In taking a multi-theoretical stance, I have argued that social change, transformative media and the contestation of capitalist communication can occur within the smallscale, culturally diverse and nationally distinct settings of community radio. The amalgamation of the theoretical lenses enables, and ensures, the incorporation of historical context, an interrogation of power and a focus on the everyday within the wider field of social change and is a new approach worthy of further application. What is illuminated in other community media institutions or practices when the stereoscopic lens of critical PEofC and citizens’ media is applied? The theoretical framework’s applicability in analysing social media’s contribution to CfSC would also be worth exploring and would provide a necessary critical analysis of its democratic function. Importantly, the approach facilitates the strong presence of a multitude of ‘voices’ from the experience of community radio listeners and practitioners themselves. This is vital in order both to capture the breadth of experience and assess the nature and complexity of participation. Like community radio itself, here I have sought to strongly engage community experience within my practice and presentation. The community radio stations in this book do not represent the community radio form more broadly. This assessment is not based on the data gathered, but my experience as a practitioner in the sector over a period of twenty-five years. That the stations are not representative has its pros and its cons. On the one hand, the two ‘successful’ stations enable an analysis of community radio’s potential; on the other hand, their selection limits generalisations about their applicability or replication. Certainly, the depth of understanding and uncovering would not have been possible had the stations been too numerous, or unknown to me as the researcher. My close connection to both community radio stations was important in gaining access and trust, and challenges would have been varied and vast without the prior experience, and contribution, at both locations. My approach is neither ethnographic nor anthropological, yet it is clear that my position as researcher was a crucial element in

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both the design and outcomes of the project. Critics may suggest that the connection between researcher and researched presented here is too close, and I would concede that this can lead to skewed views and analyses. However, I believe that clear design and adherence to key research standards, including ethics and methods of interpretation, along with multiple theoretical lenses, ensure a focused evaluation and a critical distance. Community radio is increasingly under-studied as digital platforms, big data and ‘new’ and ‘social’ media perpetuate a myth of advance and progress within communication systems. This book, while not a comparison with ‘new’ media, uncovers a plethora of deeply democratic and critically participatory outcomes from the space of community radio that highlight the need to look beyond the digital to the social and political processes taking place. Within this study, participation—or critical participation—is revealed as a distinct outcome at both stations. Digital media’s participatory promise needs to be consistently critiqued as ‘new’ and ‘social’ media claim rights and successes over the provision of democratic participation in and through the media. Given ‘participation’s’ central role in democracy, and in achieving communication rights, it needs to be closely examined for its actual outcomes, and people’s experiences need to be scrutinised over longer loops of time across the different platforms. While I accept critical views of ‘new’ and ‘social’ media’s participatory capabilities, I have not investigated them. However, I have presented evidence and analysis of the critical participation—political, active, engaged and supported—a community radio setting enables. I have demonstrated that unlike much of ‘new’ and ‘social’ media, community radio is not entangled in the business of surveillance, or compromised by clickbait or responsible for the treatment of citizens as passive, docile consumers whose political participation is focused on fulfilling the requirements of the capitalist economy. Given the current dilemmas facing media and communications capacity to deliver on democratic engagement, and the pressures within the field of journalism to provide for the public interest, community radio’s participatory and democratic capacity—while not new—is clearly spelled out across these pages. I have argued that community radio, as non-commercialised media, makes an essential, and under-utilised, contribution to communicative democracy. Within a CfSC agenda, there is a need for solidarity work, and mediated solidarity emerges from the experiences at RCL and 3CR as an

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active component of a community radio setting. The combination of a diversity of people and issues in a station and on the airwaves leads to exposure and series of cross-connections that manifests in solidarity work that is actively facilitated by the presence and activities of a community radio station. The function of solidarity movements within a CfSC agenda is fundamental, and again the contribution community radio makes in this arena warrants further consideration and action. Normative community radio attributes cut through fundamentals in difference, suggesting a universality of the community radio form capable of transcending cultural difference, or put differently, of fulfilling core communicative democratic needs across translocal and transcultural mediascapes. Transformation is occurring at the station level—on personal, political and organisational levels. The experiences of change through, and by, the respective radio stations are overwhelmingly positive, with high levels of cooperation enabling conflict—when it arises—to be processed and managed. The result is a cycle of movement and change that incorporates diversity, cooperation and conflict. Transformation for the listeners and the practitioners manifests in concrete political activation, experience or illumination. The resulting impact, however, is not always satisfactory, with some practitioners and participants disappointed with community radio’s lack of broad-scale effect. The type of change documented here is largely optimistic, political and life-affirming; however, it would equally be possible to draw out people and experiences that were detrimental and destructive within community radio settings, and even, perhaps, within the two stations chosen. Given that active, current participants were selected as the contemporary interview set, and ‘station founders’ were those who had made a significant contribution to the station, the group of people interviewed is overwhelmingly enthusiastic and positive about the stations’ activities. Again, this is not necessarily a flaw within my approach but is a necessary reflection. Additionally, it is worth considering what might be uncovered if the focus was on unsatisfactory and unhappy experiences within the community radio setting—this could also be illuminating for a CfSC investigation. However, I have sought to unpack the impact of community radio and reveal its empowering, transformative capacity in order to further understand its role as a change agent in subtle and fractured ways. Community radio, thereby, emerges as a place of belonging, commitment, familiarity and rhythmic social relations, while its slow and steady groundedness enables it to fulfil the human need of lasting bonds.

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I have presented the reflection, creation and reconstruction of reality through community radio practice as a central attribute of the community radio experience. The stations’ content and practice are persistently experienced as ‘real’ by listeners and practitioners, which stands in contrast to their experience with other media. Even though the opportunities for media and communications use has greatly expanded, the experience of ‘reality’ remains limited and community radio is experienced here as a rare space in which ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ are presented. Many things flow from this presentation of ‘reality’ for practitioners and listeners: a non-commercialised critique and analysis of corporate and government activity; the presentation of alternative viewpoints, counterhegemonic content and dissenting voices; personal empowerment through having one’s own reality reflected back through a media outlet; and the power gained through mediated self-representation and identity development. The importance of the role and function of presenting and reflecting reality on both an individual and societal level is worthy of further investigation. In line with wider concerns of global crises, and in particular our climate emergency—coupled with media and communications central role in addressing these concerns—it is necessary to better understand the impact of the representation of reality on a public’s ability to act and change. Ultimately it is significant, systemic change that is required in order to counter the pressing challenges facing the global community. Necessarily considerations of neoliberalism’s restrictions and constraints on media and communications within a context of digital capitalism also need to be more fully addressed. While not the focus here, there is precariousness in the ongoing financial, technological and legislative future of the community radio form. We need to pay attention to the ‘ongoing primitive accumulation’ (Fuchs 2016, p. 316) of media and information spaces. The continuing appropriation of the means of communication, and of everyday information sharing, is a direct threat to both access to communication and communicative democracy. Community radio is not immune to the limitations that digital capitalism presents, yet its community-controlled structure presents as a key feature of its ability to withstand, and counter, some of neoliberalism’s restrictions. Flowing from financial and structural independence is a non-corporate, collective framework that enables unique democratic communicative manifestations to emerge. Regenerative voice is one such manifestation. We have seen that community radio provides

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a space for an autonomous, political, supported voice: a voice that sits beyond the commercial media priorities of popularity and ratings, and thereby embodies a different set of values. The values that emerge through a regenerative voice pertain to common good ideals, selfdevelopment endeavours, anti-capitalist activities and an intention to ­create change for the betterment of society. Regenerative voice germinates from the cohesion and unity of common aspirations, exhibiting a democratisation and a decentralisation of speech and listening. Within media and communication spaces there needs to be a move beyond resistance to construction, or beyond resilience to regeneration. In This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, a book calling on the fight against climate change to focus on capitalism rather than carbon, author Naomi Klein notes: resilience … is a passive process, implying the ability to absorb blows and get back up. Regeneration, on the other hand, is active: we become full participants in the process of maximizing life’s creativity (p. 447).

There is no reason why a regenerative voice needs to be confined to a community radio setting. Within digital media ecologies, regenerative voice might flourish if key ingredients are enabled. What needs to be further explored is both the need for, and requirements of, a regenerative voice across various media and communication platforms, and an investigation beyond the digital to the social and political processes that lie within media and communication systems. There is a growing crisis of democratic communication caused by the constraining nature of the commodification of communication. A crisis of voice is one outcome of this predicament; others include the widening exclusion of alternative and non-mainstream voices and the increase in consumer rather than citizen media engagement. Concerns regarding the prolonged impacts of a crisis of democratic communication warrant immediate attention and action. Throughout these pages, we have seen a level of sophistication of democratic communicative practice within community radio across very different political, cultural and socio-economic settings. This sophistication facilitates a profound contribution to CfSC and democratic communicative activity. The community radio setting is not without its restrictions or limitations, but it is ready and present to be used for the wider project of media democratisation that is essential in addressing looming crises and enabling communities to thrive.

224  J. FOX

References Dutta, M. J. (2011). Communicating social change: Structure, culture, and agency. New York, NY: Routledge. Fuchs, C. (2016). Reading Marx in the information age: A media and communication studies perspective on Capital (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Routledge. Klein, N. (2014). This changes everything: Capitalism vs. the climate. London, UK: Allen Lane. Rodríguez, C. (2011). Citizens’ media against armed conflict disrupting violence in Colombia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Index

A Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, 59, 162, 172, 173. See also Indigenous sovereignty, 114, 172 voice, 47, 162, 209, 211 access, 1–9, 14, 17, 24, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 35–37, 41, 42, 44, 46, 62–64, 66–68, 74, 75, 77, 79, 89–97, 99, 101, 103–105, 108, 113, 118, 125, 127, 139, 141, 142, 148, 151, 153, 154, 163, 177, 178, 205, 206, 218, 219, 222 agency, 2, 3, 34, 58, 60, 61, 65, 67, 69, 70, 72, 78, 90, 91, 96, 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 120, 125, 133, 136, 139, 154, 169, 186, 191, 200, 202–206, 212, 218 alienation, 100, 107

alternative viewpoints, 160, 161, 164, 166, 175, 186, 222 Anarchist World This Week, 149, 178, 183 Armenian program, 8, 103, 170 Assosiasaun Radio Komunidade Timor Leste (ARKTL), 207 Atkin, Nancy, 12, 101, 110, 129, 136, 144, 152, 165 Australia, 3, 5, 6, 16, 26, 98, 109, 114, 119, 135, 144, 151, 153, 161, 180, 198, 207, 209 community radio sector, 9, 27 Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), 26, 113, 115, 128 Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), 5, 27, 30, 98 Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), 6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Fox, Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17316-6

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226  Index B Bartlett, Jan, 12, 91, 104, 119, 131, 142, 144, 195 Berta, 12, 103, 163, 170 Blackburn, Susan, 12 Bolton, Ian, 12, 170, 178 Bridge, Dale, 12, 99, 101, 114, 117, 118, 142, 147, 171, 173, 174, 183, 211 Butler, Dale, 12, 130, 131, 135 C Caffin, Liz, 12, 91, 101, 134 case study approach, 3, 14 Cassidy, Darce, 12, 100, 135, 152 Centro Radio Communidade (CRC), 133, 193, 200 citizenship, 44, 57, 58, 60, 61, 69, 77, 82, 90, 108–110. See also political citizenship citizens’ media, 17, 24, 28, 34, 48, 57–62, 67–70, 72, 73, 77, 81, 105, 107, 108, 115, 126, 143, 172, 175, 186, 191, 206, 212 critique of, 69 and empowerment, 17, 61, 65, 69, 71, 108, 218 as a theoretical framework, 3, 17, 34, 60, 62, 64, 65, 69, 70, 160, 219 climate emergency, 191, 222 collectivism, 115, 149 communication, 223. See also democratic communication; development communication; digital, communication and participation, 2, 23, 36, 41, 42, 62–65, 67, 72, 75, 77, 104, 107, 120, 220 and power, 1, 29, 31, 41, 57, 80, 137

rights, 1, 16, 23, 29, 33, 34, 40–44, 46, 57, 58, 71, 77, 107, 204, 206, 217, 220 Communication for Social Change (CfSC), 2, 3, 15–18, 30, 40, 44, 48, 57, 62, 65, 68, 70–74, 77, 80, 81, 97, 115, 117, 125, 129, 130, 136, 140, 141, 143, 148, 151, 154, 169, 172, 187, 191, 192, 202, 205, 217–221, 223 definition, 41, 71 as a theoretical framework, 35, 219 communicative democracy, 1, 3, 23, 39, 44, 45, 61, 62, 65, 67, 68, 138, 212, 217, 220, 222 community action, 1, 18, 72, 146–148, 221 building a sense of, 98, 107 definition, 24, 33, 41, 97 inclusion and exclusion, 29 organising, 116, 117, 120 Community Aid Abroad, 101, 116 Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA), 27, 153, 194, 201 Community Broadcasting Foundation (CBF), 198, 201 community media, 9, 16, 18, 23, 27–29, 31, 33, 36, 40, 42, 57, 59–61, 66, 68, 81, 96, 126, 127, 137, 138, 148, 150, 161, 185, 210, 218, 219 community radio community control, 192, 193, 196, 197, 212, 218 in contrast to public radio, 26, 90, 91 criticism of, 10, 36, 69, 144 definition, 24, 28, 29, 32, 133 financial independence, 18, 197, 198, 201, 202 licensing, 5, 27, 30, 99, 152

Index

organisational structure, 27, 35, 110, 112 in relation to community media, 16, 23, 27–29, 31, 33, 40, 42, 61, 96, 126, 137, 148, 161, 219 studies of, 2, 3, 5, 18, 23, 32, 33, 35, 37, 70, 148, 160, 166 in the world, 9, 24, 26, 27, 44, 47, 82, 142. See also World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) 3CR Community Radio history of, 5, 6, 93 licensing, 5, 6, 93, 98, 128, 149, 178, 193 position within sector, 102, 109, 194, 198 profile, 127, 141 community television, 153 Concrete Gang, 96, 110, 178, 210 conflict, 18, 31, 35, 44, 81, 107, 108, 125, 126, 128–134, 136, 137, 154, 163, 185, 196, 221 cooperation, 18, 25, 79–81, 107, 114, 125, 130–132, 136, 137, 148, 154, 165, 185, 202, 204, 205, 217, 221 Couldry, Nick, 32, 43, 73, 74, 76, 79, 81, 138, 172, 176, 203–205 critical participation, 17, 18, 63, 67, 89, 90, 95–98, 107, 110, 120, 220 cycle of transformation, 18, 97, 126, 129, 130, 132, 134, 137, 150, 154 D da Conceição Freitas, Lolalina, 12, 92, 103, 146, 173, 212 da Costa Hornay, Francisco, 12, 115, 119, 134, 150, 168, 196, 200 da Costa, Jacinto, 12, 93, 106, 133, 138, 192, 199, 200, 208

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da Cunha, Pedrucu, 12, 145, 168, 192 da Silva Gari, Francisco, 13, 94, 95, 102, 103, 113, 116, 153, 168, 201, 206 da Silva Pereira, Ermelinda, 13, 92, 141 de Araújo, Alfredo, 12, 91, 103, 111, 132, 167, 193, 196, 199 Delaserna, Zesorot, 12, 92, 106, 115, 131, 146, 167, 208 democracy, 2, 3, 17, 23, 32, 36, 39, 40, 42, 44–47, 57–65, 67, 74, 75, 90, 106, 108, 118, 125, 126, 128, 132, 136, 143, 150, 151, 172, 202, 207, 220 democratic communication, 1, 2, 60, 66, 68, 74, 81, 138, 175, 223 development communication, 33, 43, 57, 70, 71, 203 digital, 36, 46, 63, 108, 152–154, 203, 205, 220 communication, 65, 79 divide, 151 media, 1, 64, 220, 223 digital capitalism, 45–47, 63, 77, 130, 145, 185, 186, 203, 222 disability issues, 12 dissenting voices, 132, 160, 176, 179–181, 184, 186, 222 diversity, 1, 5, 7, 10, 17, 27, 67, 101, 107, 112, 117, 125–130, 132, 136, 137, 148, 150, 154, 161, 164, 169, 171, 180, 197, 208, 221 dos Santos Soares, Luís Evaristo, 13, 27, 99, 133, 193, 199, 200 Dutta, Mohan J., 2, 26, 65, 72, 80, 115, 117, 131, 172, 212, 218 F Fissures in the mediascape, 17 Foley, Gary, 12, 129, 207, 211

228  Index Freire, Paulo, 44, 62, 63, 72, 77, 172 Fretilin (Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente), 15, 16, 113, 207 Fuchs, Christian, 3, 28, 35, 36, 63, 90, 98, 100, 159, 176–178, 186, 203, 209, 218, 222 G Gleeson, Matt, 12, 100, 105, 108, 141, 180, 184 Goldner, Sally, 12, 94, 104, 118, 128, 140, 149, 194 Gwilliam, Helen, 12, 95, 99, 116, 129, 164, 170, 174, 195 H Hassan, Robert, 45, 47, 73, 75 hegemony, 47, 59, 72, 80, 115, 160, 176, 177, 179, 182, 183, 204 Holliday, Chris, 12, 92, 94, 143 home, 99, 100, 119, 138. See also place a sense of, 107 homelessness, 12, 173, 211 I identity, 58, 60, 61, 72, 82, 160, 171, 172, 174, 222 Indigenous, 26, 59, 98, 118, 162, 172, 173, 178, 183 K Kareni, Ronny, 13, 100, 106 L listening, 7, 8, 25, 44, 68, 69, 93, 95, 97, 105, 110, 113, 115, 137– 141, 144–148, 152, 160, 163, 164, 168–170, 172, 173, 175,

179, 184, 199, 204, 206, 209, 210, 223 and personal impact, 141 political listening, 109, 138, 140, 146, 148, 178, 209 and social change, 104, 117, 146 Lospalos, 3, 9, 10, 14, 81, 91–93, 95, 96, 103, 145, 147, 197 demographics, 127 M MacBride Commission, 42 Malo, Viv, 13, 106, 114, 178, 181, 198, 210 Mancor, Bob, 13, 96, 110, 152, 210 Marx, Karl, 62, 166 McKeown, Marian, 13, 111, 131, 142, 149, 165 mediated solidarity, 17, 112, 120, 220 Melbourne, 3–7, 10, 14, 16, 30, 81, 96, 98, 102, 109, 114, 128, 140, 144, 151, 153, 170, 180 demographics, 127 mental health, 13, 140, 148 Millear, Amanda, 13, 128, 169 Mimosa, Romenia, 13, 141, 208 Mosco, Vincent, 29, 47, 48, 58, 176, 179 N neoliberal agency, 192, 202 neoliberalism, 2, 3, 25, 35, 39, 65, 67, 70, 73–76, 98, 120, 159, 175– 177, 182, 184, 185, 202–205, 212, 218, 222 and individualism, 25, 74 origins, 57 value in, 25, 39, 73, 74, 76, 79, 80, 105, 202 New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), 42, 43, 63, 71, 177

Index

O Out of the Pan, 94, 140, 149, 194 P Palestine, 114, 134, 140, 195 participation, 2, 25, 26, 28, 30, 31, 33, 35, 40, 41, 46, 47, 58, 60–70, 72, 75, 89, 90, 92, 95, 97–100, 102, 104, 106, 108–112, 119, 120, 126, 132, 137, 141–143, 146, 173, 174, 204, 207, 210, 219, 220. See also critical participation and access, 1, 17, 32, 37, 42, 44, 47, 63, 66, 75, 77, 90–92, 94–97, 105, 127, 151, 154, 218 and support, 66, 95, 104 participatory media, 28, 33, 60, 62–68, 89, 97, 106, 120, 220 place, 4, 16, 30, 40, 47, 58, 59, 77, 81, 89–91, 96, 98–100, 102, 104, 107, 108, 112, 115, 117– 119, 129, 133, 134, 136, 137, 141, 143, 144, 146, 149–151, 160, 161, 164, 173, 176, 180, 185, 195, 196, 202, 203, 220, 221 political citizenship, 17, 89, 107–110 Political Economy of Communication (PEofC), 16, 17, 23, 37–40, 44–48, 57, 69, 70, 75, 80, 130, 137, 159, 175–177, 179, 182, 185, 186, 191, 217–219 critical political economy, 34, 37 definition, 40 origins, 37, 41, 57 as a theoretical framework, 3, 17, 70, 81, 206 power

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and agency, 2, 58, 61, 65, 67, 70, 91, 104, 186 and community control, 65 and community ownership, 202 and voice, 15, 18, 31, 44, 61, 65, 70, 78–81, 89, 91, 95, 100, 172, 175, 192, 205, 212, 218 public radio, 26, 90, 91 public sphere, 25, 40, 41, 45–47, 59, 68, 74, 79, 89, 100, 143, 177, 212 counterpublics, 47 critique of, 48, 59 political public spheres, 44, 45, 47, 74 R Radical Radio, 182 and activism, 16, 182 and politicisation, 182 and resistance, 16 Radical radio: Celebrating 40 years of 3CR, 6, 170, 181 radio, 5, 9, 16, 18, 26, 30, 33, 47, 61, 78, 91–97, 99, 102, 103, 105–107, 109, 110, 116, 117, 119, 125, 127, 128, 133, 135, 136, 139, 141, 142, 145, 146, 149, 150, 153, 159, 160, 162, 164, 165, 168–171, 173, 183, 184, 191, 193–197, 199, 201, 206–211, 221 accessibility, 90, 97, 151 and resistance, 16, 113, 138, 176 and technology, 29, 33, 96, 97, 108, 151 Radio Communidade Lospalos (RCL) history of, 93, 113 licensing, 98 position in sector, 128, 205

230  Index profile, 127 Radio Maubere, 15, 16 Ramsden, Bevan, 13, 111, 177, 197 reality, 160. See also self-representation; symbolic fracturing construction of, 18, 106, 115, 159, 160, 166–169, 171, 175, 186 reflection of, 159, 166–168, 171, 175, 222 regenerative voice, 18, 191, 192, 202, 205, 206, 208–212, 222, 223 resistance, 16, 18, 29, 31, 32, 39, 40, 105, 113, 115, 133, 138, 160, 176, 178, 179, 182, 185, 223 Rinaudo, Ben, 13, 101, 106, 109, 148, 174, 210 Rodríguez, Clemencia, 2, 3, 17, 23, 24, 26, 28, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 42, 43, 57, 59–61, 67, 69, 71, 81, 82, 105, 108, 115, 126, 143, 159, 160, 163, 166, 172, 186, 212, 218 S Segal, Greg, 13, 99, 107, 111, 116, 144, 151 Seixas, Julio, 13, 141 self-representation, 25, 47, 127, 160, 171–175, 186, 209, 222 Senthooran, Perambalam, 13, 114, 117, 180 social change, 3, 16–18, 23, 25, 26, 31, 34, 35, 40, 44, 47, 57, 65, 72, 81, 89, 107, 115, 116, 125, 126, 131, 143, 148, 149, 151, 172, 186, 191, 204, 205, 219 and listening, 104, 117, 146 and media practice, 48, 186 social media, 9, 23, 27, 29, 74, 90, 100, 152, 203, 205, 219, 220

capitalist internet, 203 critique, 220 social movements, 28, 29, 33, 58, 59, 127, 147, 148, 163, 179, 182, 186, 196, 203 solidarity, 17, 45, 89, 112–119, 220, 221. See also mediated solidarity speed, 73, 75, 79 symbolic fracturing, 160, 175 T Tabing, Louie, 10, 13, 14, 96, 173, 192 Talkback with Attitude, 94, 109, 147, 195 Tamil Voice, 114, 180 technology, 2, 96, 97, 108, 137, 151, 153, 154 temporality, 167 Thorpe, Robbie, 13, 96, 99, 105, 109, 131, 141, 163, 173, 178, 198, 210 Timor-Leste, 3–5, 9–11, 13, 15, 16, 26, 81, 91, 92, 96, 98, 99, 102, 113, 116, 120, 126, 127, 132–134, 138, 150, 151, 153, 168, 173, 196, 207, 212 community radio sector, 9, 10, 27, 94, 133, 134, 193, 200, 201, 206 Timor Leste Media Development Center (TLMDC), 168, 201, 206 Toscano, Joe, 13, 94, 95, 107, 109, 135, 136, 144, 149, 181, 183, 195, 210 trade unions, 58, 111, 170 transgender/trans and gender diverse, 12, 94, 118, 128, 140, 171, 180 Trolta, Havana, 12, 92, 95, 103, 127 Tuesday Hometime, 139, 195

Index

U United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 5, 9, 10, 14, 26–28, 33, 41–44, 63, 96, 111, 138, 169, 192, 193 V Vardy, Pam, 13, 198 Victorian Jewish Board of Deputies, 93, 135 voice, 223. See also regenerative voice and devaluation, 79 and dissent, 18, 132, 160, 179–181, 184, 222. See also dissenting voices and material production, 80

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and social cooperation, 79–81, 202, 204, 205 and value, 39, 76, 77, 79, 80, 100, 101, 130, 192, 202, 205, 206, 223 W West Papua, 13, 118, 180 World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), 26–28, 42 X Ximenes, Prezado, 13, 91, 99, 134, 138, 150, 200, 201, 207