RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

interest to those restricted audiences , and thus provide a unique service . Even general coverage of local news often is absent , especially on the smaller commercial operations , or restricted to 'rip 'n read.' According to a survey presented in CrooKes and Vittet-Philippe , local and regional stations in 10 West European nations reporteđ spending an average of 96 minutes per week on local issues . 18 ) J) Very few local station administrators appear to have systematically assessed their communities , whether through surveys or by some other method, in an attempt to discover who might benefit most from what sorts of broadcgsts . Partly that's a f unction of budget, but partly it seems to stem f rom a 'professional' attitude: we're broadcasters, and we know how broadcasting serves a community . The chief drawback to such an approach is that often it results in the transfer to a given community or local station or whatever seemed to work elsewhere , whether that was a region , the entire nation, or a very different community . ILR Radio Могау Firth's (Inverness) Community Radio Association probably has its greatest influence on the station not through its financial investment (smal!) or its own programming efforts (modest) , but in its function as a reminder to the full-time , l prof essional' Могау Firth staff of what this community IS . K ) Perhaps expectation of what local or community radio can do for , to and with a community are overambitious . Anthony Wright summarized statements made in various White Papers and the 197 7 Annan Committee report about the potential usefulness of local radio in ’revitalising' democratic participation with such phrases as "governors and governed linked in public dialogue," "a new watchdog at work in the Town Hall and in the Hight Street," etc. But his own report on the contribution of local radio to the development of local democpacy was , as he put it, "gloomy readmg for a believer in local radio as an адепсу of civic awareness and mvolvement." 19 ) He offered several reasons for this , but one which he didn't of fer was the possibility that supporters of local radio simply expected too much of it. There may not be all that many community mass međia , but most community members do have access to a fairly large variety of sources of information and influence , mass and interpersonal, and local rađio easi!y can be perceived as just one in a sea of voices . t WHAT IS LOCAL ABOUT LOCAL RADIO AND WHAT IS ITS FUTURE It may be easier to define local radio in terms of what it is not rather than what it is . With few exceptions (community stations in the U.S. and Canada , some public stations in

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