RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

John L. Hochheimer

, Universit/ of lowa

COMMUNITY RADIO IN THE UNITED STATES: WHOM DOES IT SERVE?

ABSTRACT The possibilities of local community members producing and providing radio programming services for themselves are causing a great deal of interest and excitement in the United States , in Western Europe, and in the parts of the Third Worid. Although such radio redefines the uses to which the medium can be put for both receivers as well as senders , such redefinitions do contain certain inherent problems . These problems range from a lack of clear definition of what constitutes "community radio" , in what ways it differs from "local radio' (and why that difference may be problematic for community activists ) , to problems with financing for eguipment and staff , to ascertaining who speaKs for which community , and how differing claims to be heard must be mediated for stations to survive . This paper seeks to address some of these problems in the context of models of commumty radio that have existed in the United States for some time . How these issues are mediated is critical to the survival of this rediscovered use for the old medium . Radio should be converted from a distribution system to a communication system . Radio could be the most wonderful public communication system imaginable , a gigantic system of channels - could be , that is , if it were capable not oniy of transmitting but of receiving , of making the listener not only hear but also speak , not of isolating him but of connecting him . Bertold Brecht (1940 in 1983 ) The second Conference of AMARC ("Assemblee Mondiale đes Artisans des Radios de type Communautaire" ) in 1986 marked a watershed in the đevelopment of locai and community radio around the world . Delegates from 30 countnes . as well as from three mternational organizations came to Vancouver , B.C. , Canada , to share both theoretical and practical experiences about programming , commumty organizmg , fund-raising , the empowerment of women (both withm broadcasting anđ within the greater community at large) , and

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