RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

dif f erence may be probtematic for community activists) , to ascertaining who speaks for which community , and how differing claims to be heard must be međiated for stations to survive . How these issues are mediated is critical to the survival of this rediscovered use for the old medium . WHAT IS COHMUNITV RADIO? The problems begin at the most fundamental level. While it is important to recognize that there is nothing inherent to the medium that dictates the broadcast system which currently đominates in the United States , it is also important to see how the pervasiveness of commercial broadcasting has đictateđ the terms in which we think about the rađio, as well as how we think about its listeners . "Broađcasting", for example, is deriveđ from the predominant (but, not the only ) means of the medium which was first structured in the years before 1920 1987). "Audience" is not a means by'which _most people listen , but rather reflects the perspectives of broadcasters who seek to program to a "mass" of listeners . Reople to not listen as a mass , but rather, they listen one , two , three at a time , in their homes, their off ices , their cars . They respond to what they hear as individuals , not as members of an audience . "Broadcasting" to an "audience" in a "međia market" (a means by which transactions are made ) is for the convenience and necessity of the stations' managements , anđ the advertisers that sustain them , not necessarily that of the listeners . In order to define what community rađio is and what it can be used to construct, there must be some understanding of what is meant by "rađio" , and how we define "the community" and its needs . Neither of these is self-evident . Rađio can mean the box that sits in the living room (or is in the dash-board of the automobile) , ог it can mean the entire system by which electromagnetic waves аге generated and passed through the ether , or it can mean the inđustry based upon broadcasting from a central source to a dispersed audience . "Rađio” and "broadcasting" are not synonymous , however . Early radio in the United States , for example , existed of point-to-point communication between amateurs who were eager to speak with each other over long distances (Douglas, 1987). During the First World War , the military (especially the Navy) commandeered radio to keep in centralizeđ contact with troops and ships that were spread out over many locations . 1 J After the War the Navy , loathe to give up its new communications tool , sought insteađ to establish a monopoly over all rađio transmissions . Although such government control proved to be politically untenable withm , a combmation of post-war

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