RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

audience , the community station is the locus for a joining of disparate people with differing needs and interests to share in the construction and dissemination of information and entertainment. Power is , theref ore , spread more evenly throughout the community . But, such a community is a difficult proposition to define, In a small, homogeneous environment, a case can be made fог an identifiable ”community" to which all of the people in a given area belong; however , where there is a heterogeneous population, especially in a large city, defining what communities exist, and to which groups dif ferent people belong , becomes more - problematic . The community is based upon shared experiences and common cultural meanings (Lewis , 1984, p. 4 ) . People belong to several diff erent communities : territorial, racial, ethnic , sexual, economic class , etc . Lipset (1960) argues that most people are subject to cross-cutting cleavages based on regional ties , religion , гасе , national origin, etc . The degree to which a person identifies her/himself with one or more of these groups , the strength of inclusiveness or exclusiveness with others with whom s/he identifies , the socio-cultural milieu within which these cleavages come into being all will affect the connectedness of that person with others , the flow of inf ormation , and the communication links that may come into being . 6 ) Racial, ethnic and educational factors converge when cligues are formed . Since many of these tend to be exclusive , they become barriers to the formation community structures between people living and worKing close together . 1 ) We may identify three Kinds of communities ; a territorial community in which people live and/or worK in close proximity , an 'epistemic' community in which people share common interests ог concerns , and a ”community of needs" in which people share the need for a particular resource , right ог service , even if these needs are not felt (Lewis, 1984, p. 3) .8) These communities tend to overlap, depending upon the particular issues at hand , and upon the level of involvement of concerned members . A low-powered radio service most liKely can be useful to a territorial community , but not necessarily to an epistemic one , since people with similar interests tend to be dispersed throughout a heterogeneous population . Frequently , however , communities of need tenđ to live and worK proximate to each other (e.g. , the poorest tend to cluster into barrios and ghettoes, in cities such as San Francisco, the homosexual community tends to cluster in the Castro District , etc . ) , allowing for the viability of a low-poweređ radio service

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