RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

the computer-operated station . But, alternatively , the dissolution of technical hierachies can become a way of creating internal democracy within a station . It becomes possible to organize stations as co-operatives or voluntary organizations. This connects the campaign for community radio with wider struggles within industrial societies. These are the demands for a more vigorous civil society , the democratization of production or for media time for social movements . (Barbrook 1987: 117-26) ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FOR BRITISH RADIO BROADCASTING These conflicting pressures for an expansion in radio broadcasting create different possible futures . The Green Paper produced by the Home Office is only one solution to the difficulties facing апу government wishing to license new stations . It has been not just the conflicts between different lobby groups which has paralyzed Тогу policy . It also has been the contradictions between various policy goals which have made action so difficult for the Home Office . As with other media , the future of radio is bounđ up with the government's wider view of how society and the есопоту is organized . But even if the Tories do adopt a clear strategy for developing radio , there is no guarantee it will work . The French Socialist government discovered that licensing the left-wing radios Hbres did not stop the takeover of the airwaves by commercial interests . (Barbrook 1988) ‘There is no global subject to plan accumulation strategies, regulatory mechanisms, or hegemonic projects and to guarantee their successful implementation . Instead we find only different subjects whose activities are more or less co-ordinated , whose activities meet more or less resistance from other forces, and whose strategies are pursued within a structural context which is both constraining and facilitating .' (Jessop 1988; 159) At present, there are four distinct visions of the future of rađio in Bntain . These are the free market, corporate , paternalist and community strategies for the đevelopment of radio broadcasting . The free market is the most venerable solution for expanding radio in Britam. It is based on an idealization of the USA , It is suggested that there could be lots of advertising-funded stations with few controls over their ownership or content, This approach is supporteđ by some Тогу M.P.s anđ a few academics who ađmire its iđeological purity . (Adam Smith