RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

Nick Jankowski

and

Anne-Lieke Mol,

University of Nijmegen,

Institute of Mass Communication

DEMOCRATIZATION OF COMMUNICATION AND LOCAL RADIO IN THE NETHERLANDS

INTRODUCTION Local radio in the Netherlands appears to have come of age . There were, as of 1988, some 160 stations in operation around the country transmitting programs on as many cable systems and reaching a potential audience of some six million persons . About 50 of these stations supplement their activities with occasional community cable television transmissions . Some 20 of these stations have recently begun experimentation with low power ether transmissions; within a уеаг between 300 and 400 local ether radio transmitters are anticipated (Van Eijk , 1988). Other new communication technologies аге also being implemented ; televised textual information supplementeđ with graphic illustrations is being provided by some dozen local radio stations . One station in the country has been experimenting with interactive communication forms via the cable network (Jankowski and Olderaan. 1986). There has been - and still is - much development related to small scale media . Our 1 ) position , however , is that this 'success story' merits closer examination. Such examination, we contend , will ехрозе a dark side to the development and a neeđ for fundamental reflection on the course being taken by these media . Since most readers may, be unfamiliar with local radio in the Netherlands we provide an overview of this medium in the first section of this paper . In the second section of the paper we formulate the theoretical perspective from which we intend to examine the development of the medium . This perspective is referred to as democratization of communication and is related to a particular vision of đemocracy , anđ of access to and partiopation in the media . in the third section we present findmgs from recently conđucted empirical research on the introduction of local broadcastmg stations . This material provides the basis for