Radio Journal:International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media - Volume 10, Issue 2, 2012

Although the influential BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel (1939–2004) broadcast on average three times a week for 37 years, until the last four years of his life only a small number of complete recordings of his programmes had been made and preserved by the BBC sound archives. This article seeks to explain the institutional, technological and cultural context behind this absence, and compare it with the recent practice of Internet-enabled fan archiving of shows, based on the restoration and digitization of listeners’ shared off-air cassette recordings. An anonymous online survey indicated the taping, sharing and archival practices and principles of more than 1000 self-defined ‘regular listeners’ to Peel’s programmes. Expert interviews were conducted with past and present BBC Radio archivists, and senior BBC executives directing the corporation’s digital archival development. It is discovered that Peel listeners share archival, technical and ethical values with contemporary BBC archival developers, which could suggest mutually beneficial future, crowdsourcing approaches to expanding the accessibility of music-radio archives in general.

This article describes and discusses the production process of the leading Israeli radio phone-in programme. Phone-ins are considered an arena for public participation as part of the public sphere. The researcher used ethnography and interviews to study the production process. The production team screens the participants – thus gatekeeping processes are in effect. The different agents in the production process use two main considerations to inform gatekeeping: medium-related considerations and public sphere considerations. These considerations are evident throughout the production process and in the broadcast itself. The gatekeeping process leads to limited access to public participation. The two considerations which inform the gatekeeping practices on radio are also useful when examining public participation in other media.

Specific characteristics of broadcast radio communication, especially the combination of breadth of exposure, intimacy and immediacy, provide a theoretical basis to account for the significant effects of the 1930s’ radio coverage of the Lindbergh kidnapping and trial on the cohort group that was directly exposed. The effects of the kidnapping and its extensive news coverage are examined through the explanatory models of moral panic, risk society and para-social trauma. The public’s adoration of the Lindbergh baby allowed it a displaced participation in the intimate life of an American hero, a pattern still commonly seen today in the high level of media attention given to the births of celebrity children. The Lindbergh baby helped the public to affirm (through millions of casual conversations, many letters to newspapers and frequent media representations) its precious child formation at a time when economic realities threatened this ideal. In 1932, radio news coverage of the Lindbergh crime gave the audience an experience that was simultaneously more intimate and more immediate than the print-based crime news that had come before. These special characteristics of the radio-listening experience lent a new dimension to the public’s reaction to one family’s tragedy and contributed to a profound reassessment of the level of risk the American society posed to its children. After the Lindbergh kidnapping, much of the American public, especially American parents, would view everyday society as a much riskier place for their children.

Research has neglected to address the question of whether practitioners and the community groups served by community radio see it as a conduit of community empowerment and social change. This article explores this question through in-depth analysis of four community radio stations in Ireland. The central finding is that, while community stations subscribe to most of the ideals of community radio, practitioners do not generally see the stations as sites of social and political empowerment. Moreover, this outcome is not recognized as a benefit by the communities served by the stations. This is the case because of the policy framework, cultural traditions and training programmes central to community radio in Ireland, the weakness of linkages between stations and community groups and the failure of the latter to understand the unique remit of community radio.

Melbourne is Australia’s second most populated city, and in many ways a microcosm of broader Australian society. As a city, Melbourne is the proverbial ‘melting pot’ of cultures. This diversity is evident in the breadth of community radio stations that service the Melbourne community. From ‘generalist’ stations serving a plethora of marginalized audiences to ethnic stations, youth stations, stations for seniors and Indigenous stations, Melbourne community radio is a vibrant and active mix of much that represents Australia – and the contemporary global condition. This article draws on data collected during two national studies of Australia’s community media sector (Forde, Meadows and Foxwell 2002; Meadows et al. 2007) that focused on stations and subsequently their audiences. The research used a mixed methodology of surveys, focus groups and interviews to build a picture of the role these stations perform for individual participants, local community groups, businesses and other organizations and audience members. The article engages with Melbourne fieldwork from these national studies, offering an analysis of community radio in an Australian metropolitan centre. While not without their problems, Melbourne’s community radio stations and their audiences have created and developed a space and place for diverse groups to connect in ways that foster the sense of belonging so central to the well-being of individuals and their communities. In this way, these stations perform a particular role in metropolitan Melbourne by combating the sense of isolation and anonymity that so often characterizes the urban experience.

This article proposes an enhanced model of radio drama for development, which places forum theatre on the community radio platform. The model responds to the key development priorities of democratic, multi-directional communication, participation and social advocacy. It utilizes the mass dissemination advantages of the radio medium, the distinctive, dialogic qualities of community radio and the democratic and empowering tendencies of forum theatre to propose a prototype for fully participatory radio drama for development. The model was developed and tested during fieldwork at community radio stations in Laos in 2010 and 2011. Forum Theatre on the Air draws on two of the major theoretical paradigms of development communication: participatory communication and entertainment-education. The model creates an argument for a greater integration of these broadly complementary yet parallel hypotheses.