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This article, within the context of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Community Media Association (CMA) in 2023, and its role within the context of British radio history, will draw on grey literature from the CMA digital archives, including policy statements, policy briefings and background material for the lobbying actions during the period 1997–2007. First-hand material to be discussed will draw on interviews with key actors involved in policy-making until the introduction of Community Radio into legislation, as well as on press releases, statements and policy documents of the regulators Radio Authority and the Office of Communications, policy statements and documents published by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, statements from the BBC and commercial radio representatives and parliamentary records of the debates on community radio legislation. The analysis and discussion of this material will help to establish the role of the main players in policy-making and regulation and how events unfolded between the outcome of 2 May 1997 general election, when the Labour Party took power, and 20 July 2004, when the Community Radio Order (CRO) was approved. It will also trace the development of the lobbying action of the CMA, the discussions and the tensions preceding the government's approval to go ahead with a new sector. It will argue that, despite having the merit of introducing a new sector in licensed radio broadcasting, after three decades of community media activists campaigning, the Labour Party fell short on its promises of funding the sector in its initial phase, denying it a solid and sustainable start. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various alternative forms of communication have emerged, such as community radio, radio podcasts, publications in networks, and press releases. These tools have served communities of eastern and southwestern Antioquia and the organizations COA and MOVETE, to sustain their causes over time, make the communicative task massive, and extend an invitation to more people to take action in favor of the defense of the territory. This has the advantage that popular communication strategies allow many stakeholders to become not only consumers and receivers of the information that other people produce, but also creators and transmitters of their own information, which emerges from the dynamics of their daily lives, by helping to reduce the communication gap between mass media and the excluded communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to describe characteristics and communicational practices of community, alternative, and popular radio stations in San Luis Province, Argentina, between 2010 and 2020, considering the latest regulation in force: LSCA law 26.522, 2009. In San Luis, there are three radio stations that fall under the categories of community, alternative, and popular, according to the law: La Bulla, Masi Radio, and Radio Rebelde, all of them born after the law was sanctioned. The methodology is qualitative, and the analysis is based on empirical research that includes official registries, previous research, academic papers, interviews, and informal conversations with media members. The study analyzes the practices that these radio stations develop to build sustainability, and whether or not they achieve it. Their relationship to other socially relevant actors, such as the State in its three levels, other civil organizations, within a concentrated and centralized media system, is also considered, reflecting those characteristics from the province's political power configuration. Community radios in San Luis suffered the consequences of the national government changes and the paralysis in local communication policies, nevertheless, they are still operative. However, the lack of new community experiences requires further thoughts about how social and political conditions contribute to its marginal position in the communicational system of the province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'community' of community media has long been a contentious question in the field. Given the wide range of interpretations of community and the ongoing fragmentation of media audiences, it has never been more important for community media to define and delineate their audiences. One approach to this is developing and maintaining a sense of mediatized community identity through content production. Community identity represents an under-researched area in community media studies. While community media audiences and broadcasters have themselves been the subject of research, how a sense of community identity is created through content production is less understood. This article details a critical discourse analysis of programming from ten different community radio stations within the same geographic location. The findings of this research reveal the very different approaches that stations take to developing a mediatized community identity. Several stations approach identity expression by engaging in overt performances of 'localness', while the growing influence of commercialization was also observed among many stations. What this research highlights is that the performance of community identity on community radio is integral in shaping the listening communities, as well as delineating community radio from its commercial and state-run counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to reflect on community radio and television in this post-conflict times. To do so, an approximation is made to sustainability as a central category resulting from the balance between economic, political and, particularly, sociocultural aspects. Secondl, two experiences are reviewed: This is how radios sound for the peace in Colombia and the Community Media Conversation. They serve as a pretext to know its reality, its scope and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community radio in India operates within a clear framework of development. This calls into question the fundamental purpose of community radio: communication rights, activism, voice, community participation or development? Drawing on ethnographic research conducted at two rural stations in South India, this research explores the influence of a pervasive development discourse on the grassroots activities and functions of community radio. The starkest example of this was observed through the far-reaching influence of the Government of India's highly publicised sanitation programme, the Swachh Bharat Mission. This programme represents a pervasive example of the modernisation paradigm in development communication, yet it was found to proliferate throughout community radio, a medium more often associated with participatory communication. This development discourse was found to profoundly impact the way both broadcasters and audience members engage with and experience community radio. The findings highlight a disconnect between the theoretical and ideological frameworks of community radio and the ways in which a development discourse operates through the stations at the grassroots level. As such, this article argues that community radio in India represents a liminal space where multiple development communication paradigms interact and compete with the theoretical underpinnings of the movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the qualitative results of an investigation carried out on community radios in Ecuador, based on two questions: what has happened to the local stations that, in 2014, took advantage of the opportunity opened by the Organic Communication Law to become community? Have they achieved economic, institutional and social sustainability? Fieldwork has focused on the analysis of four case studies. The results, obtained through in-depth interviews and participant observation, put on the table a discussion: the distance between the expectations that we find in the stations as a result of the approval of the LOC and the reality shown when, five years later, begins the reform of the lawt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connectivity made possible by the diffusion of digital technologies has offered new possibilities for the public to interact with media, including radio. However, interactions are often framed by globally managed platforms, owned by companies with values based on maximizing profit, rather than prioritising Illich's forms of conviviality. In this article, we draw on experiences from the Grassroot Wavelengths project that introduces an innovative peer-to-peer platform to support the creation and management of community radio stations. We offer insight into the practices of participation in community media, where the users influence decisions concerning the technology, the content, the actors and the organization policy of the radio station, through a participatory design approach. These collaborations between researchers and users, together with a focus on the development of relational assets in local contexts, are fundamental in an attempt to design a platform that fosters conviviality and offers an alternative way to consider participation in community media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows in a concise way the proposal of a model for reception studies of community radios. This is result of a collaborative research process with five community radio stations in Bogotá, Cundinamarca, Boyacá and Santander. Under the assumption that it is an open model and that it does not claim universality, the authors leaves some guiding theoretical and methodological assumptions and presents a route so that other community radio experiences can adapt it to their own history and contexts of conformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first community radios began to emerge in Brazil in the 1980s as a part of the illegal radio broadcasts that occur from the 1970s under the inspiration of the so-called European pirate radios. You are already included in the legislation for broadcasting services; in addition, there are many radios in activity illegally in the country. The work verifies the current panorama of the radio in Brazil evidencing its clandestine appearance and its specificities through the case study of a radio with characteristics of emission that operated clandestinely for almost two decades in the interior of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Parliament has already stated the need to adopt support measures in order to guarantee a greater plurality of the media environment and greater participation of citizens in the media. With this premise and the -UNESCO's reommendation on the importance of indicators to measure the correct behavior of audiovisual media, this study evaluates community radios with the Social Profitability -Index in Communication (IRSCOM). A tool whose operation, applied to the means of proximity, has proven its usefulness having influenced the recently approved Audiovisual Law of -Andalucía. IRSCOM values the good practices of these media, as well as exposing the shortcomings they present in order to propose improvements for greater democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents results related to the cultural and identity revaluation identified in two experiences of community radios managed by Afrodescendant women -from Venezuela and indigenous women -from Ecuador, belonging to populations excluded from both, representation and access to media communication. The first of the experiences refers to the Avanzadora de Yoco, the only community radio in Yoco, located on the Güiria Peninsula, in the northeastern of Venezuela. The second refers to a communicative intervention with indigenous women in the province of Chimborazo, in Ecuador. The purpose of this intervention was to record the radio program Alli Kawsaipak Jampikuna / -Medicine for Good Livingon the community radio Escuelas Radiofónicas Populares del Ecuador (ERPE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the role that community media play in the translocal negotiation of local culture in Latin America. Translocal is a concept that captures the way that local cultural producers engage with national and transnational forces in shaping everyday cultural practices. This study focuses on community radio station Ecos de Manantlán in Zapotitlán de Vadillo, Mexico (Radio Zapotitlán), during the years 2006–2012. Radio Zapotitlán is officially categorized as a campesino or agricultural laborer/peasant station and presents its campesino identity through radio and Internet content. Analyses of that content, along with interviews with station associates and listeners, reveal the complex cultural mediations between local media producers, national regulators, and transnational donors. This study investigates the local production of a transnationally funded radionovela, or radio soap opera, as a window onto the station’s role as a cultural mediator. This article argues that station participants used the radionovela to express local values and meanings and to marginalize the educational goals of the transnational agency funding the project. Radio Zapotitlán offers a concrete case of cultural negotiation in which local interests engage with – and transform – donor-funded content aimed at the local community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Argentinian Law 26.522 on Audiovisual Communication Services (currently under reform) aimed at democratizing the media arena by recognizing multiple actors such as community broadcasters, school and indigenous media, among others. According to the legal classification, community broadcasters were regulated as private non-profit media, despite having specific objectives, programming, organizational logic and economic conditions. Conversely, school and indigenous media merged into the public sector, even if they may act as community media. The article compares results arising from two research projects carried out in Northern Argentina through in-depth interviews with key informants from two indigenous radio stations and two school radio stations. The theoretical framework mainly draws on literature about community, alternative and popular communication. Results show that communities participate in such media foundation or management and that media content deals with cultural and political issues related to their interests or needs. Indeed, emerging features allow considering such broadcasters as community media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature about community radio in Kenya has focused on sustainability challenges, but not much on existent production practices and audience evaluations of the station. Koch FM is a community radio station located in Korogocho, a slum in Nairobi, Kenya. The station aims to provide alternative information, education and entertainment content. Producers at the station and community members who make up the station's audience have different perceptions of Koch FM's role. While the producers envision Koch FM as the provider of information and a space for community voice, the community evaluates the station's performance based on parameters drawn from commercial broadcasters. Consequently, the station acts as a space where sometimes-contradictory ideals play out. In exploring these contrasting viewpoints, this article highlights contextual production practices and the shifting audience expectations facing community radio in Kenya's vibrant radio broadcast environment. The data are the outcome of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2014 and 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community radio in Australia is now well established and considered an important part of the radio sector, however, in today's economically driven world it is at the bottom of the media money pile. In order to argue for its continuing existence, funding and development in an ever-changing media landscape, some means of capturing its value is essential. This article describes the development of a theoretical framework of value for community radio. The content of the framework was achieved by, first, examining, community media/radio literature through five relevant lenses of analysis. Secondly, a subsequent meta-analysis was applied to consolidate the framework. In order to test the utility of the draft theoretical framework of value, three case studies were conducted with different types of community radio stations in Perth, Western Australia. Two primary research methods were used: interviews with staff and audience focus groups. The testing exercise provided a multimodal insight into the values of community radio as reflected in real life practice. The analysis revealed how value was perceived by participants across three stations as personal motivations, and second, that value at individual stations was contingent upon the characteristics of the individual community radio stations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community multimedia centers (CMCs) are considered by initiating agencies as instruments able to inform, entertain and educate the population, as well as to offer them a voice into knowledge society and to public initiatives. This article presents a quali-quantitative content analysis of 230 interviews held with staff members, users of the venues, people of the community who listen to their radio component but do not use their telecenters, and community members not using CMCs. The sample includes 10 CMCs around Mozambique. The purpose of the study is to investigate the perception of local communities of inbound, outbound, and shared information and communication flows connected to CMCs. Results highlight how CMCs are perceived as inbound information enablers, mostly by means of their community radio component, and as means to share information and communication within the communities' boundaries. Yet, CMCs still do not appear to be widely recognized as participation means to a reality that transcends the communities' physical borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]