Search

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]

It's no secret that the representation of migrant groups in the media has been particularly problematic, as has been their access to mainstream media, and both issues have attracted a great deal of research. Far less attention has been paid by researchers to how these groups respond when they experience such difficulties, and the various forms of media they use to engage with a variety of issues pertinent to them and their settlement experiences. This article uses data from two projects: Australia's first, and to date only, national study of community radio audiences; and a more recent case study of a community radio station undertaken in the course of research into talkback radio audiences. It reveals that community radio stations and programs provide migrant communities with a space in which they can discuss and negotiate their civic and social rights and responsibilities. Drawing on the reflections of audience members who listen to and call specific radio programs, this article explores the under-examined but vital role performed by these stations and programs in the social and civic lives of immigrants. It reveals that ethnic community radio programs are helping some audience members to formulate notions of good citizenship, and thus engage with democratic processes, which is vital to feeling socially included. The research reveals immigrants are using community radio proactively to reach out to and connect with the broader Australian community, while also reminding themselves of their homeland, culture and language. However, this article warns that researchers have largely focused on the 'good news story' of community broadcasting and suggests that a more critical approach to future research is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the types of alternative or community radios found in western and third world countries. It highlights the establishment of the community radio station KPFA in Berkeley, California in 1949, which has served as the first moment in the history of community radio. The complaints of the third world countries on the unjust effects of allowing information to be manipulated by powerful nations are also emphasized.