Creating Citizenship Through Community Radio in Rural Thailand
This study seeks to analyze the ongoing social movement to establish community radio in rural Thailand as a participatory communication process in order to transform people into citizens. More specifically, the study analyzes the participatory process inherent in the development of community radio in Thailand since its inception in 1997 to the present and illustrates success cases of citizen empowerment. The study is based on analysis of documents and secondary data, personal observation and interview of key persons, field study and case studies of numerous community radio stations. The study showed that the movement was triggered off by the 1997 Constitution which advocated a participatory democracy and reallocation of radio frequencies for public interests at all levels. To vie for frequency allocation, a number of government, non-government, public and private agencies rushed to set up community radio as a pilot station. As a result of the failure to establish a national broadcasting regulator as stipulated by the Constitution, most small radio stations had been operated illegally and in a chaotic state. However, there was some evidence suggesting that participatory community radio, particularly hill tribe radio, has the potential to transform rural people into active citizens due to radio’s ability to involve and empower the grassroots as well as to treat its listeners as subjects and participants rather than as objects or passive audiences.
Connecting communities through youth-led radio
Abstract Connecting Communities through Youth-Led Radio Catherine Wilkinson This thesis explores the extent to which, and the ways in which, KCC Live, a volunteer youth-led community radio station situated in Knowsley, neighbouring Liverpool, UK, provides a space for young people to find and realise their voices. The body of geographical work on radio has predominantly focussed on large-scale geopolitical questions at the international scale. In particular, there has been a deficit of research considering community radio in the UK. Research from other countries is not easily transferable, due to the specific regulatory paradigms in different countries. This study takes a step towards remedying the neglect of community radio in geographical research in the UK. This research project adopts a participatory design in collaboration with young people at KCC Live. Mixed methods were employed, including: 18 months of observant participation; interviews and focus groups with volunteers; interviews with management at KCC Live and Knowsley Community College; a listener survey, listener diaries, and follow-up interviews. Accompanying this thesis are two co-produced audio artefacts: an audio documentary named ‘Community to me is…’, which explores young people’s musings on community, and a three-part radio series called ‘What we found’, which discusses the findings of this research in audio form. First, my research provides insight into a twofold vision of youth voice as both restricted and creative concurrently. This thesis shows that community radio is not a cure-all solution for disenfranchised and silenced young people, as young people at KCC Live work within a pre-censored idea of speech. Second, this thesis finds that young people conceptualise the KCC Live community in multiple ways. These include: friendships which constitute communities of choice; geographic communities within specific locales; the functioning of KCC Live as a community of practice; imagined communities of listeners; and virtual communities, formed through use of social media. This research therefore advances recent debates that shift notions of community away from static place-based understandings to more networked approaches. Third, this thesis demonstrates that young people are capable of learning skills, locating resources and building networks, thereby generating their own stocks of social capital. It therefore challenges the dominant perception within the literature of young people as receivers, rather than producers, of social capital.
Community Radio: Participatory Communication in Postapartheid South Africa
This paper evaluates the evolution of community radio in postapartheid South Africa where a three-tier broadcasting system—public, commercial, and community—has replaced the monopoly of a state-run behemoth, the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The paper commences with an overview of South Africa's institutionalized culture of exclusion in the broadcasting sector and in other social spheres. A conceptual review of participatory communication precedes and provides foundation for the examination of the operations of two community radio stations located in two of South Africa's previously marginalized and disenfranchised communities. Although South Africa's adoption of community radio answers perpetual questions about the sustenance of community radio, the ongoing experience poses a few challenges.