1. Community radio: encouraging the involvement of citizens in public spheres Peter Lewis London School of Economics

2. Introduction Hispanic-anglophone academic dialogue objectives of the IREN project

3. : “to identify what instances exist, and what potential there is, for radio’s use in encouraging the involvement of citizens in public spheres, locally, nationally and at a European level” (IREN Consortium Agreement 3.2.4)

4. Introduction Hispanic-anglophone academic dialogue objectives of the IREN project task is empirical, but also theoretical a role for mainstream radio, but… community radio is better at encouraging involvement in the public sphere digital transmission not good news for community radio

5. Theoretical tour d’horizon No Holy Grail of a universal theory no static relationship a “shuttling back and forth”: test theory against empirical data; interpret data in the light of theory

6. Community Radio public sphere Habermas Negt & Kluge Theoretical tour d’horizon

7. Public sphere Habermas’s original concept needs modification not one unitary, public sphere - counter or alternative public spheres co-exist Community radio station a “common meeting ground” for overlapping, even conflicting, local public spheres Hochheimer’s questions:, “who decides what are the legitimate voices to be heard?.. What happens when power, or people, become entrenched?” (Hochheimer 1993: 477)

8. Community Radio public sphere Habermas Negt & Kluge radical democracy Laclau &Mouffe

9. Radical democracy Rodriguez (2001) draws on Mouffe’s notion of radical democracy political action - an active striving in the socio- political arena by subjects attempting to transform relations of subordination appropriate “discursive conditions” must precede political change (Laclau & Mouffe 1985: 153)

10. Community Radio public sphere Habermas Negt & Kluge radical democracy Laclau &Mouffe collective action Melucci

11. Collective action Melucci’s work on the production of meaning in collective action (Melucci 1996) “by what processes do actors construct their actors able to define meaning researchers need to reach agreement about the “basis of the knowledge formation” implications for method - participatory research approach

12. Community Radio public sphere Habermas Negt & Kluge radical democracy Laclau &Mouffe collective action Melucci conscientization Freire

13. conscientization a mutual search for words that have special meaning in the students’ experience thus allowing them to name their own reality, and break the “culture of silence” collusive relationship between oppressors and oppressed the stages of ‘codification’ and ‘decodification’ aim to transform the social reality – to become ‘subjects’ of their own destiny

14. Community Radio public sphere Habermas Negt & Kluge radical democracy Laclau &Mouffe collective action Melucci conscientization Freire hegemony Gramsci

15. hegemony “ An unstable, non-unitary field of relations where....strategic compromises are continually negotiated” (Atton, 2004: 10) accepted as normal and unquestionable counter-hegemony – post-Gramscian notion (cp. counter-pubic sphere) ‘community’ as an ‘articulation’ (Hall) of different social actors and groups which is “neither necessary nor inevitable [but] rather…contingent and volatile…a unity of differences; a unity forged through symbol, ritual, language and discursive practices” (Howley 2005:6)

16. Community Radio public sphere Habermas Negt & Kluge radical democracy Laclau &Mouffe collective action Melucci conscientization Freire hegemony Gramsci globalisation Giddens Castells

17. globalisation “the intensification of world-wide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens 1990:64) The case of Indymedia, Internet radio and microradio (Coyer 2005) “Community media permit analysts to interrogate the dynamics of global media culture in a local context” (Howley 2005:269

18. Community Radio public sphere Habermas Negt & Kluge radical democracy Laclau &Mouffe collective action Melucci conscientization Freire hegemony Gramsci globalisation Giddens Castells social capital Bourdieu Putnam

19. social capital Putnam 2000 on social capital

20. Community Radio public sphere Habermas Negt & Kluge radical democracy Laclau &Mouffe collective action Melucci conscientization Freire hegemony Gramsci globalisation Giddens Castells social capital Bourdieu Putnam identity Martin-Barbero Hall

21. identity Martin-Barbero on the problems of identity in modernity: “local identity is …compelled to transform itself into a marketable representation of difference” (Martin-Barbero 2002: 626). “The contradictory movement of globalization and the fragmentation of culture simultaneously involves the revitalization and worldwide extension of the local” (ibid p.636). Indigenous identities in the face of “their transformation into ‘modern countries’ (ibid. p.635)

22. Community Radio public sphere Habermas Negt & Kluge radical democracy Laclau &Mouffe collective action Melucci conscientization Freire hegemony Gramsci globalisation Giddens Castells social capital Bourdieu Putnam identity Martin-Barbero Hall

23. Everitt’s New Voices Access Radio/Community Radio provided primarily..to deliver social gain [defined as including the following objectives: reaching listeners who are underserved facilitation of discussion and the expression of opinion education or training for volunteers better understanding of the community and the strengthening of links delivery of services provided by local authorities promotion of economic development and of social enterprises the promotion of employment gaining work experience promotion of social inclusion promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity promotion of civic participation and volunteering

24. Conclusion. If we are to give CR its proper attention, there will have to be transformations in Europe’s radio