The Cultural Work of Community Radio

Book excerpt: Community radio is an established and key site for negotiations of social and political issues for marginalised communities. Given its inherently local nature (both geographically and ideologically), community radio is perfectly placed as a site for articulating community concerns. At the same time, given this local quality, the diverse ways in which stations—and broadcasters—negotiate their community concerns vary substantially from city to city and region to region across Canada and the US. The Cultural Work of Community Radio investigates the multiple modes of community and broadcasting practice at selected community stations, explores how these draw from and reflect ongoing concerns of their host city or region, and examines how on the ground practice maps on to overarching broadcast policy directives and guidelines. Focusing on community production practices with reference to policy frameworks around community representation, this book examines and compares differences in community radio production practices in Miami, Montreal, New Orleans, Toronto and tribal lands in Arizona.