This document discusses community radio, its purpose and role. It defines community radio as radio stations that are operated and influenced by the communities they serve, are non-profit, and provide content relevant to local audiences. Community radio aims to raise awareness, support development, and help during disasters. It focuses on social welfare, education, empowerment, health, conservation, and agriculture. Features include being non-profit, encouraging community participation, and using affordable technology. Community radio plays a role in public discourse, radical democracy, collective action, raising consciousness, and shaping identity within globalization. Issues include access, participation, and self-management through democratic structures.

1. Community Radio
By
Dr. L.Muralikrishnan,
Scientist, Division of
Agricultural Extension,
ICAR-IARI,
New Delhi -12.

2. Community
Community is defined geographically, as well as in terms
of interest, language, cultural or ethnic groupings

3. What is Community Radio?
 Community radio stations are operated, owned, and
influenced by the communities they serve.
 They are generally non profit and provide a
mechanism for enabling individuals, groups, and
communities.
 Community radio stations serve geographic
communities' interest. They broadcast content that is
popular and relevant to a local, specific audience

4. Cont….
 It also helps in raising awareness and leads to the
development of a particular area.
 It plays an important role at the time of natural
disasters and calamities.

5. Community Radio
Activities

6. Characteristics of Community
Radio Station
 Small radio station
 Low power transmitter used
 Works on frequency modulation (FM) band
 Tower length is maximum 30 meters

7. Purpose of Community Radio
 Social welfare development
 Education
 Women empowerment
 Health and hygiene
 Natural resource conservation
 Agriculture

8. Basic Features of CR
 Not for profit making
 Community participation
 community radio is better at encouraging involvement
in the public sphere

9. Basic elements in CRS
 Hardware
Studio
Transmitters
Tower
Antenna and cable
 Soft ware
Training
Content

10. The medium of,
 An affordable technology (low cost)
 Easy to operate
 Portability (transistor radio)
 Accessibility

11. Everitt’s New Voices of Community Radio
• 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

12. Cont…
• 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

13. Role of Community Radio

14. Public sphere
 Community radio station a “common meeting
ground” for overlapping, even conflicting, local
public spheres
(Hochheimer 1993: 477)

15. Radical democracy
 Political action - an active striving in the socio-
political arena
 Appropriate “discursive conditions” must precede
political change
(Laclau & Mouffe 1985: 153)

16. Collective action
“Basis of the knowledge formation”
Implications for - participatory action

17. Conscientization
 The stages of ‘codification’ and ‘decodification’
aim to transform the social reality – to become
‘subjects’ of their own destiny

18. Hegemony
 ‘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)

19. Identity
 “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)

20. Community
Radio
Public sphere
Radical democracy
Collective action
Conscientization
Hegemony
Globalisation
Social capital
Identity

21. Issues
Access – providing individuals and communities with a
platform to express their views
Participation – non-professional media makers are
encouraged to be involved in the production process
Self-management - democratic structures;
involvement in policy and planning

22. Conclusion.
If we are to give CR with its proper attention,
there will have to be transformations of TOT
with effective socio-economic development.

23. references
Barlow, W. (1988) “Community Radio in the US: The Struggle for a Democratic Medium”, in Media,
Culture and Society, vol. 19, pp. 81-105.
Coyer, K., Dowmunt, T. and Fountain, A. (2007) The Alternative Media Handbook. London:
Routledge
Downing, J. (ed.) (2010) Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media. London: Sage
Downing, J. (2000) Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. CA:
Sage
Dunaway, David (1998) “Community radio at the beginning of the 21st century”, in The
Public/Javnost 5.2, 87-103.
Lewis, P. (1984) “Community Radio: The Montreal Conference and after”, in Media,
Culture and Society, vol. 6, pp. 137-150.
Prehn, O. (1992) “From Small Scale Utopianism to Large Scale Pragmatism. Trends and
Prospects for Community Orientated Local Radio and Television”, in Jankowski, N.,
Prehn, O. and Stappers, J. (eds.) The People’s Voice: Local Radio and Television in
Europe. London: John Libbey.
Rennie, E. (2006) Community Media: a Global Introduction. Oxford: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, Inc