Introduction

I was once quoted in a magazine article saying that I never wanted to attend a conference again if it didn’t involve power tools.  At the time, I was likely holding a soldering iron in my hand.  In my ideal world I would have the time, resources and commitment to be a  scholar, a policy advocate, and a community media volunteer.  In reality of course my interventions vary in their efficacy. 

What I do take away from these experiences of helping build (literally) community radio stations with the Prometheus Radio Project and train volunteer producers is what I hope to be a deeper understanding of what goes into building and sustaining independent, not for profit media; what some of the practical research needs are related to increased pressure from funders to measure impact (as well as a desire to better understand one’s audiences and communities being served); and a desire to see the sector grow and evolve.  The question is how can I translate this into meaningful research.

Background: Low Power Movement and Policy-making

The movement for Low Power FM Radio (LPFM) in the United States in the was fought and won by activists with groups like Prometheus and what was then the Microradio Empowerment Coalition with little if any academic research to draw on for support.  Many case studies and scholarly pieces have been written about the success of stations on air and the model of communities coming together to collectively build their own stations pioneered by Prometheus called “Radio Barnraisings.” 

At the same time as authors have derided Congressional legislation that blocked implementation of the LPFM service in approximately 75% of the country at the behest of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and surprisingly National Public Radio (NPR) on disproven  (see FCC engineering and Congressionally mandated MITRE studies) grounds of broadcast interference, few have produced the research low power radio advocates sought to demonstrate the community value and benefit to localism while they continue to labor eight years later to have the legislation overturned. 

The impact of pirate radio on debates around concentration of media ownership also went under-acknowledged in the academy for many years. In this exploratory essay, I will attempt to address some of the challenges and opportunities I have encountered through my research and efforts at intervening in the policy making process.  In doing so, I will divide this piece into three distinct sections with the aim of identify some key sites for policy intervention related to community media; explore efforts to develop research methodologies that better reflect the kinds of media under investigation; and conclude with some informal findings of suggestions from advocacy groups as to research needs for the field. 

Researching Community Media Policy: Balancing Acts

My research is focussed broadly on community media policy and practice, especially as it relates to media democracy, pluralism and localism. I am concluding a multi-year study of community media policies in Europe, and the role of advocacy groups and civil society in moving forward agendas for community media policy.  I am also examining the issue of sustainability in community media and recently contributed to an Internews-produced handbook on the subject.  It is exciting to be part of a growing and dynamic field. 

At the same time, I recognize the need for scholarship that addresses the policy and practical needs, as well as research that pushes the theoretical landscape of what it means to talk about community media and why, in an era defined by globalization, transnational networks and rapid technological  innovation is there is a resurgence in one hundred year old analogue, local radio?  Clearly social needs are driving the uses of technological as much as they are mutually reinforcing.  But how to balance the conceptual impulse with the desire to produce timely research related to policy concerns in a system where academic rewards such as tenure are driven by scholarly publication in peer reviewed journals that operate on a timeline different from the more immediate needs of policy advocacy?

Opportunities for Policy Intervention in Europe – Multi-stakeholder Approaches

Community broadcasting has developed asymetrically around the world – and across Europe – at different times and under different conditions. There are countries with well-established sectors for community radio and television; there are countries with either no legal or enabling environment for community media or countries where community media operate in dangerous or hostile environments; and there are countries that fall somewhere in between (for example, where there exist opportunities for licensing but no means for stations to support themselves financially, or countries where there exist a few strong stations that are supported by international aid agencies but with no means of self-sufficiency). 

However, recognition of community media as a formal ‘third sector’ of broadcasting (alongside public and private broadcasting) is gaining momentum and pressure is being exhorted from community organizers, international aid agencies and policy advocates.  UNESCO and the World Bank Institute have supportive positions on community media as an important site for citizen engagement and cultural practice. The European policy agenda increasingly recognizes the role of community media, including efforts by both the Council of Europe and the European Parliament to consider development of enabling regulatory frameworks. The political will to create and protect community media are fundamental to long-term sustainability. 

Breaching the Knowledge Gaps

According to the World Association of Community Broadcasters (French acronym AMARC), the lack of proper enabling legislation is the single largest barrier to community media’s social impact and sustainability. The lack of a cohesive policies across Europe related to community broadcasting is compounded with regards to digitalization, in large part because there has also been an uneven development of digital radio itself, including across Europe.

As part of this research, I co-ordinated (along with Arne Hintz and Mojca Plansak) an Exploratory Workshop funded by the European Science Foundation to investigate the impact of digitalization and convergence on community broadcasting and consider the gap of policy-related knowledge within the framework of a broader perspective on convergence, communication infrastructure, social and democratic concerns.  The workshop took a multi-stakeholder approach and included academic researchers, station organizers, European policy makers, communication regulators, and NGO leaders and activists, especially people involved with the Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE) and AMARC Europe. 

This mixture of participants was noted as a strength of our funding application and was integral to the success of the workshop. A telling moment came towards the end of the workshop when we were breaking off into working groups on research and policy advocacy which is where the multi-laterialism broke down.  For the most part, the groups self-organized in such a way that the research group was comprised of academics, and the advocacy group of everyone else.  So what does this say?  That practitioners don’t care about research and academics don’t care about implementation?  Perhaps simply that when the rubber meets the road, the function of organizing and designing strategies and methods fell to these divides, but with the aim that each would inform the other. Also worth noting that only the academics seemed self-conscious of this division.

Emerging Prospects

In Europe, opportunities for policy intervention are taking place and there seem to be positive examples of collaboration in many directions. As mentioned above, policy makers have shown an interest in participating in workshops on community media research and the Council of Europe recently commissioned scholar Peter Lewis to study the social impact of community media.  The European Parliament also recently commissioned a private research firm to study community media policies across EU member states. 

Although at first scholars were concerned that the commission was not given to an academic institution, the researcher took it upon himself to involve a range of stakeholders in the study.  Additionally, a large EU-funded study to develop indicators for media pluralism across Europe has also provided an important opportunity to further establish community media as one small but significant ingredient for pluralistic media systems.  These efforts at the European level have been instrumental in helping support the development of policy advocacy at the member-state level, especially in the East and South East regions of Europe where there are few examples and licensing of community radio and television.