Radio is wonderfully ubiquitous—transmitted through the air as it is. But radio needs to connect with people on the ground, in communities. Radio is powerful when those connections are made, especially among the disenfranchised. The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at New School for Social Research gathered a small panel of activists and artists to discuss ways we can help each other in communities around the world through the making and sharing of radio. Panelist Stephanie Guyer-Stevens offered to share an edited version of the panel discussion with Transom.org. Join Bill Siemering, Pete Tridish, Khin Phyu Thway, and Gregory Whitehead at the table.
Hi Jackson,
A bit of delay in responding - apologies for that.. I am not completely clear where you're headed with this one. A community can be self-informed and coherent and still need help building a radio station. Likewise, from the Outer Voices model, it's because there are somewhat self-informed and coherent communities out there that we can glean knowledge from that we go and listen in on what they do and share that information out via radio. The community building in the Outer Voices example is real virtual community building - we listen in on the community work of women far away, and in turn listeners can figure ways to support what they're doing with our means that we've got over here in the western world.
So how are we defining communities? I don't think we ruled out any possible definition of how humans tend to create community on our conversation. The physical community created by people living among other people defines the place on the map where radio stations get built. The human tendency to build community invariably extends beyond the people who we see on the street on a daily basis. So there are intangible communities as well - there have been as long as people have been talking. When we talk about radio communities it comes down to who we are affecting when we create radio - who is building the station, as well as who is listening to the airwaves - two distinct communities perhaps, but nevertheless the airwaves perpetuates communication between them - a new community arises with each station being built - and additional communities emerge when people cluster together to discuss what they hear on the radio.
I'll get the other panelists on the line here so they can give you their responses as well.
Hello Stephanie, Bill and the other panelists,
Thanks for posting a subject near and dear to my heart. I spent a month in South Africa in 1993 with a small team of folks from NPR, working to expand the best notions of what public radio could be. I returned to the US shamed (in the same way Pete mentions), inspired, and energized about how to use public radio to make social change. Sorry to say that I feel it has really taken me until just a few years ago to begin grassroots work here in my home region of California. I helped start (with community developer jesikah maria ross) a project modestly called "Saving The Sierra" (http://savingthesierra.org). Our aim is to gather and disseminate the true stories of local people conserving the environment, economy and culture of this immense rural area of California that supplies most of the resource wealth (water, timber, carbon sequestration, etc.) to the entire state. In the 400 mile-long mountain range there are only about 2 million people in a couple dozen communities. There are geographic, political, and economic divides to cross before people can get together to save our ways of life, our communities, and our resources. But I think we have to find a way to come together and soon. Development pressures are intense; waters wars are alive and well here. Some of our communities have become colonies of service providers for the wealthy, mostly urban, second- and third-home owners seeking a natural retreat.
We sent interns to public gatherings and asked people to answer a few questions: What is your favorite place or first memory of being in the Sierra? What issues can people work together on to preserve the Sierra for generations to come? What does conservation mean to you? We've published about 70 of these interviews as webstories. And we are using national public radio programs to continue making ripples about rural people's love of their land and what actions they are taking to preserve it.
It is important for us rural Californians to hear our voices on the air, online. To hear about what is important to us and to reach out to make allies in the urban and suburban areas where there are enough voters to make policy changes that preserve the Sierra Nevada.
Our work must be long-term. There are just a few local radio stations, KVMR in Nevada City and a couple of LP stations scattered around. But few other opportunities to hear local voices. Next year, we'll broadcast a documentary, but meantime we are trying to start a Sierra Citizen's Media project.
In this work, I tend to feel much more aligned with media projects in developing nations than public, community or Pacifica stations that are so focused on urban populations around the US. But it feels really good to be working IN community with others who believe that radio and telling our own stories and developing media literacy and skills really can make a difference in our communities.
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