Micro Radio And The Fcc

Micro Radio became a lightening rod for the emerging Media Activism and Reform Movement. Like the environmental movement in the 1960s and 70s that focused on specific issues like nuclear power, the Media Activism Movement discovered a significant formative issue in micro radio at the turn of the millennium. This book is a close examination of the struggle over micro radio. Throughout this research micro radio is viewed as a site of social activity, a unique cultural and historical bond where ideas about the relationship between media and democracy are explored. This work is the first to spotlight this emerging social movement and uses critical historical analysis to provide a description of it. The information in this book shows the struggle over micro radio as the most recent manifestation of a growing social movement, a movement of media activism and reform. As local people took to the airwaves, illegally broadcasting the frivolous to the serious, theoretical concepts such as localism and public access suddenly became grounded in a real world radio show. Micro radio broadcasters were able to demonstrate what is left out of most mainstream media. They showed what could happen when a diverse public is allowed to access the most universal telecommunications of the day. This look at micro radio will be valuable to communications students who are interested in the strategies behind media and social movements, alternative media, and news media practices.

Microradio and Democracy discusses the role of citizen access to communications in a democratic society, and how diversity, localism, and core political speech are undermined by corporate control of the public airwaves. Ruggiero examines the emergence of microradio activism in recent court cases, and the links between the microradio struggle and larger movements for democracy and social justice. Illustrated with photos and graphics, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned about keeping free speech for communities, not corporations.

"Radio Cultures examines the manifold ways in which radio has influenced the nation's social and cultural environment since its inception nearly a century ago. Written by leading scholars in the field, chapters address a wide range of topics, including how this powerful medium has impacted and affected non-mainstream segments of the population throughout its history and how these repressed and neglected groups have employed radio to counter and overcome discrimination and bias. The use of the audio medium for political, economic, and religious purposes is comprehensively probed and analyzed in this insightful and innovative volume."--Back cover.

The entries are designed to be relatively brief with clear, accessible, and current information.

Produced in association with the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, the Encyclopedia of Radio includes more than 600 entries covering major countries and regions of the world as well as specific programs and people, networks and organizations, regulation and policies, audience research, and radio's technology. This encyclopedic work will be the first broadly conceived reference source on a medium that is now nearly eighty years old, with essays that provide essential information on the subject as well as comment on the significance of the particular person, organization, or topic being examined.