History of Struggle: The Global Story of Community Broadcasting Practices, or a Brief History of Community Radio

"[T]he spread of community radio as an institution is rooted in a history of struggle and media activism engaged among disparate movements and actors who often captured the airwaves in defiance of state-run and for-profit broadcasters."

This article contextualises the practices of contemporary community radio stations - non-profit, participatory media institutions that are largely volunteer-run. It does so by tracing the global history of community broadcasting, building an international context to position community media as an institution shaped by a history of struggle to access the radio spectrum. The research reflects on the growth and spread of community radio practices analysed in four distinct periods of development, starting in the early 1900s with the first attempts to establish radio broadcasting as a means of self-representation and liberation. These periods organise the activities and efforts of communities (social movement actors, non-state/corporate actors) deploying radio technology to create media by and for the community. This effort to compile the story of a multitude of experiments advanced by a complex ecology of actors, policies, and processes is meant to explore the different origins of community radio, view its common roots, and highlight the diversity of practices that underpin its spread.

The history of community broadcasting compiled here begins in the Experimental period from the 1900s-1940s to position community radio as one of the original uses of radio broadcast technology. This first period saw revolutionaries and social movements working locally to mobilise radio technology as a tool for grassroots political communication. In addition, this phase saw different types of development, including experiments that advanced radio technology, the building of community-accessible radio studios, and the creation of new funding models through listener donations and church or union support. Proliferating political groups operating clandestine stations to capture the airwaves may have developed in isolation, but collectively they acted as a propellant expanding community radio practices to several continents. These activities in the 1950s and 1960s marked the beginning of the Wildfire period of community radio's history, which resulted in the rapid spread of community broadcasting by non-state, non-corporate, and social movement actors across North and South America, Europe, and Africa. During this period, radio became a necessary feature of national and regional liberation struggles and independence movements. (Many examples are provided in the article.) Thus, radio as a weapon of resistance was a common feature in war zones, and unlicensed stations went on air by the hundreds. These stations supported students and workers, and united other familiar networks like Indigenous and campesino communities.

During the next period (1970s and 1980s), Solidarity, community radio stations organised into networks, shared resources, and created advocacy bodies for the first time. In these two decades, community radio was supported by new funding initiatives and legislation. While unlicensed radio was still pursued as a necessity and/or a right by communities in 37 countries, this period also saw communities accessing licensing for the first time, such as Indigenous nations in the United States and Canada. A series of gatherings facilitated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) took place throughout the 1970s among supporters of restructuring global media flows, producing the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). "[T]he internationalization of community media activism at the NWICO gatherings...enshrined communication as a human right and promoted the value of participatory media."

These gains met new challenges during the Resurgence period, which began in the 1990s, when neoliberal development agendas prioritised commercial media and the privatisation of communication infrastructure over the development of community radio. Despite this pushback, community media continued to spread at a fast pace to many countries for the first time. When countries such as South Africa and Hungary opened up community radio licensing, nearly 100 community broadcasters went on air in just a few years. While the Resurgence period saw the increased accessibility of radio production and distribution technology due to developments in digital editing software and internet audio sharing portals, community radio stations still faced challenges due to local media regulations. In the face of these challenges, community radio advocacy increased during the Resurgence period, in part due to the mutual renaissance experienced by community radio and grassroots activism around the start of the twenty-first century. "The story of community broadcasting compiled here and the current Resurgence reveal that the development of community radio as an institution has roots in the global South and among non-state, non-corporate and social movement actors everywhere who took to the FM dial to break through sound barriers created by capitalism and the State."

"Further expanding the history of community broadcasting through the lens of internationalizing communication studies requires research that situates the timeline presented here within local/regional political and economic contexts to deepen this brief story of community radio. Such an effort can also reveal where community radio is under threat today, especially for those community broadcasters who face jail time, violence, and even death. Indeed, AMARC [World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters]'s most recent campaign aims to organize community radio stations against impunity for 'crimes against freedom of expression' and for the safety of journalists (2016), because the struggle to access the airwaves continues."