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Radio Communities: The Other Side of The Electronic Divide
August 2007
Mile 91 Station, Sierra Leone. Photo by Bill Siemering.
Radio Communities: The Other Side of The Electronic Divide
Using radio to create community, creating community radio. Why expect radio to do this? It's malleable, anonymous, inexpensive to build, easy to transmit and receive, relatively speaking, even when the simple act of owning the box is punishable by an indefinite jail term. Radio is always possible. It is the link between local community and the global community. Radio creates a dimension in which various communities can meet, exchange, discuss and develop ideas, transforming the way we define notions of geography and public space. What political, cultural and humanitarian goals can be served by this medium exclusively? How does radio function as a tool for shared information?
Mansura Works On Radio Transmitter, Jordan
In November of 2006, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at New School for Social Research assembled a small group to discuss this topic. Panelists were Pete Tridish, founder, Prometheus Radio Project; William H. Siemering, President, Developing Radio Partners; Khin Phyu Htway, student, The New School and contributor to Voice of America, Burmese Service; Gregory Whitehead, writer and artist. Moderated by me, Stephanie Guyer-Stevens, Producer, Outer Voices.
We started with a presentation from Gregory Whitehead called, "Here Comes Everybody" and then moved to a panel discussion. The panel, and audience of fifty, focused on different ways of using radio as a kind of glue for creating community both here and abroad.
Minidisc Training, Jordan
Bios:
Khin Phyu Thway is a Burmese activist in exile. After fleeing to Thailand, she has led several pro-democracy campaigns for Burma, acting as leader of the women's branch of the Democratic Party for a New Society. Eventually, she sought political asylum in Poland, and continuing her activist work, founded Polish-Burma Solidarity. Thway currently studies at the Eugene Lang College at the New School for Liberal Arts and is working at the Burmese Service of the Voice of America (listen here).
William H. Siemering, President of Developing Radio Partners, has been a leader in U.S. public radio management, local and national program development, and fundraising for more than 30 years. In 1993, after receiving a five-year MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Siemering began his international work, assisting radio stations in townships in South Africa. In 1995 as a Knight International Journalism Fellow, Siemering returned to South Africa, before returning to Washington D.C. in 1996-97 to serve as president of the International Center for Journalists. Most recently Siemering served for five years as senior radio advisor for the Open Society Institute (OSI) that funds civil society initiatives in more than fifty countries.
Final Touches On Transmitter, Jordan
Pete Tridish was a member of the founding collective Radio Mutiny, 91.3 FM in Philadelphia, and is also the founder of the Prometheus Radio Project. He actively participated in the rulemaking that led up to the adoption of Low Power FM and on the lawsuit Prometheus vs. the FCC, which held back a major round of media consolidation. Tridish has organized a multitude of community radio station barn-raisings, in the U.S. and internationally, and advised on hundreds of others.
Gregory Whitehead is an internationally renowned writer, director and producer of well over 100 radio plays, essays and acoustic adventures for the BBC, Radio France, Australia's ABC and other broadcasters. His recent production of Normi Noel's No Background Music received a Sony Gold Academy Award.
For the past twenty years Stephanie Guyer-Stevens has been working in the non-profit world and creating media. She started Outer Voices as a way to both examine social change by women in remote parts of the globe and to disseminate stories about their work in their communities.
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