Book Review: Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism, by Christina Dunbar-Hester

Abstract

Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism. Christina Dunbar-Hester. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2014. 320 pp. $36 hbk.Low Power to the People focuses on the Prometheus Radio Project, a Philadelphia-based media reform group that had its origins in the pirate radio upsurge of the 1990s. After the FCC shut down their station in 1998, these pirates turned their attention to media policy activism-in particular to promoting low-power FM by lobbying to expand opportunities for legal broadcasting and by providing technical and other assistance to community organizations interested in radio. The book also explores issues of identity (gender and geek, activist and expert) and technology, how Prometheus navigates the tensions between its political and technical objectives, its conception of radio as a medium for creating and maintaining community, and the politics of radio in the 21st century.The activists who founded Prometheus consciously set out to demystify and democratize technology. They were embedded in a do-it-yourself culture deeply committed to skills sharing, and to overcoming often-gendered divisions of labor that concentrate expertise, and hence power. But for many of the constituencies Prometheus served such considerations were at best secondary-they were primarily interested in communicating and community building. Dunbar-Hester documents a persistent tension between these objectives. Many of those most committed to local radio broadcasting have few technical skills or, more critically, a deep desire to acquire them; those prepared to lend their technical skills are often not experienced teachers and are eager to get on with the work. As a result, the skill sharing that characterizes Prometheus' work often has a largely symbolic character.Outside of the low-power and pirate radio movement, Prometheus is probably best known as the lead plaintiff in a successful legal challenge to the FCC's dismantling of ownership limits. At its peak, Prometheus had a half-dozen paid staff and a larger pool of volunteers working out of its offices in the basement of a West Philadelphia church. These served clusters of radio activists around the country who Prometheus assisted with seeking low-power FM broadcast licenses, and then helping successful applicants build their stations and start broadcasting.Christina Dunbar-Hester is an assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University. Low Power to the People is based on ethnographic research from 2003 to 2007, supplemented by interviews and documentary research. Although she now teaches in a communications program, she originally approached the subject as part of doctoral research in science and technology studies. As a result, there is much stronger emphasis on questions of identity, gender, pedagogy, and the social construction of technology.The activists who launched Prometheus had broader interests in technology and do-it-yourself culture. But they chose to focus their activism specifically on radio, seeing it as a medium rooted in local communities, affordable, and capable of being highly democratic. …