The Constrabling Effect of Internet Radio

Abstract

In the field of radio, licensees, managers, program directors and program-makers can be seen as agents, that is, choice making entities. From their work practices, these choice making agents have a “feel for the game,” that is, an understanding of the conventions they operate within. Structure, agency, habitus and capital are terms that are used to describe practice and there is an understanding that underlying these terms is the way they both constrain and enable us . To integrate these dual actions together into one workable concept, this paper introduces the new term “constrabling” as a portmanteau word that combines the terms “constraining” and “enabling.” This term, constrabling, encompasses the idea that the structures in which practice take place, the habitus that assists practice, the agency that affects the way we practice, and the various forms of capital that help us engage in practice, do not in fact constrain us at one point and enable us at another. Rather, we as practitioners are constrained and enabled by these structures at exactly the same point in time. In other words, we are constrabled by these structures. The notion of constrabling will be exemplified here through an auto-ethnographic study derived from the author’s own work as a radio operative in the new field of Internet radio.