Abstract
Today there are a wide range of non-commercial radio stations in Germany. Though mostly treated similarly by broadcasting authorities there are major differences in how these stations are thought of and run. This paper argues that for community radios to be radical media they have to develop a way of empowering people to use radio for promoting their issues, especially helping those who are normally not heard. This goes far beyond the training for media literacy most German broadcasting regulators encourage. Drawing on a conversation analysis case study of current affairs programmes on a German Free Radio station, it is pointed out that these shows incorporate both forms of talk that encourage political participation and thereby successfully empower people to take part in political discourse and forms of talk that simply imitate commercial and public service broadcasting stations, thereby applying power structures inherent in these organisations to community radio.
Highlights
Free Radio is a special form of community broadcasting developed by the social movements of the 1960s with roots going back to the 1930s and rediscovered in the early 1990s
Today there is a wide range of community radio stations in Germany
Examining the structure of talk occurring in these programmes – especially by contrasting it to findings of research on news interviews, it was described which methods participants in these talks used to create the specific section of social reality that free radio constitutes
Summary
Free Radio is a special form of community broadcasting developed by the social movements of the 1960s with roots going back to the 1930s and rediscovered in the early 1990s. Examining the structure of talk occurring in these programmes – especially by contrasting it to findings of research on news interviews (see below) – , it was described which methods participants in these talks used to create the specific section of social reality that free radio constitutes Uncovering this everyday construction of social order conclusions can be drawn concerning the possibilities and limits of what free radio can achieve and, how the relationship between listeners and producers is organised – a vital point of what could make free radio radical media, as is argued above. It is taken from a current affairs programme on the Dresden based free radio station coloRadio and was transmitted on 10 December 1998 In this broadcast the presenter talks to an elected city councillor about a meeting of the local city council. (02) Transcript: coloRadio-Magazin, 10/12/98 Extract: Stadtrat (continued) Elli-presenter, Vera-on the phone
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