It seems like the radio has been around since the dawn of time. I remember my grandmother blasting the oldies on her kitchen radio as she prepared Sunday brunch and I never really thought of it as anything more than a dusty old box with various knobs that blasted some strange music which I was never very fond of. Also, being a girl that relies quite heavily on her iPod for all her music listening needs, I never really thought twice about the radio. But what has been brought to my attention is that this seemingly dusty old box fashioned with various knobs is so much more than just a music player but a mechanism that could serve a community on a much greater level than just supplying the masses with listening entertainment. If you think of the radio in terms of it being an alternative space in which people can voice their opinion to all levels of society from a private space, the implications around radio start to be seen in a different context. Therefore, the following account will demonstrate that radio programming not only reaches a larger community because many deal with literacy issues as a large obstacle but also that it can be utilized as a community facilitator. To elaborate on that notion even further, through the medium of electromagnetic airwaves, radio can be used a connective links that binds the oppressed together through the powerful agent of voice.
This notion of radio as a community facilitator was illustrated in a lecture given by Tal Nitsen regarding women’s radio programming in Guatemala. Given that Guatemala is a male oriented country, female radio programming provides a platform for women to express their own opinions and discuss current events with other women to women of the community. Thus, women were developing their own alternative spaces as communicators. In Guatemala, news orientated discussions are something usually reserved for the male domain and now women were provided with a chance to voice their own opinions regarding some important current affairs, such a politics or world issues. Furthermore, it was women speaking to women of the community, therefore; linking them together in a collective and facilitating a collective identity. Most importantly, Guatemalan female radio programming created a public forum in which the female voice could now be heard.
A second example of the connective power of radio program was demonstrated in Daniel Fisher’s article “Mediating Kinship: Country, Family and Radio in Northern Australia”. Fisher argues that indigenous radio programs such as TEABBA are using music request shows to link family members with those that are incarcerated. Thus, a family member could call in to the show and request a song for a loved one in jail and could also provide a shout out to that member to go along with it. Also, Fisher claims that country songs were quite popular requests because of the particularly appropriate lyrics of some of them. According to Fisher, due to the postcolonial government, an excessive amount of indigenous have been incarcerated, a staggering twenty-one percent. Also, indigenous radio programs can also be used to reach geographically dispersed networks of kin because it can reach remote areas of Australia. Thus, in the land down under, radio is really used instrumentally to link kinships together, whether incarcerated or separated, through an accessible medium. While preserving traditional indigenous values of keeping people together, radio programming fosters the ability for communication to the unreachable and also collapses the distance between the two parties, whether it be through Nanna Evie’s country song request for her boys in prison or a woman’s favorite Peppimenarti Band song. Garnering the most attention is Fisher emphasizing issues around Aboriginal incarceration and the dispersal of kin. Fisher reveals the staggering disadvantage indigenous communities are in the wider domain of Australian society while shedding light on notions of discrimination and unequal opportunity, thus; Fisher’s article provides reader with a rather negative reflection of Australian society.
In both instances discussed above, the dark oppressive underbelly of society is revealed, whether it be in Guatemala or Australia and the utilization of radio programming as a communicative instrument to link people together. Thus, the radio acquires a new form of agency by providing those discriminated or oppressive with a means to contact and create an active community using the voice or music as a means of liberation.
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