Utopías Espectrales: La Radio Comunitaria En Los Estados Unidos, Desde 1970 Hasta Nuestros Días

En el aniversario del primer siglo de radiodifusión, este artículo analiza la formación de la radiodifusión en los Estados Unidos, y los movimientos de radio libre, micro-radio y FM de baja potencia (LPFM) como momentos clave de la radiodifusión a pequeña escala y no comercial. Introducido en el año 2000, el servicio de LPFM contiene lecciones para el panorama de los medios de comunicación en el segundo siglo de radiodifusión. En un entorno de radiodifusión muy consolidado, con importantes barreras de entrada y en un entorno on line dominado por gran- des plataformas comerciales que mantienen e intermedian algorítmicamente las comunicaciones en línea, la radio comunitaria no comercial se destaca como un modelo muy diferente de infraestructura de comunicación, con un compromiso declarado de llevar a cabo relaciones comunitarias democráticas

Geek

Keyword entry on the term "geek", exploring its drift over time from circus performer to weak person to technological enthusiast, tracing evolution over history of radio and computing

Beyond ‘‘Dudecore’’? Challenging Gendered and ‘‘Raced’’ Technologies Through Media Activism

This article follows media activists trying to transform the media system by broadening access to technology and skills. These activists intend for tech- nological engagement to be compatible with a range of social identities, but their hopes are not always achieved. It is difficult to cultivate forms of technical affinity and expertise not associated with White masculinity, though the activists are more successful with regard to inclusion of women than of people of color. This case study provides an opportunity to analyze how social and personal identities may shape, and be shaped through, interactions with communication technologies, as well as the ramifications of technologically- oriented activism in the wider array of efforts to secure a more democratic media environment

Frailties at the Borders: Stalled Activist Media Projects in East Africa

This article considers two activist projects involving attempts to export communication technologies. Groups of technologists based in the United States and Europe designed a radio station and an “oral wiki” for use in Tanzania and Rwanda, respectively. Both projects stalled before they could be fully implemented. But they did not languish because of user ambivalence or disregard; indeed, in both cases activists and local grassroots actors alike hailed the technologies as uniquely suited to the local conditions in which they were to be deployed. Drawing on social studies of technology, I argue that the Tanzanian radio station and Rwandan oral wiki cases illustrate that it matters where actors draw lines around where “technology” starts and ends. To distinguish between “the artifact” and “the social” is an act of boundary-drawing, with important consequences for media activism and technology transfer projects

What’s Local? Localism as a Discursive Boundary Object in Low-Power Radio Policymaking

This article addresses the discourse of ‘‘localism’’ used in the formulation of low-power FM radio service in the United States. It builds on S. L. Star and J. Griesemer’s (1989) concept of ‘‘boundary object’’ to theorize localism as a ‘‘discursive boundary object.’’ Drawing on interviews with advocates and regulators, participant observation with low-power radio activists, and documentary research in relevant policy discussions, the article argues that ‘‘localism’’ moved across discourse communities and effaced differences for groups who otherwise might not have agreed. ‘‘Localism’’ was also polemically deployed at the level of national policy. Its unique potency may be seen in the seeming inability of even actors who opposed the introduction of low-power FM radio service to oppose localism outright

Producing “Participation”? The Pleasures and Perils of Technical Engagement in Radio Activism

Twenty people spent a weekend gathered around two refrigerator-sized FM radio transmitters inside a large truck parked on a busy street. These large machines were unwieldy: over thirty years old, they were heavy to move, frustratingly dark to work in, and required high electric current to operate. They were not in working order; they were filthy inside and out and miss- ing various components. After two full days of labor directed toward diagnosing and repairing the machines, arguably little progress had occurred; the transmitters, though cleaner, were still not functional, and hardly closer to being so. They were placed into storage. How might the events of this weekend offer insight into media activism and the politics of technology? This episode reveals an underexamined intersection of politics, technical practice, work, and pleasure, which is compelling because it binds together contrasting strands of activism and technical practice. This activity is significant as a form of social organization at the edge of civil society, participatory culture, paid labor, volunteer work, productive activity, and amateur pursuit, cutting across these categories without hewing cleanly to any of them. In particular, the tensions exhibited here allow us to draw out differing, if not opposing, strands of the politics of technical engagement, containing both pitfalls and possibilities. As this article will show, imparting technical skill was a priority, but arguably more important to this activist project was deepening political and affective commitment and constructing technology as a site to enact participatory politics and challenge elite expertise

Paradoxes of Participation

This chapter examines how activist ideals manifest in the realm of practice, emphasizing the reality of technical expertise running afoul of participatory goals in the practice of radio activism. A major plank of the radio activists’ work was the promotion of technical participation to novices through various activities such as radio station–building workshops, tinkering meet-ups, and other types of DIY (do-it-yourself)4 work with technology.5 They routinely presented the work of soldering a transmitter, building an electronics console (as in the carpentry example above), or tuning an antenna to be accessible to all. They invited novices to participate in these activities, to “put their hands on the technology,” and held that such experiences in technical participation were liberating. Specifically, the radio activists sought to offer “participation” as an experience to everyday people. They presented technical engagement as a strategy not only for leveling expertise but for increasing political participation as well. They believed that technical work could impart a heightened sense of agency to participants. They recognized that tinkering is as much a form of cultural production as a technical one

Geeks, Meta-Geeks, and Gender Trouble: Activism, Identity, and Low-power FM Radio

In this paper, I consider the activities of a group of individuals who tinker with and build radio hardware in an informal setting called ‘Geek Group’. They conceive of Geek Group as a radical pedagogical activity, which constitutes an aspect of activism surrounding citizen access to low-power FM radio. They are also concerned with combating the gendered nature of hardware skills, yet in spite of their efforts men tend to have more skill and familiarity with radio hardware than women. Radio tinkering has a long history as a masculine undertaking and a site of masculine identity construction. I argue that this case represents an interplay between geek, activist, and gendered identities, all of which are salient for this group, but which do not occur together without some tension

If “Diversity” Is the Answer, What Is the Question? Understanding Diversity Advocacy in Voluntaristic Technology Projects

Dunbar-Hester vividly cuts to the heart of gender issues embedded within computing cultures by exploring questions of “diversity” tied to FLOSS and hackerspace projects. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork within these sites, she reveals a wide array of motivations behind diversity programs. In doing so, she assesses the potential of such projects for political intervention, foregrounding the placement of technology at the center of social empowerment initiatives. The result of this work is a profound recognition of the continued gulf between rhetorics of plurality and claims to social power

“Freedom from Jobs” or learning to love to labor? Diversity advocacy and working imaginaries in Open Technology Projects

This paper examines imaginaries of work and labor in “open technology” projects (especially open source software and hackerspaces), based on ethnographic research in North America. It zeroes in on “diversity initiatives” within open technology projects. These initiatives are important because they expose many of the assumptions and tensions that surround participatory cultures. On the one hand, these projects and spaces are organized around voluntarism; in theory, everyone who wishes to participate is welcome to do so. On the other hand, diversity initiatives form in order to address the “problem” of imbalance in the ranks of participants. Technology is a unique domain for the discharge of political energies. In collective imagination, it has been vested with the power to initiate change (even as this belief obscures the role of social and economic relations). Multiple ideas circulate about the relationships between diversity in open technology projects and paid labor. This paper argues that in part due to the legacy of technical hobbies as training grounds for technical employment for much of the twentieth century, as documented by historians of radio (Douglas, 1987; Haring, 2006), voluntaristic technology projects are vexed sites for imagining political emancipation. To a large degree, diversity initiatives in open technology projects are consistent with corporate values of diversity as a marketplace value. At the same time, collectivity formations around technology that incorporate feminist, antiracist, or social justice framings may begin to generate connections between diversity advocacy in tech fields and social justice movements or policy changes in order to effect deep social change