Static Structures and Dynamic Processes of Participation and Access: a Case Study of Connemara Community Radio

CONNEMARA COMMUNITY RADIO (CCR) is a community-based radio station broadcasting from Letterfrack in the North West Connemara area of Co. Galway since 1995. On air for 10 hours daily, it is possibly the smallest community radio station in Ireland serving a remote, yet large and sparsely populated rural franchise area. One of the main motivations behind CCR’s original establishment was that the radio station would promote community development in its franchise area (Day, 2007b; Heanue, 2002). Set against the literatures on community radio (Day, 2007a, b; Kanayama, 2007; Rennie, 2006; Sánchez, 2003; Heanue, 2002; Girard, 1992) and community development (Tilly, 2004; Moseley, 2003; Varley and Curtin, 2002; Lowe et al., 1998; Mannion, 1996; Curtin et al., 1991; Varley, 1991; Griffiths, 1974; Armstrong, 1971) this article uses a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data collected over the period 2000 to 2008 to analyse the community development aspects of this radio station. The explicit community development focus is important for two reasons. First, as a core principle, community radio seeks to contribute to community development. Second, North West Connemara as a remote, economically challenged rural area relies heavily on endogenous development and has a long-standing and vibrant community development sector (see Heanue et al., 2012). A central objective behind the establishment of CCR by Connemara West Plc was to support and engage in community development efforts. This article seeks to assess the extent to which that objective is being reached by describing and analysing various indicators and processes of participation of local people with the radio station and the form of access they have to it

Developmental Transcriptional Networks Are Required to Maintain Neuronal Subtype Identity in the Mature Nervous System

During neurogenesis, transcription factors combinatorially specify neuronal fates and then differentiate subtype identities by inducing subtype-specific gene expression profiles. But how is neuronal subtype identity maintained in mature neurons? Modeling this question in two Drosophila neuronal subtypes (Tv1 and Tv4), we test whether the subtype transcription factor networks that direct differentiation during development are required persistently for long-term maintenance of subtype identity. By conditional transcription factor knockdown in adult Tv neurons after normal development, we find that most transcription factors within the Tv1/Tv4 subtype transcription networks are indeed required to maintain Tv1/Tv4 subtype-specific gene expression in adults. Thus, gene expression profiles are not simply “locked-in,” but must be actively maintained by persistent developmental transcription factor networks. We also examined the cross-regulatory relationships between all transcription factors that persisted in adult Tv1/Tv4 neurons. We show that certain critical cross-regulatory relationships that had existed between these transcription factors during development were no longer present in the mature adult neuron. This points to key differences between developmental and maintenance transcriptional regulatory networks in individual neurons. Together, our results provide novel insight showing that the maintenance of subtype identity is an active process underpinned by persistently active, combinatorially-acting, developmental transcription factors. These findings have implications for understanding the maintenance of all long-lived cell types and the functional degeneration of neurons in the aging brain