Wireless World: Global Perspectives on Community Radio

Abstract

This paper places a discussion of community radio in the context of ongoing debates surrounding ‘globalization.’At first blush, this may seem an odd tack to take given community radio’s theoretical relevance to and practical application in local settings. Indeed, community radio is generally defined in terms of its service to populations within discrete geographic locations (Price-Davies & Tacchi 50-51). Yet, as media scholar David Hendy reminds us, radio, an ostensibly local medium, is very much a global phenomenon inasmuch as radio technology is ubiquitous, the medium is pervasive in industrialised and developing societies alike, and the industry is increasingly transnational in its scale and scope.