Since I am having a great deal of difficulty formatting the table of Wisconsin LPFM stations, I thought I would fill the space here with a little manifesto of my thinking about community radio, and the "new media" in general.
Even before the manifesto begins, I need to define two terms, to indicate the way in which they will be used in this essay. You can certainly disagree with my "definitions" of these words or even my choice of them, but at least keep the concepts in mind as you read further. The first word is "information." "Information" I feel is another word for "data." Bits and pieces of the real world which are observable and knowable. Information can range from the observation that the sun is shining at a certain time and place, to the number of widgets produced in a country, to the structure of a Presidency as revealed through all of the things, such as the paperwork, left behind. Information is what we can know about the "real world."
I choose the next term with quite a bit of trepidation, but frankly can not think of another one. And that term is "propaganda." The Wiktionary defines it, in part as "speech or writing advancing one's cause or ideas…" which I think is a good, neutral start for the concept I have in mind. In a neutral sense, I think of propaganda as something that shapes a person's worldview. It affects how they think about things and their attitudes towards things.
In this sense, intentionally or not, all mass media is a form of propaganda. Mass media selectively edits and presents the wide world of information that is available and "feeds" that world view to their viewers, listeners or readers. A couple of quick examples should suffice. At a trivial level, how many times have we seen some obscure soul song from the 60's suddenly become a number 1 hit by being included in a movie soundtrack? When the put poker on TV, suddenly everyone was playing poker in their basements and clay poker chips were prominently featured at even discount stores.
Most local TV news operations, and to some extent newspapers extensively report crime, generally street crime. Lots of stories about murders, burglaries, muggings and so on. At the same time they do not often report in depth on the day to day workings of the legislature or long term economic trends. It should not be surprising that in many surveys people are much more afraid of crime than the massive transfer of income to the wealthiest in this country. Both take money out of the pockets of most people, but it is crime that generates an emotional and political response.
It is this editing, filtering and "feeding" that is the essence of any mass media, in my opinion. Propagandizing is inherent in a mass media operation, because presenting the entire world — all of the information that is available — is simply not possible. Information must be selected. And the results of that selection process presents a worldview that influences the audience. It informs the worldview of the audience, often by indicating what parts of the "real world" are either important or "cool." Things that appear in the mass media seem more important to people (like poker) than things that do not (the collapse of the Antarctic ice sheets). What is and is not presented affects our worldview.
A purely informational approach allows a person to freely seek out information according to their own worldview or to develop their own world view. To some extent the Internet or a library is closer to an informational experience. In either case, the person is more or less free to do their own editing and selecting. Now, each book or web page is "propaganda" in that the author has selected and edited to present their view of reality, but overall the experience is more like moving freely through the world — in this case a world of books or web pages — than being "fed" by a mass media. But even the Internet and libraries are edited and filtered and have a worldview. There are many materials that libraries don't place on their shelves (for example, pornography) and the Internet remains a two-dimensional experience. So, even libraries and the Internet itself puts forth a worldview, although both are many, many times broader than even the broadest mass media outlet.
So where does community radio and local media fit into all of this? Very simply it allows a different group of people to propagandize. In the US most mass media outlets are controlled by the wealthiest few. Between the simple fact that constructing a powerful radio or TV station is very expensive, and that current law allows a very concentrated ownership structure, large corporations control most mass media outlets. Even if they did try and be "fair and balanced" the worldview put forth by large media cannot be helped to be shaped by nature of the owners. The business of America is business because it is business owners who run the media and inform the country's worldview.
Public broadcasting was originally conceived as an antidote to exactly this problem. It was felt that a mass media service with a different worldview was needed. A worldview that was educational and public service oriented. And to some extent public broadcasting has filled this role and continues to do so. However, some people found that the antidote worked too well and cut back on the public funding of the system. Getting funding from corporations served to "balance" public media's world view.
But activists have always sought another antidote, smaller more local "mass" media outlets. The latest attempt to provide for this is LPFM stations. The theory being that smaller, less expensive stations will broaden the voices on the airwaves. It is still too early to tell if this will work out in practice, but the theory is sound.
In my way of thinking, smaller community stations do not provide "more" information. The information already exists. They do not provide "access" to information either. If we wanted to give people better access to information, I would suggest that we build bigger and better libraries. A good public library has more information than a radio station can dispense in a year. The value of a community radio station is that real people — a community — now controls the propaganda machinery. A new and different worldview can be put forth. Here is a couple of concrete examples.
On our community station, we have a program called "The Star Volunteer Hour." The host, Tom Fladland, highlights various voluntary and not for profit agencies here in our area, the work that they do and some of the people that are involved. It is a wonderful show. Now, Tom and his guests dispense a lot of information. But I will argue that there is no NEW information in the show. The agency already existed, the kind of work they do and their activities are available for anyone to see. In some ways Tom does not even give "better" access to the information. The information could be found more conveniently, by even the poorest member of the community, by using the telephone to call the agency. A phone book gives fabulous "access" to information.
Or let's say some radio station has "Charley's Norwegian Polka Power" as a regular feature. That would be a wonderful thing. But again, not really any "new" information. Charley must have gotten all those Norwegian polka records from somewhere, you and I could have too. And if we simply wanted to provide "access" to this information, I think we would be better off trying to talk Charley into donating his record collection to the library. If they were in the library people could check them out anytime and listen to polkas all day long, not just Sunday morning from nine to eleven.
The importance of community radio (and local media) is the propaganda value of these kinds of shows. Talking about volunteering on the radio makes it "real" and important. Part of the listeners' worldview. Hearing polkas on the radio can get your feet tapping and realize there is more to music than rock and roll. But don't forget the polkas were always there, they just weren't part of your worldview. Voluntary and not for profit agencies were there too. The information was there. It was available and accessible. You just had not been hit over the head with it it. Propaganda from the "other" mass media had kept you from seeing it. Being propagandized by Tom and Charley can bring those things into your worldview.
This is the power of local media. People being able to propagandize their neighbors in a larger way. To bring a musical world view that includes the blues, jazz, classical, polkas and other musical forms that are not part of the "mainstream" world view.
It is very much of a chicken and egg kind of question. Is our current state of popular music there because people like it so much that not much other music is played on the radio? Or do people like the narrow range of pop music because that is all the radio plays? I think community radio answers that the latter is true.
The value of community radio is that real people, real local people control the transmitter. They control the propaganda tool, not some corporate executives from New York or Los Angeles. We get to shape the worldview of our listeners and our own community.
And now the same battle is being waged on the Internet. The corporate and commercial interests don't want you to shape your own worldview. They want you to swallow theirs whole. They want to make the Internet another form of mass media. This is why browsers and media players are pre-loaded with links — to narrow your thinking about what the Internet "is." When search engines sell out and allow commercial interests to be higher in the results or always appear, even in the form of ads, your Internet worldview is being narrowed. It is now propaganda, not information. If your surfing is being tracked so that you can be shown pages that "might interest you" this can be the most insidious form of propaganda.
Local control of the media is vitally important because it presents a different worldview. Yes, this means they provide "different" information from the mainstream media, but it is not really new information. And yes, people now have "access" to that information. But it is much more important that people have access to the transmitting tools — the power of propaganda.
