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Not Entirely Analog(ous): Low-Power FM Radio as Community, Relations, and Knowledge in Context
- Author(s):
- Christina Dunbar-Hester (see profile)
- Date:
- 2020
- Group(s):
- Science and Technology Studies (STS)
- Subject(s):
- Mass media, History, Alternative mass media, Political participation, Internet--Study and teaching, Communication
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Community radio, communications technology., Media history, Alternative media, Radio, Activism, Internet Studies, Infrastructure
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/mjaa-z882
- Abstract:
- At the turn of the millennium, scholars and pundits reflected on how communica- tion systems could shape events and societies, often while basking in the perceived glow of the then-novel Internet. Others pled for reasoned engagement with the interplay between communication infrastructures and the social life of knowledge, a much-needed corrective in a moment of rampant breathless digital utopianism. This article explores the interplay between communication infrastructures and the social life of knowledge through specific sociotechnical arrangements, low-power FM (LPFM) radio and large-scale commercial Internet-based ‘platforms’, both of which exist in our historical present. In particular, I use the formation of LPFM, which occurred at the same time that commercial Internet traffic picked up steam, in order to ‘excavate the future’: I return to a not-so-distant past to consider what might yet be. The article’s central claim is that the case of LPFM is even more relevant now than at its inception, in a context where behemoth commercial Internet ‘platforms’ have come to dominate electronic communication.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 2 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
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