From the Bogside to Namibia: The place of community broadcasting in post-conflict cultural reconstruction

This article has evolved from the author's continuing relationship, as a broadcaster and trainer, with two so-called community radio stations. One is a community station according to accepted definitions of the global community radio movement, and the other is an example of community radio in a public service environment. Both, the article argues, fail their communities through being too closely associated with the norms and practices that have shifted radio from the sphere of material to the sphere of broadcast, with all that such a move entails in terms of business practices, political intervention (ideological and authoritarian), censorship and essentialist notions of identity and consensus. Through an examination of the concept of community and the exploration of the two radio stations as case studies, the article argues that only radio as art can fully articulate the community voice and go some way to answering the questions as to who is speaking for whom, why and with what consequences.