Community Media in the Information Age

Small-scale electronic media (local radio and television stations) have experienced much turbulence and change in the 1990s. In western Europe, local and regional stations have achieved legitimation in national media policies; in central and eastern Europe, stations have been emerging at an explosive rate; and elsewhere in the world, developments have been no less substantial. These changes, taken as a whole, signal substantial albeit diverse forms of engagement and utilization of small-scale electronic media. These developments have been recorded in only a handful of academic studies. No scholarly consideration of these media developments has appeared, despite the range of development and widespread acknowledgement of their place in the media landscape. This volume is intended to fill this void through an integrated series of contributions emphasizing theoretical perspectives, empirical research findings and developments regarding policy and practice. It reflects the state of scholarly work in this niche of the media landscape and charts areas for further investigations.