I’ve a new piece out, with Salvatore Scifo, in the International Journal of Communication, about community television. It focuses on what Hallin and Mancini call the ‘Liberal North Atlantic’ region – USA, Canada, Ireland, and the UK – and provides an overview of the state of the field, along with the various opportunities and challenges facing it. (Thanks to Karen Arriaza Ibarra of Complutense University in Madrid, and the IAMCR International Communication section, for the opportunity.)
My article on challenges for college radio in the United States, Beyond a Spot on the Dial, has been accepted for publication in a special issue of Radiofonias – Journal of Audio Media Studies.
Update: This paper has been accepted for publication in Science and Public Policy.
An article I contributed to, authored by an international group of open science advocates, is now available as a per-print. The article provides an overview of the background to, rationale for, and operation of Open Science Communities.
The second of two issues of the Journal of Alternative and Community Media which I guest-edited with Salvatore Scifo is now online. Proud to have collaborated on stewarding this to completion, and of all the amazing contributions we were honoured to include. (Sorry also for the many we couldn’t include, despite being afforded the luxury of two issues.)
Our first issue was 4(4), while the second is 5(1), the first issue of the journal at its new home with Intellect. You may be interested in the editorials we wrote for the first and second of these issues:
Last week I made a submission to the Seanad consultation on Travellers, based on my mother’s work in this area.
Towards resilient community media
A conference at NUI Galway (Ireland), 13-15th June, 2019
The community media sector has been the focus of an increasing amount of scholarly attention as it has grown in size, from social movement theorists, to political economists, to those focused on governance and organisational communication.
Maintaining community media organizations poses a complex challenge, requiring ongoing attention to funding, to governance structures, to changing political and economic conditions, and to the task of building and consolidating relationships with communities. The challenge is exacerbated by the operation of community media within a capitalist system that is antithetical to the values of collaboration, non-commercialism, and inclusion that are at the core of work in this area. As Atton and Hamilton (2008: 26) note in their analysis of the political economy of alternative journalism, the “general political-economic dilemma for any critical project is that it needs resources with which to work, but those crucial resources are present only in the very society that it seeks to change or dissolve.”
This conference will provide an opportunity to reflect on questions of resilience and endurance as they arise in community media, and to explore the various interdependent factors that can impact the ongoing stability and health of community media projects. In addition to welcoming research grounded in particular case studies, we look forward to papers that will, in a holistic fashion, explore the role and operation of the sector in the context of broader socio-political concerns.
Contributions are invited from academics (including emerging and early-career scholars) exploring these issues, as well as from those working within the community and alternative media sectors.
Areas of focus might include (but are not limited to):
In the first instance, proposals should be sent to andrew.obaoill@nuigalway.ie, and should include:
The conference will open the evening of Thursday 13th, with academic sessions throughout the day on Friday 14th. Saturday 15th will include a field trip to the site of the Marconi transatlantic wireless telegraphy station in Connemara, supported by funding from the Broadcast Authority of Ireland, along with a visit to the studios of Connemara Community Radio.
Proposals are requested by 30 April, 2019. Proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
It is anticipated that selected papers from the conference will be published as a themed issue of a relevant academic journal.
This conference is made possible with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and of the NUI Galway College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Celtic Studies.
I’m guest editing an issue of the Journal of Alternative and Community Media with Salvatore Scifo of Bournemouth University, on the theme of Sustaining Community Media: Challenges and Strategies. We welcome short abstracts by 15 November.
I spoke today at the Crisis, Migration, and Performance symposium taking place at NUIG. It was a great opportunity to engage with scholars coming to these issues from a different perspective (performance studies and allied areas), and it made for a vibrant and useful encounter.
My presentation was centred around my experiences at the University of Illinois, where the struggle around ‘Chief Illiniwek’ (the problematic athletics mascot) and the the annual ‘Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day’ became entangled, both in terms of iconography and in how they demonstrated problematic cultural appropriation.
Many of my friends and colleagues will have been familiar with my own one-person campaign against Unofficial, and in this work I both reflect on that and seek to problematise some of the issues that arise, such as cultural authenticity/essentialism; the differing priorities and strategies of various institutional players (University of Illinois, Irish tourism and business interests, global drinks companies, Urbana-Champaign bar owners, etc.); intersectionality of privilege ethnic identity; my own attitude and position in the debate.
I was pleased recently to secure funding from the BAI, in collaboration with Flirt FM, for a research project exploring the organisational capacity of the station, with the aim of identifying opportunities to expand and make more robust the station’s structures and operations.
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