Abstract

The submission and commentary document an original and significant contribution to knowledge about the history, praxis and methods of how women have found their voice in community radio through participation at structural and symbolic levels; that is, by setting up their own radio station structures and programming, using community radio as a place to contest identity and produce new media narratives for themselves beyond male discourses. The submission finds that women’s community radio can be a place for individual empowerment, representation and creativity, as well as a space for resistance – including collective and transnational feminist campaigning and activism. The submission documents historical and contemporary case studies of feminist interventions and women’s radio programming in multiple global contexts. It demonstrates how this work has been instrumental in establishing the field of radio studies and within that, the sub-theme of women’s community radio practice.
Discussion of methodologies of critical educational pedagogy runs throughout the commentary and demonstrates that specific, holistic, women-centred approaches to radio training and production can enable more women to access and participate in radio, thus raising the status of their on-air ‘voice’. It demonstrates that adoption and adaptation of the methodology of ethnographic and participatory action research in partnerships between community radio stations, women´s projects and voluntary organisations have developed new ways of understanding how women participate in and engage with radio and radio production.
The submission is situated in the context of its intervention in current and recent debates about women´s public voice and the representation of women in media industries. It makes a significant contribution to knowledge about women’s community radio as part of radical and alternative cultural production and offers new directions for women´s radio practice, education and training.