The performance of youth voice on the airwaves

ABSTRACT

This paper uses the case study of a youth-led community radio station, KCC Live, to argue that community radio is not a cure-all solution for disenfranchised and silenced young people. Drawing on 18 months of participant observation at KCC Live and data from in-depth interviews with volunteers, I argue that, owing to institutional constraints by station management; college management; and the regulatory body Ofcom, young people consider the airwaves to be a supervised, as opposed to emancipatory, arena. However, in attempting to combat the restricting nature of the airwaves, young people find new, performative ways to communicate. This paper provides empirical evidence which goes beyond previous simplistic conceptualisations of voice in youth media production and argues that romanticised notions of youth voice preclude performance and creativity. This paper offers an important contribution to children’s geographies in finding that pretend play, characterised by performance, can be considered a ‘life-span activity’.

KEYWORDS:

• Community radio
• performance
• qualitative research
• young people
• youth voice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.

2. CW denotes my initials.

3. KCC Live holds compulsory training for new volunteers that covers the basics of presenting techniques, for instance use of equipment and awareness of The Ofcom Broadcasting Code.

4. During the Thatcher era, the 1980 Education Act removed the obligation of local education authorities to provide school meals, except for those children entitled to free school meals. Nutritional standards were removed along with the obligation to charge a fixed price for school meals, and free school milk was abolished (Pike and Colquhoun 2012).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number: ES/J500094/1].