Critical research priorities: community radio in India

Abstract

Community Radio in India has received scant attention in academic scholarship even after 10 years of continued operation. With more than 200 community radio stations spread across the country, there is rich scope for a wide range of research. This paper suggests broad frameworks within which community radio can be researched with a critical outlook. The phenomenon of community radio as a distinct tier of broadcasting has been historically traced to the mid-1990s following a well-known Supreme Court judgment on freeing up airwaves. However, the reality is that the beginnings of community radio are more complex and multi-faceted, and can be situated within a broader discursive formation – both relating to older histories of colonial administration and neoliberalization of the economy in the 1990s. The policy and practice of community radio is closely linked to participatory development paradigm. Who is expected to participate in radio broadcasting and towards achieving what specific objectives? This is largely unclear apart from broad generalisations about ‘empowerment’ of an equally generalised ‘community’. These concepts are further explored in this paper in an attempt to arrive at critical research priorities for community radio in India.

Keywords:

• Community radio
• India
• critical research
• governmentality
• development
• policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See http://www.livemint.com/Politics/q04AWhkfvxv6DKTVXkkJwJ/Listeners-need-more-options-on-FM-radio-says-Rajyavardhan-S.html