Social Movement Studies, Vol. 3, No.

2, October 2004

Remaking Public Service Broadcasting: lessons from Allston-Brighton Free Radio

Kevin Howley
Pulliam Center for Contemporary Media, DePauw University, 609 S. Locust Street, Greencastle, IN 46135, USA

The role of communication in social movement theory is well observed. Considerably less attention has been given to the question of whether or not media reform efforts constitute social movements in and of themselves. In an effort to consider the efcacy of media reform initiatives and to evaluate their relevance to social movement studies, this essay examines the evolution of a so-called free radio station in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The essay situates a discussion of free radio in relation to the unprecedented consolidation of commercial radio and the attendant diminution of public service broadcasting in the USA. The lessons learned from Allston-Brighton Free Radio help to illuminate the local and particular dynamics of a global movement for communicative democracy. Keywords: Communicative democracy, community radio, public service broadcasting, social movements, media activism, regulatory policy.

Introduction
In recent years, the relationship between media and social movements has attracted considerable attention among academics and activists alike. For scholars inclined toward interdisciplinary study, communication and media studies have taken an increasingly prominent role in understanding the social, cultural and political dimensions of movements (Gamson and Wolfsfeld 1993). Work of this sort fruitfully explores the dynamics of interpersonal, organizational and mass communication in socio-political movements (Herbst 1994); considers the rhetorical and discursive strategies of movement leaders (Morris and Browne 2001); and investigates the complex and contradictory role mass media play in reporting and publicizing social movements (Gitlin 1980). Conversely, activists and organizers seeking more effective ways of communicating with different constituenciesmovement participants, business leaders, elected ofcials, journalists and editors, as well as the general publicturn to media researchers, political scientists and cultural theorists for insight and inspiration. For instance, the Media Research and Action Project (MRAP) works with community groups, political activists
ISSN 1474-2837 print/ISSN 1474-2829 online/04/020221-20 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1474283042000266137

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and others on the ner points of media relations. Using frame analysis, MRAP coaches these groups on ways to avoid being ignored, trivialized or perhaps even demonized by the press (Ryan et al. 2001). As Laura Stein observers, The relationship between these two endeavors is symbiotic. Activism draws on theory to inform its action and critical scholarship asks questions intended to redene what is conceivable in the realm of action (1999: 5). While this realization fuels work that seeks to understand why, how, and to what end popular movements appropriate communication technologies; it also begs a fundamental question: does the struggle to democratize the mass media constitute a social movement in its own right? That is to say, although social movement studies often examine the role communication and mass media play in mobilizing, legitimating and publicizing various socio-political movementsfrom feminism and environmentalism, to the antiwar and civil rights movementsit is less clear whether or not we can speak of a coherent and cohesive media democratization movement (Hackett and Adam 1999). This essay proceeds with the assumption that such a movement is well underway. In saying this, I am drawing upon my own experience as a media activist and an academic as well as recent scholarship that supports this assertion.1 For example, in their excellent volume Our Media, Not Theirs Robert McChesney and John Nichols observe:
Ordinary Americans have recognized that it is no longer enough to complain about the media. Thousands of our fellow citizens have already begun to organize to change the media system. The growth of this media reform movement is one of the striking developments of the past decade; though understandably, it has passed beneath the corporate news media radar. (2002: 38)

On this last point, one might add that, with relatively few exceptions, movement studies and media studies alike have failed to recognize an emerging media democratization movement. One notable exception on this score is John Downing. In his seminal text on oppositional movements and alternative media, Downing (1984) calls our attention to the proliferation of self-managed media organizations: small-scale media outlets predicated on opening up the channels of communication to wider publics and dedicated to participatory self-governance. In subsequent work, Downing et al. (2001) not only provide a more nuanced denition of what they describe as radical alternative media but also suggest that, despite their varied manifestations, these media share two important features that are especially germane to this discussion. First, radical alternative media express opposition vertically from subordinate quarters directly at the power structure and against its behavior and, second, that these organizations build support, solidarity, and networking laterally against policies or even against the very survival of the power structure (2001: xi). As we shall see, microradio or so-called free radio neatly encapsulates the twin aspirations of alternative media that Downing observes. Following on from Downings work, Chris Atton underscores the signicance of alternative media production to social movements and suggests that radically democratic notions of participation are essential for building and sustaining a movements coherence and contribute greatly to the production of knowledge within new social movements (2001: 80). Attons emphasis on the organization of cultural production associated with

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alternative media is especially relevant to our understanding of popular movements to democratize media systems. Likewise, Clemencia Rodriguezs (2001) examination of what she describes as citizens media alerts us to the non-hierarchical and collective nature of alternative media production. Equally important, for our purposes here, Rodriguezs comparative analysis succinctly captures the global dimensions of an emerging media democratization movement. The following case study draws upon this important new work in movement studies.2 Throughout, I suggest that the emergence of free radio constitutes a media reform movement that seeks to reclaim the airwaves in the public interest and to reassert a public service ethos that has all but disappeared from US broadcasting. A brief discussion of microradio provides a context to consider the contours of this struggle for media democracy. Following this, I describe the diminution of US public service broadcasting before moving on to the case study proper.

The Microradio Movement

In a press release dated 2 March 2001, Allston-Brighton Free Radio (A-B Free), a low power, community-based radio station in Boston, Massachusetts, invited National Public Radio (NPR) personality Christopher Lydon to join its volunteer news team. Until recently, Lydon was the host of The Connection, a nationally syndicated call-in program produced at WBUR-FM, one of three NPR afliates serving the greater Boston area.3 In mid-February, Lydon and his staff were locked out of the station in the wake of a bitter contract dispute over broadcast syndication rights (Johnson 2001). A-B Frees press release indicated that despite his stated opposition to the free radio movement, Lydon is welcome to produce the same sort of erudite public affairs programming for AllstonBrighton Free Radio that made The Connection a staple for thousands of listeners in Boston, and across the USA. The press release concludes: members of the station are condent that Lydons recent experience with public radio and any reality-testing he does with commercial radio will help to change his attitude towards the importance of community radio (CMC 2001). Lydon did not accept, let alone respond to, A-B Frees invitation. Chris Lydon is not alone in his disdain for free radio: a socio-cultural movement of global proportions (Soley 1999). Throughout the 1990sas hundreds of unlicensed, low power stations across the USA took to the airwaves in a spontaneous expression of popular discontent with contemporary radioindustry representatives pressured the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to shut down so-called pirate stations (Hornblower 1998). In some instances, FCC agents, in the company of heavily armed federal marshals and local law enforcement ofcials, broke into private residences and held unarmed civilians at gunpoint while they conscated radio production and transmission gear (Cockburn 1997; Nesbitt 1998). Despite these strong-arm tactics, however, hundreds of free radio stations continued to operate in open deance of the FCC as a form of electronic civil disobedience (Ferguson 1998; Sakolsky and Dunifer 1998). By the end of the decade, the FCC was confronted with a growing enforcement crisis. In this politically charged atmosphere, the FCC took up a comprehensive review of its twentyone-year ban on low power FM broadcasting.

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Briey returning to Downings observation regarding radical alternative medias oppositional stance toward power structures, here we can detect the efcacy of media reform movements to challenge and change communication policy. On 28 January 1999 the FCC issued a formal proposal (NPRM 99-25) seeking public comment on a new radio service: Low Power FM (LPFM). Specically, the new scheme proposed the creation of two classes of LPFM stations with maximum power levels of 100 and 1,000 watts, respectively. In addition, the FCC sought comment on a third class of so-called microwatt stations operating between 1 and 10 watts (FCC 1999). A locally oriented, non-commercial service, LPFM was envisioned as a modest attempt to promote broadcast diversity in an era of unprecedented media consolidation and control. Then FCC chairman William Kennard characterized LPFM as an important step toward returning the public airwaves to local communities to use as they see t, and to meet each communitys distinctive needs and desires (McConnell 1999). As media activists, labor, educational, religious and civic groups across the country rallied in support of the FCCs directive, the powerful broadcast lobby sought to kill the LPFM initiative. Not surprisingly, the commercial broadcast sector, working through its inuential lobbying group, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), led a public relations campaign against LPFM.4 According to the NAB, low power and microwatt broadcast signals cause objectionable interference to broadcast signals on adjacent frequencies, threaten the roll out of new digital services, and even compromise the integrity of air trafc control signals (NAB 1998). Subsequent FCC engineering studies repudiated these accusations as false and misleading (FCC 2000). And yet, despite the NABs spurious arguments, National Public Radio, a self-proclaimed champion of broadcast diversity and journalistic integrity, consistently sided with commercial broadcasters (Wildman 2001). Behind the scenes, NPRs ofcial response to the FCCs plans echoed the rhetoric deployed by commercial broadcast industry (NPR 2000). Whats more, when NPR broke its radio silence on the LPFM debate, news reports invariably reinforced and legitimated the NABs dubious claims regarding the new service. In doing so, NPR played a decisive role in undermining the FCCs LPFM directive. In December 2000, the intense lobbying efforts by both the NAB and NPR paid off. Despite the fact that the FCC approved the new service and began accepting license applications, a so-called Broadcasting Preservation bill was attached as a rider to the Omnibus Budget Act of 2000. Orwellian in design, as well as intent, the Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act effectively neutralizes the LPFM initiative, making it exceedingly difcult for all but the most remote rural communities to establish a local, non-prot radio station. By passing this legislation, the US Congress broke precedent and questioned the ndings of the FCCs engineering studies. In essence, Congress usurped the agencys authority to regulate the nations airwaves. As a result, literally thousands of LPFM applications will, in all likelihood, be rejected on the grounds of objectionable interference with established commercial and public radio stations (Sakolsky 2001). In short, a popular movement to wrest a modicum of control away from the broadcast oligopoly was defeated by entrenched media interests, ultimately compromising the future viability of community-oriented, public service broadcasting in the USA.5

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The Corporatization of Public Broadcasting

More troubling is the realization that NPRs animosity toward community-oriented radio is endemic to the entire public broadcasting system. Indeed, despite widespread popular support for the FCCs initiative, not to mention the enormous public relations campaign waged against the new service, the debate over LPFM was a non-issue on public television. In this regard, then, public televisions vaunted in-depth coverage of important policy debates failed to materialize. Worse, yet, when the subject of low power community radio was mentioned, public broadcasters could scarcely contain their contempt. For example, when Allston-Brighton Free Radios overture to Chris Lydon was mentioned on Greater Boston, a local public affairs program aired on WGBH-TV Bostons Public Broadcasting System (PBS) afliate and a major production center for the entire public television systemthe shows host, Emily Rooney, responded with characteristic arrogance, Oh, are they still on the air? Taken in isolation, this incident is little more than an irritant to proponents of free radio in and around Boston. When placed in the larger context of the corporatization of public service broadcasting, however, this attitude underscores a profound crisis facing public service media in the USA and, indeed, around the world (Tracey 1998). Initially conceived as an alternative outlet for news, information and entertainment programming, and meant to serve as well as reect Americas rich social, cultural and political diversity, public broadcasting in the USA has all but abandoned its public service mission. Increasingly, public broadcasters aim to compete with their commercial counterparts for corporate sponsorship and market share (Hoynes 1999). As a result, public broadcasting has come to resemble the safe and predictable formulas associated with commercial media. Whats more, the once vibrant community radio sector has succumbed to a lethal combination of marketplace pressures and misguided federal regulations. For the past several years, the Pacica Radio Network, arguably the model of community broadcasting in the USA, has been embroiled in a struggle to maintain its editorial independence and progressive identity (Carney 2001). Long-time producers and on-air hosts have been locked out, and in some cases red, for publicly discussing their opposition to the Pacica Board of Trustees plans to sell the network to the highest bidder. In the meantime, the professionalization of smaller community radio stations around the country proceeds unchecked; the result of ill-conceived federal guidelines and funding schemes which preclude community control, ownership, and participation in radio broadcasting (Bekken 1998; Walker 1997). The evisceration of locally oriented, public service broadcasting in the USA is the result of several factors. First and foremost is the legacy of an inadequate funding mechanism for public radio and television dating back to the formation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in 1967 (Engelman 1996). Second, pressure from political conservatives to reduce federal appropriations for public service broadcasting reached new heights throughout the 1980s. This, in turn, led to public broadcastings increasing dependency on foundation and corporate sponsorship (Hoynes 1994). Most recently, the wholesale application of free-market ideology to communications policyas codied in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and as evident in successive waves of media mergers and acquisitionsfurther undermines the principle of localism that is the cornerstone of

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US broadcast regulation (McChesney 1999). As a result of the deregulatory fervor of the past two decades, local radio stations are owned and operated by absentee owners who are neither accountable, nor responsive, to the local community. At the same time, public radio programming increasingly reects a narrow range of interests; largely the interests of corporate underwriters and the upscale listenership these sponsors seek to address (Ledbetter 1998; Solomon 2000). Investment rms, IT companies, wealth management consultants, and business-to-business services are among the more prominent corporate underwriters in public broadcasting today. More critically, nancial updates, market analysis, and upscale lifestyle reports have come to dominate public broadcastings news and information programming. In short, the public in public radio is narrowly dened by educational achievement and socio-economic status. The balance of this discussion explores the signicance of grassroots media organizations in an ever more corporatized media culture. Specically, I argue that A-B Free, the rst of its kind public access AM radio station in the USA, is a model for communityoriented, participatory communication in the twenty-rst century.6 Despite the stations diminutive transmission power and limited coverage area, A-B Free, and its parent organization, the Citizens Media Corps (CMC), provides an invaluable public service to the residents of Allston-Brighton. More than this, A-B Free illuminates the importance of a critically informed media practice that treats audiences as participants and promotes an active, informed, and engaged citizenry. In this regard, then, the lessons learned from Allston-Brighton Free Radio may help inform what Robert Hackett (2000) characterizes as an increasingly global project: a movement for communicative democracy. This essay proceeds with a brief description of the Boston radio market, placing special emphasis on the erosion of locally oriented news, current affairs, and public service programming in a city long associated with public broadcasting. Following this, I trace the history of A-B Free Radio, from its origins as a pirate FM station, through its current incarnation as a milliwatt AM outlet. Here, I highlight A-B Free Radios commitment to the ideals of public service broadcasting and the stations emphasis on broadcasting as a social practice. I then examine the forces and conditions that enable as well as constrain A-B Frees participatory potential and, more generally, the CMCs media activism. In doing so, I want to suggest how A-B Frees experience might inform ongoing efforts to reclaim the airwaves for local communities and thereby remake public service broadcasting.

Boston Public
An economic, educational, and cultural center, Boston is the eighth largest radio market in the USA (Arbitron 2001). Like other markets, Boston radio has undergone profound changes in recent years. These changes, most notably the consolidation of holdings within and between media industries, are the direct result of reductions in ownership limits and the elimination of cross-ownership restrictions enacted under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Boehlert 2001). Thus, while a handful of radio stations, such as WBCS-FM (Adult Contemporary), WFNX-FM (Alternative Rock), WJIB-AM (Easy Listening), and WUNR-AM (Ethnic) remain in the hands of local, independent operators, a majority of Boston stations are owned by media conglomerates.

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For instance, Greater Media, Inc., based in New Brunswick, NJ, owns WBOS-FM (Adult Alternative), WTKK-FM (Talk), WKLB-FM (Country), WROR-FM (Classic Hits), and WMJX-FM (Adult Contemporary). The San Antonio, Texas-based Clear Channel Communications, Inc. owns WJMN-FM (CHR), WKXO-AM (Spanish), WXKS-AM (Nostalgia), and WXKS-FM (CHR). And, through its holdings with the Innity Broadcasting Corporation, CBS/Viacom owns WODS-FM (Oldies), WYLX-FM (Classic Rock), WBCN-FM (Modern Rock), and WBZ-AM (News). Together, both Clear Channel and CBS account for well over 50 percent of the advertising revenue generated by radio in the Boston market (Boston Radio Watch 1999). Moreover, many of these stations have afliate relations with national networks and program syndicators including ABC, Westwood One, Innity, and CBS. In short, local radio in Boston is, by and large, owned and operated by national media conglomerates: organizations whose primary objective is capital accumulation, not public service. Given this state of affairs, Boston is fortunate to be served by a number of non-commercial radio stations. For the most part, these stations are afliated with the citys many educational institutions. WERS-FM, for example, is a student-run station out of Emerson College. Likewise, WHRB-FM at Harvard University, WFMO-FM at Tufts University, and WZBC-FM at Boston College are all staffed by student volunteers and owned and operated by private, non-prot organizations. While these stations do indeed provide a welcome respite to the corporate consolidation of commercial radio, the primary demographic for student-run stations is college students and recent graduates. As a result, music and cultural programming reects the tastes of younger, well-educated listeners. Programming of the sort found on college radio rarely appeals to more general audiences. On the other hand, WUMB-FM at the University of Massachusetts/Boston, makes limited use of student interns, relying instead on a salaried staff. Whereas student-run radio typically provides a measure of community involvement in program production, WUMB programmers are paid professionals. Moreover, much of WUMBs evening and weekend programming, including a handful of information and public affairs programs such as The Innite Mind and Power Point, is obtained either through National Public Radio and Public Radio International (PRI). For the most part, however, college- and university-based stations eschew in-depth news and local public affairs programming. More typically, these stations air brief hourly news inserts from national satellite services or produce in-house news reports of the rip and read variety. One notable exception to this is WMBR, broadcasting from the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Although its schedule is dedicated primarily to music programming, WMBR airs a mix of independently produced news programs including WINGS, a magazine show produced by the Womens International News Gathering Service, and Free Speech Radio, a nightly newscast produced by striking Pacica network reporters. Equally important, WMBR supports a number of long-running, locally produced public affairs programs such as Black Perspectives, Radio With a View, Gender Talk, and No Censorship Radio. In this regard, WMBR is something of an anomaly in Bostons non-commercial sector. An all-volunteer organization that airs a lively mix of news, information, and cultural programming, WMBR operates very much in the spirit of community radio championed by the likes of Lew Hill and Lorenzo Milamtwo pivotal gures in the development of the US community radio sector (Barlow 1988).

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Despite its adventurous programming and commitment to community service, however, in terms of signal strength and audience reach, WMBR is no match for the public radio stations serving the Boston market. The citys premiere non-commercial stations are the aforementioned WBUR and WGBH. Not unlike University of Massachusetts/ Bostons NPR afliate, WUMB, WGBHs broadcast day is dominated by music and cultural programming. Whereas WUMB bills itself as a folk music station, WGBH has a more traditional public radio format. Aside from airing NPR staples such as Morning Edition, All Things Considered, PRIs Marketplace, and The World, a co-production of WGBH, the BBC, and PRI, WGBHs broadcast day is split between classical music in the daytime and jazz at night. Weekend programming seldom strays very far from this format. Aside from syndicated music programs, WGHB airs A Prairie Home Companion and This American Life, two of public radios most popular and identiable programs. In terms of station format and program content, then, WGBH is a quintessential public radio station. The nancial shortcomings and declining audience numbers associated with this traditional approach to public radio led WBUR general manager Jane Christo to focus her energies on news and information programming. Since taking charge of WBUR in the late 1970s, Christo has transformed a modest 4,000-watt station on the campus of Boston University into a major production center for public radio throughout New England and, increasingly, around the country (Kennedy 2001). While most public radio stations experimented with different musical formats in their efforts to increase listenership and attract corporate underwriting, Christo built WBUR into the rst 24 news and information station in the US public radio sector. Christo augmented nationally and internationally syndicated programming with local news and public affairs shows, like the aforementioned The Connection. Launched in 1994, The Connection was initially conceived as a locally oriented, current affairs program. With the hiring of former Boston Globe columnist and public television personality Chris Lydon, The Connection consolidated its ties to the local community. Program topics centered on subjects relevant to area residents: city politics, arts, commerce, housing, and education. Over time, however, Christo sought to make The Connection a program with much broader appeal. While the shows format remained the samelisteners were still invited to join Lydons conversation with authors, politicians, academics and policy analystsprograms increasingly focused on national issues such as presidential politics, the rise and fall of the dot.com industry, international trade agreements, and the proposed national missile defense system. Although these topics do indeed resonate with Boston listeners, The Connection invariably lost much of its local orientation. This same trend is evident in the evolution of two more locally produced programs, namely WBURs Here and Now and sister station WRNIs One Union Station, both of which were rolled out for national syndication in 2002. This strategy is consistent with Christos overall objective to make WBUR a leading program syndicator for public radio. Furthermore, WBURs local news staff, the largest in the citys radio market, devotes most of its energies to coverage of news stories for broadcast over NPRs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. As a result, WBURs formidable production resources are increasingly directed toward the development of nationally syndicated material, further contributing to the decline of local news and public affairs programming on Boston area radio.

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The irony in all of this is hard to miss. Some of the most ardent proponents of public broadcastingincluding leading members of the Carnegie Commission, the august body that established the framework for public service broadcasting in the USAwere afliated with Boston-area educational institutions, think tanks, and philanthropic organizations associated with the eastern establishment (Englemen 1996). Created in response to what was widely perceived as the failure of commercial broadcasters to meet their public service obligations, public radio and television was promoted as a means to offset the alienating and disenfranchising effects of a privatized media environment. Public service broadcasting, broadly conceived, enables communities to utilize the airwaves, a public resource, as a vehicle for self-expression and as a forum to discuss matters of local import and signicance. These local voices would then be shared with a national audience in a celebration of Americas rich cultural diversity and in an effort to encourage informed debate and deliberation over matters of national concern (Carnegie Commission 1967, 1979). Over time, however, public television and, to an even greater extent, public radio, became highly centralized production and distribution services not unlike commercial networks. The localism that the Carnegie Commission saw as the foundation of public broadcasting in this country never materialized. And, as we have seen, locally oriented, pubic service broadcasting in the greater Boston area is virtually non-existent today. With this in mind, then, we turn our attention to A-B Frees effort to remake radio as a medium that celebrates local cultural diversity and facilitates community communication.

Proteers, Pirates, and the Public Interest

On 28 July 1997, the Boston City Council passed a resolution praising Radio Free Allston (RFA), the predecessor of A-B Free, for its service to the community. An unlicensed, and therefore illegal station operating at a modest 20 watts of power, RFA nonetheless garnered the support of local elected ofcials; many of whom were frequent guests on RFAs public affairs programs. Likewise, area business and civic organizations, such as the Allston Business Association, the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation, the Allston-Brighton Historical Society, and both the Brazilian and Irish Immigration Centers embraced this dynamic new community resource. Within the rst few months of operation, RFA was a hit with a signicant and growing cross-section of radio listeners throughout Allston-Brighton. Here, we can detect the twin aspects of alternative media and social movements observed by Downing. That is to say, RFAs commitment to non-commercial, locally oriented radio coupled with the broadbased popular support for the stations efforts are a clear expression of widespread dissatisfaction with radio in and around Boston. Moreover, by operating without a broadcast license, RFA openly challenged a regulatory regime that increasingly favors entrenched commercial interests over the public interest. Indeed, in its declaration of support for RFA and its request to obtain non-prot statusthereby making the station eligible for grants and tax-deductible donationsthe city council noted that RFA serves the Allston-Brighton community in ways that commercial and public broadcasting do not (Boston City Council 1997). Unmoved by the city councils ringing endorsement of RFA and seemingly unimpressed with the stations

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unwavering commitment to public service broadcasting, the FCC shut down RFA. On 28 October 1997, two FCC eld agents entered the station and directed Steve Provizer, RFAs founder and station manager, to cease broadcasting. Rather than expose the stations board of directors and volunteers to criminal charges, and run the risk of having the stations equipment conscated, Provizer pulled the plug on RFA. During its abbreviated, but productive eight-month existence, RFA re-ignited local interest in radio. Like hundreds of unlicensed stations operating across the USA at the time, RFA did not broadcast in a clandestine fashion, as pirate stations had done in the past. For strategic reasons, RFA operated out in the open, boldly deant of the FCCs ban on low power broadcasting. RFAs objective was two-fold: rst, to increase public awareness of radios potential to enhance community-wide communication; and, second, to generate popular support for a local, non-commercial station dedicated to serving the Allston-Brighton neighborhood. To this end, RFA employed deceptively simple tactics designed to make radio, the invisible medium (Lewis and Booth 1990) tangible for area residents. Most notably, RFA originated its broadcasts from Herrells Renaissance Cafe, a popular ice cream parlor located in the heart of Allston at the corner of Brighton and Harvard Avenues. Station manager Stephen Provizer recalls:
We would go in there everyday, push three tables together and pile our audio equipment on it. Then we would put our transmitter in the pastry display window, run the cable over the potted palm and up to the roof where our antenna was. It was the optimum visibility that you could want for a station like this. And that was the way that we got a lot of programs.

In this decidedly grassroots fashion, then, RFA vividly demonstrated the viability of community broadcasting. In addition to producing public affairs programming that was at once relevant and responsive to the unique social and political needs of AllstonBrighton residents, RFA aired music, entertainment and information programming that reected the communitys rich cultural diversity. For instance, foreign-language programming encouraged recent immigrants to learn about, and participate in, local civic affairs. Conversely, news and cultural programming in Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole helped immigrants to build a sense of community in an alien, sometimes hostile, environment. Whats more, RFAs eclectic music programming embraced local artists and promoted independently produced material that commercial and public broadcasters typically avoid. Finally, nancially strapped community organizations publicized their events and activities over the airwaves of RFA, free of charge. In this way, RFA challenged public perceptions of what radio is and how it might operate in a densely populated and ethnically diverse urban community. Equally important, by originating its broadcasts in full view of the community and inviting local residents to make their own radio, RFA forcefully reasserted broadcasting as a social practice: a way of bringing a community together, so that the community might speak to itself, in its own distinctive idioms, and to celebrate and explore its creative potential. Seth Albaum, A-B Frees event coordinator, recalls the enthusiasm for radio generated by those early broadcasts at Herrells, in particular the enormous popularity of a Latino hip hop show produced by a local resident, fondly known as El Sin: He had young people from the neighborhood lining up behind the microphones to

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take their turns at free style rap and the line would go out the door, longer than the ice cream line. All of which underscores the signicance of collaborative, non-hierarchical and participatory communication of the sort Rodriquez refers to as citizens media in sustaining a vibrant local culture and engendering a robust and inclusive public sphere. Still, the effort involved in setting up and tearing down even a rudimentary broadcast facility in a crowded business establishment proved to be an enormous logistical challenge. Moreover, the stations airtime was limited to Herrells hours of operation, further constraining RFAs program output. With this in mind, RFA moved its operation a few blocks away, to the 88 Room, a local art gallery. In this new setting, RFA consolidated its resources, coordinated its growing volunteer base, and began broadcasting a full schedule of news, talk, music and cultural programming. By the time the FCC shut down RFA, the station had earned a reputation for innovative programming and community service that enthralled listeners in Allston-Brighton and the neighboring areas of Cambridge and Brookline. The one formal complaint lodged against RFA came from commercial radio station WROR. Broadcasting at 105.7 FM, WROR claimed RFAs signal at 106.1 FM caused objectionable interference with its transmission. Based on RFAs transmission power and engineering specications, this seems unlikely. Steve Provizer suspects that a third party operating in Bostons Back Bay neighborhood was the more likely source of interference. However, because RFA was the most visible pirate operation in the city, the FCC likely targeted the station to send a message to other unlicensed broadcasters. Provizer believes that WRORs complaint was less a technical matter than part of the NABs effort to pressure the FCC to step up its enforcement efforts in light of the growing popularity of the free radio movement:
There was no justiable reason to blow the whistle on us from an engineering standpoint. It was done strictly for political reasons. Radio Free Allston was like a large boat, slow moving but large, and it had a large wake. A lot of stations followed behind us after we started. And several stations started up here in Boston. By the same token, when we closed down, they all closed down.

Provizers point is well taken. From a technical perspective, the broadcast spectrum can accommodate LPFM signals, even on the overcrowded FM band in major urban centers. Indeed, by virtue of their presence and sheer numbers on the nations airwaves, microbroadcasters demonstrate the fallacy behind the NABs and NPRs technical arguments against LPFM. As further evidence of LPFMs technical viability, Chris Fairchild (1998) observes that the Canadian broadcast authority (CRTC) has for years accommodated a variety of users, including national public service broadcasters, local commercial operators, and a vibrant campus/community radio sector. Indeed, Canadian success in this regard is all the more remarkable when one factors is the sheer volume of American broadcast material that the CRTC must account for in its spectrum management activities. The relative dearth of non-commercial, community-oriented radio in the USA, therefore, is less a matter of technical quality and engineering standards and more a matter of regulatory policy. All of which suggests that the rise of the free radio movement in the USA and elsewhere is best understood as a cultural response to the tension arising from two opposing regulatory philosophies: broadcast systems based on private ownership and

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motivated by capital accumulation versus public systems predicated on promoting an active, informed and engaged citizenry. Media historian Michael Tracey puts it this way:
Here then are two models between which the audience-as-citizen is being asked to choose: policy guided by the hand of public regulation, employing public values, serving the public interest; and policy as the ad hoc result of a myriad individual choices with the collective good and interest in effect being what the public, using economic judgments, say they are. (1998: 11)

As evident by the meteoric rise of the free radio movement, and the historic levels of public comment received by the FCC in support of the LPFM initiative, the American people have chosen to reassert broadcastings fundamental role, and its basic responsibility, to operate in the public interest. Indeed, the emergence of RFA, and hundreds of unlicensed, low power stations like it, indicates a profound dissatisfaction with the contemporary state of radio broadcasting, and of communications policy more generally. In words and deeds, the American people have made a choice regarding broadcast regulation; a choice based on the realization that, despite the seductive rhetoric of free-market competition and consumer choice, commercial interests are not necessarily consistent, nor compatible, with the public interest. So deeply felt is this conviction that the organizers and supporters of RFA did not abandon their efforts. Rather than succumb to the pressure and intimidation of government regulators, acting at the behest of commercial interests, Steve Provizer and the volunteers of RFA regrouped and embarked on an even more ambitious public education campaign to promote public service broadcasting by, for, and about the residents of Allston-Brighton.

Lessons Learned
Throughout the winter and spring of 1998, members of the now defunct RFA established a non-prot media production and education organization: Allston-Brighton Media, Inc. By the fall, the collective changed its name to the Citizens Media Corps (CMC) and began to organize throughout the city of Boston. In addition to exploring legal means to reconstitute RFA, the CMC held public demonstrations on radio production, offered free media literacy workshops to local community groups, and hosted information seminars on the local implications of national communication policy. In the process, the CMC articulated a new vision of public service broadcasting, one that suggests the value of a critically informed, participatory model of community communication. From a theoretical perspective, then, the CMCs community organizing efforts underscore the constitutive role that participatory communication and, more generally, cultural production play in social movements. Equally important, for grassroots media activists the CMCs approach offers valuable lessons in the struggle to remake public media into a more inclusive and relevant community-oriented service. On the weekend of 45 October 1998, CMC volunteers joined hundreds of microbroadcasters in a march on the FCCs main ofces in Washington, DC to demand an end to the agencys ban on low power broadcasting. Taking up the rallying cry of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)direct action gets the goodsLPFM enthusiasts reasoned that the only way to get the issue of community radio to the top of the

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FCCs agenda was by seizing the airwaves. Throughout the weekend, microbroadcasters took to the air, as well as the streets, with their call for democratizing the nations airwaves. Likening their efforts to the social and political struggles of the late 1950s and 1960s, these radio activists perceived their efforts as a form of electronic civil disobedience designed to challenge and ultimately change the law of the land (Howley 2000). Culminating over a decade of grassroots resistance to the FCCs ban on low power FM, the rally was a watershed moment for microbroadcasting inasmuch as it helped convince FCC chairman William Kennard and others of the growing political inuence of the free radio movement (Ruggiero 1998). Within a matter of months, the FCCs LPFM proposal was unveiled to the delight of free radio advocates and the stunned disbelief of commercial and public broadcasters. The CMCs efforts before and after the Washington rally indicate the importance of education and grassroots organizing in effecting change in public policy. In the weeks leading up to the national demonstration, the CMC held a public meeting at AllstonBrightons Jackson-Mann School to alert the local community of the upcoming rally. In addition to generating nancial support for the CMCs participation in the demonstration, these meetings kept the promise of community-oriented radio alive in the hearts and minds of local residents. Following the rally, and the FCCs subsequent notice of proposed rule making concerning the legalization of low power FM broadcasting, the CMC sponsored a major public event to update Allston-Brighton residents on the proposed regulatory changes. The main objective of that 19 February 1999 meeting was to solidify local support for the CMC in anticipation of its bid for an LPFM license. To that end, the CMC enlisted the help of two pirate broadcasters from outside the greater Boston area: Pete Tridish of Radio Mutiny in Philadelphia and Amanda Huron from the Mount Pleasant Broadcasting Club in Washington, DC. The two free radio activists are founding members of the Prometheus Radio Project, a non-prot group, which, with the help of nancial support from the Ford Foundation, works with local communities across the country to establish low power stations (Manekin 2001). Based on the technical, legal, administrative, and logistical advice they received from representatives of the Prometheus Radio Project, Allston-Brighton residents helped craft the CMCs formal statement to the FCC regarding low power FM. In doing so, local residents played a modest, but nonetheless important, role in shaping the future service. Equally important, the meeting served as a forum for community members to construct the station from the ground up. That is to say, in submitting its statement to the FCC, the CMC was providing a blueprint for the reconstituted RFA: a blueprint that was designed, in large part, by the stations listeners, participants, and nancial supporters. This commitment to public service and the considerable efforts made at community outreach were crucial for maintaining popular support for Allston-Brightons community radio project. Throughout 1999, the CMC continued to monitor the progress of the FCCs LPFM proposal, and the mounting opposition it received from commercial and public broadcasters. In the absence of news updates on FCC deliberations in the major media outlets, the CMC kept local residents apprised of the situation through op-ed pieces, occasional reports in alternative weeklies like the Boston Phoenix and The Allston-Brighton Tab, and through its own Website. In addition, the CMC began to expand its focus to other areas of communication policy. For instance, on 25 August 1999 the CMC co-sponsored

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a meeting with the Washington, DC-based activist group People for Better Television (PBTV). Specically, this meeting offered area residents a primer on digital television. Among the issues covered were the $70 billion spectrum giveaway and the need for the FCC to provide more substantive protections for the public interest in a digital media environment. The meeting helped generate local support for public hearings to determine how broadcasters might compensate local communities for their use of the digital spectrum. Furthermore, at its annual meeting on 14 October 1999 the CMCs agenda expanded once more, this time to promote the establishment of the Alternative Media Network (AMNET). AMNET is designed to coordinate the efforts of alternative media outlets and help community groups, social service agencies, and local progressives get news of their work out to wider publics. To that end, the CMC has partnered with the aforementioned WMBR and Boston Neighborhood Network News, the citys public access television newscast, to publicize community events and political action campaigns. In addition, CMC offers free workshops on creating effective public relations campaigns and helps non-prot groups establish contact with various media outlets throughout greater Boston. Thus, the CMCs media activism vividly demonstrates several theoretical points alluded to above. That is to say, by forging strategic alliances with likeminded media reformers, the CMCs participating members support Attons contention that cultural production and, more specically, the collective production and distribution of knowledge lends coherence to and helps sustain social movements. And, as Rodriquez suggests, the collective, participatory and non-hierarchical character of this activity is vital to the growth and development of a robust and expansive public sphere. As we shall see, by mounting a broad-based media literacy initiative featuring policy analysis, direct action campaigns, and media production training, the CMC constructed a network of media reformers working collectively to reclaim the airwaves and, more broadly, to enhance communicative democracy within and between Bostons diverse communities. In the midst of all of this activity, however, the CMCs energies were focused primarily on reconstituting RFA. This long, difcult and ongoing process underscores the importance of creative, pragmatic, and exible approaches to community-oriented broadcasting in an unfavorable regulatory climate. In December 1999, the CMC announced its decision to go legitimate and begin operating legally, as a Part 15 AM station. Because it operates at low power levels, akin to garage door openers or electric shavers, Part 15 transmissions are not subject to the FCCs licensing requirements and procedures. Broadcasting at 100 milliwatts, or one-tenth of a watt, at 1580 AM, the renamed Allston-Brighton Free Radio (A-B Free) would pick up where RFA left off. Following another public meeting, this time to enlist programmers, set up training sessions for community producers, and brainstorm ideas to publicize community radios return, A-B Free signed on the airwaves on 11 March 2000. At rst blush, a milliwatt AM station might seem to be an exercise in futility. With its diminutive transmission power and limited coverage area, A-B Free is nothing if not a challenge to tune in. Whereas RFAs signal reached almost six miles in some directions, A-B Free has an effective radiating power of a scant 1.5 miles. As a result, whole sections of Brighton are unable to pick up the stations transmission. Complicating matters further, A-B Free subsequently moved its broadcast signal to 1670, ostensibly to take advantage of the recently extended AM band. Although this move helps establish a

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non-commercial presence in this portion of the band, only receivers made within the last several years are capable of picking up these signals. And yet, despite the stations reduced transmission power, community outreach efforts indicate that groups and individuals are keen to produce programming on A-B Free. Immigrant groups, in particular, continue to make extensive use of the station. Cantonese, Portuguese, and Eritrean are some of the languages heard over the airwaves of A-B Free these days. Likewise, area non-prots, youth groups, and retirees produce programs such as Pets & Their People, Radical Youth, and Boston Seniors Count. All of which suggests that despite the stations technical limitations, populations whose views and perspectives are either absent from, or marginalized by, major media outlets are eager to use broadcast media any way they can. Aside from providing a valuable community service in the short term, however, the establishment of an AM station also served a long-term strategic objective. The CMC reasoned that a successful AM operation would put A-B Free in an excellent position to apply for an LPFM license, should the FCC approve the new service. With evidence that A-B Free did in fact promote broadcast diversity and serve the local, public interest, the FCC might look favorably on A-B Frees LPFM license application. However, as the broadcast industry lobbied Congress to turn back the FCCs initiative, it became clear that major urban centers, like Boston, would not be awarded any LPFM licenses. As the prospects for such a license dimmed, A-B Free looked to other alternatives that might extend its reach throughout the local community. Like other stations eager to deploy digital technologies, A-B Free streams its broadcast signal over the World Wide Web. Ever mindful that many potential listeners do not have computers, let alone Internet access, A-B Free conducts experiments whereby the stations Webcast is re-transmitted over the air, via translators, to selected areas that are unable to pick up the original broadcast signal. Wireless links between transmission points have likewise been explored. However, the costs involved in these technical solutions are prohibitive. Still, A-B Free manages to produce and distribute programming for wider audiences without the hi-tech assist. By special arrangement with Bill Bittner, the owner/operator of a Cambridge-based radio station, a handful of A-B Frees public affairs programs are rebroadcast every Saturday night on WJIB (740 AM). Conversely, A-B Free retransmits the Boston Chinese Radio Show, a program produced entirely in Cantonese, that originates from WJDA (1300 AM) in Quincy, MA. Equally important, A-B Free enjoys a mutually benecial relationship with the news department at WMBR (88.1 FM). These arrangements permit A-B Free reporters to work alongside their colleagues at WMBR, share resources, and get their feature reports broadcast to wider publics. Thus, by exploiting synergies within and between media outlets and technologies, A-B Free expands its listenership and enhances its program offerings. In sum, operating with limited resources and under a hostile regulatory regime, A-B Free nonetheless provides a vitally important public service to the residents of Allston-Brighton.

Conclusion
A-B Frees evolution is a remarkable story of perseverance and determination. It is a story

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of technological possibilities confronting contradictory public policy, and of democratic ideals clashing with economic imperatives. More than this, it is a story that speaks eloquently to the woeful state of contemporary radio in the USA. Indeed, A-B Frees history reveals how inadequate and sadly irrelevant the medium of radio has become to the civic life of local communities. This situation is all the more troubling given radios ubiquity, its relative low cost, and ease of useall of which make radio an ideal medium for community communication. Fortunately, A-B Frees story also suggests a renaissance for this once forgotten medium (Media Studies Journal 1993). From its origins as a pirate FM operation, to its current incarnation as a milliwatt AM station, A-B Free articulates a vision of public service broadcasting that reasserts broadcastings role in community building and maintenance: a vision shared by thousands of community radio advocates around the world. In its earliest incarnation, radio was perceived as a means to create a sense of national community in an increasingly complex and divisive society (Douglas 1986). At the local level, the community radio movement of the 1970s, itself an outgrowth of Pacica radios earlier success with community-oriented broadcasting, and more recently the free radio movement of the 1990s, likewise articulate the community-building potential of the medium (Dunifer 1998). In the Allston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston, radio is helping to build a sense of community in one of the citys most diverse and densely populated neighborhoods. Through radio, the community is coming together to wage a difcult struggle: a battle against the hubris of entrenched media interests, a ght to reclaim the public airwaves. A-B Frees efforts have important implications not only for popular struggles to democratize the media but also for social movement studies as well. As was noted at the outset, communication and mass media play a pivotal role in social movements. In his reassessment of the media strategies and the New Left, Chad Raphael argues:
Social movements must use the mass media, and not simply to communicate their goals. Organizers also need the media to mobilize support from citizens, to demonstrate the movements power and win recognition from its adversaries and government, and to broaden the scope of conicts in hopes of drawing in potential partners or mediators. (2000: 131)

Raphaels objective here is to encourage activists and organizers, as well as the scholars who study and support their efforts, to re-evaluate the critical and decisive role mass media might play in promoting progressive movements. As we have seen, the microradio movement in general and A-B Free in particular demonstrate an impressive facility for dealing with the press and managing media perceptions. Equally important, A-B Frees experience conrms the theoretical positions outlined at the outset of this discussion. As Chris Atton and others have observed, participatory communication of the sort engendered by A-B Free and likeminded media access projects contribute to the production of knowledge in social movements and are essential to forging a collective sense of support and solidarity within movements. Media scholar Robert Hackett puts an even ner point on it when he suggests that social movements are to a considerable extent communication phenomena (2000: 61). This contention is consistent with the position taken by Armand Mauss (1975) and others

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who argue that social problems do not exist in objective reality, but rather originate in public opinion:

No social condition, however deplorable or intolerable it may seem to social scientists or social critics, is inherently problematic. It is made a problem by the entrepreneurship of various interest groups, which succeed in winning over important segments of public opinion to the support of a social movement aimed at changing that condition. (Mauss 1975: xvi)

From this perspective, then, social problems are best understood as social movements. Thus, the microradio movement, for example, articulates popular concerns over media concentration and the deleterious effects that media deregulation, the diminution of public service broadcasting, and hyper-commercialization have on democratic processes. This social problem, a crisis of democratic communication, arises out of popular struggles to reform existing media systems and to create more egalitarian forms of communication at the local, national and international levels. Viewed in this light, media reform movements vividly demonstrate the centrality of communication to social movements generally. Indeed, these efforts underscore the relationship between communication, socio-political movements, and democratic principles. As Laura Stein puts it, Our ability to dene, debate, publicize and ultimately resolve social problems and conicts depends rst and foremost on communication processes (1999: 5). Given that popular struggles to democratize the media take public communication as their focus, movement studies might fruitfully investigate these reform efforts for clues to understanding the communicative dynamics at work in other social movements. More critically, if movement studies constitutes an interventionist enterprise, one which seeks not only to understand and evaluate popular movements, but also to encourage and facilitate progressive projects, then media reform efforts of the sort described above ought to be at the top of the research agenda.

Notes
1 Since 1984, I have been involved with various community media organizations in New York City and, more recently, in Bloomington, Indiana. During my time on faculty at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts (19972001) I had occasion to work with Steve Provizer and A-B Free on a number of projects. Data for this study are based upon participant observation of A-B Free. Specically, the comments of Steve Provizer and Seth Album included herein are taken from the 5 June 2001 broadcast of A-B Frees weekly public affairs program The Allston-Curmudgeon. During the broadcast, I spoke at length with Provizer and Album about the stations origins, its day-to-day operations, and its future viability as a medium for community communication. The other NPR afliates are WGBH and WUMB. All three stations draw heavily on program syndication services including NPR, PRI and the BBC. In addition, both WBUR and WUMB retransmit their broadcasts beyond Boston. For example, WUMB operates translators on both the AM and FM band to increase their reach to Cape Cod. WBUR likewise retransmits its signal on the Cape and as far south as Providence, Rhode Island, on WRNI. For its part, WGBH operates at 100,000 watts, effectively serving the greater Boston area. Still, WGBH rebroadcasts much of its programming over WCAI and WNAN, serving the Cape and Nantucket Islands, respectively.

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For LPFM advocates, the NABs efforts were nothing less than a misinformation campaign. See the NABs (anti) Low Power FM Kit collected by Radio 4 All, a coalition of microwatt radio activists, at http://www.beatworld.com/NAB/NABindex.html As this manuscript was being prepared for publication, LPFM advocates have mounted a successful challenge to the terms of the Broadcast Preservation bill, thus making it somewhat easier for would-be community broadcasters to take to the airwaves in more densely populated urban centers across the country. The phrase public access is used here with some qualication. Like public access television in the USA, AB Free is open to individuals and groups who live and work in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston. However, unlike public access television, which typically accepts programs on a rst come, rst served basis, A-B Free prioritizes news, information and public affairs over music and entertainment programming.

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The Author
Kevin Howley (PhD, Indiana University, 1998) is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at DePauw University. His research interests include critical-cultural analysis of community media, political economy of media industries, cultural politics, media history, and emerging technologies. His work has appeared in Television and New Media, Journal of Film and Video, International Journal of Cultural Studies, and Ecumene. His forthcoming book Community Media: People, Places and Communication Technologies is being published by Cambridge University Press.