Promoting social cohesion: the role of community media - amarc

2. Academic studies, conceptual frameworksA brief survey of the academic literature on areas relevant to the report will help to put the subsequentdiscussion into context.Media and social cohesionMcQuail (1994), summarisingacademic debates, identifies a “dualperspective” on the relationshipbetween media and social order:media are seen, in conflicting interpretations,as either “centripetal”,contributing to social integrationand control, or “centrifugal”,encouraging disorder or diversity.Both these tendencies can be viewedin an “optimistic” or “pessimistic”light, according to the politicalstance of the observer or, moreimportantly, of the regime in power.Figure 1 illustrates these positions.Figure 1Centrifu galeffect1Freedom ,diversity3Norm lessness,loss of iden tityO ptim istic visionPessim istic vision2Integration,solidarity4D om inance,u niform ityCentripeta leffect(taken from McQuail 1994:72)Thus, media can be seen ashaving a positive effect, unitingscattered individuals, integratingnewcomers, providing common values,ideas and information, andhelping to form identities. On thenegative side, media might beviewed as provoking social dislocation,encouraging individualistic oranomic behaviour, lowering levels ofsocial control or weakening the holdof traditional values.Table 1: Broadcasting and social cohesionBroadcasting as cohesion Reith’s BBC had as its mission the extension of broadcasting as a public service to the whole of the UK’spopulation. The original handful of local radio stations became unified in a national service, a monopoly under central control whosecoverage of national events created a shared public life - “the central agent of the national culture” (Scannell & Cardiff: 278).Broadcast dissent becomes legal Radio Vert Fessenheim began, in 1977, as the voice of protest against a nuclear power station southof Strasbourg, broadcasting (illegally) in French, German and Alsatian. Quite soon it became the focus of a wide range of social andpolitical issues and, after the legalisation of French radios libres in 1981, it changed its name to Radio Dreyekland (“three-corneredland”) and continued operations from the German side of the Rhine, ultimately gaining legal recognition from the Baden-Würrtenberggovernment (Lewis & Booth: 151).Radio Venceremos in El Salvador made a similar journey from being the voice of the FMLN’s guerrilla campaign for over 10 years ofthe civil war, surviving bombing and jamming, to legal status. When the war ended in 1992 and the FMLN formed a government, theradio received a licence and has since become largely commercial (Lopez Vigil).Broadcast dissent crushed Radio Coeur d’Acier (“Heart of steel”) in Longwy, at the centre of the steel industry in Lorraine, maintainedillegal broadcasting for 17 months during 1978/79, in support of the trade union CGT’s resistance to massive redundanciesamong the workforce. The station had strong local support, the studio being housed in the town hall and the local priest allowing theantenna to be fixed to the church tower. Finally, the French Government ordered in helicopters to jam the station’s signal and police tobreak up protesters (Lewis & Booth: 151).2. Academic studies, conceptual frameworks 9