culture, subculture and counterculture - Facultatea de Litere

FREDERIK STIERNSTEDT, LINUS ANDERSSON
of texts published by former pirates at online forums. On sights like
www.piratradio.nu or flashback.se, right-wing, or neo-liberal radio activists of
the 1970s mingle with left-wing, or libertarian anarchists of the file sharing-age:
the strong suspicions towards the state and the ‘establishment’ in general
permeate their texts and conjoin them in a production of alternatives. Even
though the pirate stations of the 1970’s and 1980’s since long have become
silent, a mythology of this era is sounding out online.
Texts written from such a clear activist standpoint have to be understood
as discourse, rather than source. This, however, has been useful for us, as our
aim with this text is to understand the pirating as alternative media. These texts
then become witnesses of intentions and (political) grounds for pirating. Not
only the objective measures and operations of the pirates and the objective
consequences of their actions have been charted in this paper. The activists
subjective understandings of their actions, the ideologies and ideals
communicated not only in their factual doings but also in their mythologies,
stories and narratives has to be explored in order to fulfil our purposes.
3. Empirical overview. Responses and consequences
The empirical overview below does not attempt on a detailed description,
rather we want to give an overlook and focus our narrative on re-reading in order
to place the history (in a double sense) of pirate radio broadcasting within the
framework of alternative media theory.
They fought the law and the law won: 1958-1962
The pirates of the air were during the late 1950s and early 1960s also
pirates at sails, cruising the international – uncontrolled and uncontrollable –
waters, outside the range of state intervention in media production. The idea to
use boats offshore to sidestep monopolies and prohibitions may have come from
the frequent use of ships for alcohol and gambling purposes outside the
American coastlines during the time of liquor ban in the U.S. The first example
of pirating also comes from this geographic area: a floating radio station on
board SS Panama cruised American coastlines in the early 1930s. The station
was supposed to be a showboat to display the glories of tourism in Panama to
Californians (and as such an early example of how to use modern media in the
purpose of nation branding). The station was even licensed by American
authorities (FCC) to do some broadcasts over California. But the shrewd owners
of the station instead transmitted popular music and commercials, and through
boasting their transmitter they was heard as far away as the East Coast, Hawaii
and even Canada (Yoder, 2002). The station was boarded by American
authorities in 1933, this episode and the FCC’s handling of the SS Panama has –
for the FCC as well as for governmental regulatory organisations in other
countries – been a precedent for how to deal with offshore pirates: whereas a
restrictive and sometimes aggressive attitude has been the norm. This very early
example also highlights a neglected feature of outlaws or alternative media
226