culture, subculture and counterculture - Facultatea de Litere

CREATING ALTERNATIVES.
ALTERNATIVE MEDIA THEORY AND SWEDISH PIRATE RADIO
outcome of their struggle), since it means that all media bears a radical potential
within and that all media systems are creating their alternatives.
1 The extent of pirate radio is hard to estimate. The remaining sources consist mainly in press
clippings of raids against the illegal pirate activities and the histories of pirate radio days told by
the former activists themselves, on web pages and in online forums as well as interviews with
former pirates.
2 Such a musically orientated resistance and pirating did occur also in the U.S during the 1970s as
an effect of the attempted state regulation of what music radio should play. Jesse Walker, in his
historical overview of American pirating writes, about the seventies: “The FCC started rumbling
about the evils of drug songs – a category that, in those paranoid days, some stretched to include
‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ and ‘Hey Jude’ (for the phrase ‘let her under your skin’). Perhaps, the
commission suggested, stations should rein in their DJs, lest they turn their listeners into pillpopping
zombies. The FCC never punished anyone for playing songs with real or alleged drug
lyrics, but its public ruminations had an undeniable chilling effect—and gave some uncomfortable
companies a reason to end their outlets’ experiments in freeform.” (2001: 99)
References:
Atton, C. 2002. Alternative Media, London: Sage
Atton, C. 2004. An Alternative Internet, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Atton, C. & N. Couldry 2003. “Introduction” in Media, Culture & Society
5/2003
Björnberg, A. 1998. Skval och Harmoni: Musik I Radio och TV 1925-1995.
[Non-Stop Pop & Harmony: Music in Radio & TV 1925-1995],Värnamo:
Stiftelsen Etermedierna i Sverige
Bolin, G. & M. Forsman 2002. Bingolotto. Produktion, text reception
[Bingolotto. Production, text, reception], Flemingsberg: Medistudier vid
Södertörns högskola
Couldry, N. & J. Curran (eds) 2003. Contesting Media Power: Alternative
Media in a Networked World, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield
Couldry, N. 2000. The Place of Media Power: Pilgrims and Witnesses of the
Media Age, London: Routledge
Cross, G. 2000. An All-Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in
Modern America, New York: Columbia University Press
Curran, J. 2002. Media and Power, London: Routledge
Downing, J. 2001. Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social
Movements, London: Sage
Forsman, M. 1999. Från klubbrum till medielabyrint. Ungdomsprogram i radio
och TV 1925-1993. [From youth clubs to media labyrinth. Youth programs
in radio and television 1925-1993], Värnamo: Stiftelsen Etermedierna i
Sverige
Heath, J. & A. Potter 2004. Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became
Consumer Culture, New York: Harper Collins
Henry, S. & M. van Joel 1984. Pirate Radio. Then and Now, Poole Doorset:
Blandford Press
239