Discursive absence: the case for community radio

The case for community radio must address a range of different areas - legislation, frequencies, regulatory structures, finance, public demand and political will – which, taken together, may be regarded as the discursive field of dominant mainstream broadcasting. Without campaigning pressure there is no discursive space for a notion which challenges the established norms. The article illustrates this with the example of the British campaign for community radio which had to overcome obstacles that can still be found in many settings today. In the early 1980s British activists faced the additional problem that radio received little attention within academic media studies