Being Regulated: Licence to Imagine New Technology for Community Radio

Video

DOI

Licencing frameworks are embedded with sociotechnical imaginaries that limit the potential for networked technologies to make traditional media forms, like radio, more inclusive. We implemented a prototype platform that aims to enable more people to run small radio stations by using internet and mobile networks to avoid the costs of studios and specialist equipment. We sought to refine the prototype by responding to the needs of users as they set up four community radio stations in rural Romania and on Irish islands over two years. Despite national differences, their respective regulations limited who articulated requirements. Activities in applying for and complying with licences shaped design priorities by imposing temporal demands and assumptions about studios, professionalism, and certain organisational structures and division of responsibilities. Indeed, although small rural community stations present no threat of radio interference or competition to media corporations that pursue market power, they are subject to values associated with them. Regulatory frameworks are specific to nations and media form; however, our analysis illustrates that broader sociotechnical imaginaries impede designing technology to widen inclusion, which we hope will provoke discussion in HCI and CSCW about our responsibilities in engaging with the policies that shape possible futures.