Deliberative democracy on the air: reinvigorate localism - resuscitate radio's subversive past.

• Author: Folami, Akilah N.

Radio today seems so trapped in the amber of corporate control that it is easy to forget how much of radio technology and programming came from the bottom up, pioneered by outsiders or rebels who wanted something more, or something different, from the box than corporate America was providing. And what they wanted from radio was more direct, less top-down communication between Americans.... At times they turned ... listening, and programming into a subversive activity. (1)

1. INTRODUCTION II. RADIO HISTORY AND FOUNDATIONAL REGULATORY PRINCIPLES A. From Safety to Scarcity B. The Public Interest Standard, Localism, and the Market Beyond III. COUNTERPUBLICS, CULTURAL STUDIES, AND RADIO'S SUBVERSIVE PAST A. Habermas's Theorized Public Sphere and the Efficacy of Counterpublics on Deliberative Democracy B. The Connection: Cultural Studies, Deliberative Democracy, Counterpublics, Radio, and Music C. The Emergence of Rock and Roll on White Radio as an Example of Radio's Subversive Past 1. Radio and Rock and Roll's Subversive Challenge to the Then-Existing Economic Order 2. Radio and Rock and Roll's Subversive Challenge to the Then-Existing Mainstream Discourse on Identity and Race Relations in America 3. Commercializing White Youth Culture IV. REINVIGORATING LOCALISM A. Deregulation and Its Effect on Music Content on Radio. B. Opening Up Access: Suggested Approaches V. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION

   Radio is dead. (2) Dead, that is, to realizing those, at first, noble ideals of being a communicative medium created by the people, for the people, and representative of the people. At radio's mass emergence, many perceived it as the vehicle through which America's locally, regionally, ethnically, and/or socioeconomically marginalized populations could be included in America's democracy by being given an expressive and deliberative space on this newly accessible and fairly inexpensive medium. Today, however, scholars and activists (3) have argued that deregulation of the media industry, which began in the early 1980s and was solidified by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, (4) facilitated unprecedented consolidation in radio station ownership. As a result, radio has become a commodified and commercialized wasteland--a corporatized plaything--littered with fragmented, yet overlapping, music formats that play the same homogenized corporate-produced music playlists and are devoid of meaningful local public- and cultural-affairs programming.

   These same scholars and activists also contend that radio's fate was sealed with the shift in meaning of the public interest requirement imposed on broadcasters by the FCC, (5) which required licensees to serve as "public trustees" of the nation's airwaves for the listening and deliberating public. (6) However, with the ideological shift in meaning of the public interest standard from the public trustee model--aimed at informing the listening public and at facilitating the discourse that occurs within it (7)--to the market model, the FCC's ultimate approach toward radio has effectively resulted in turning the listening audience over to advertisers as a pre-packaged and consuming demographic, a saleable commodity in and of itself. (8) As a result, and to the dismay of many, radio today focuses little on cultural diversity, norms, tastes, and interests of the local--the historically favored and distinctive quality of radio.

   Is radio really dead, though? While some commentators may not have gone so far as to assert radio's death, they have suggested that radio has struggled to adapt to today's rapidly evolving technological landscape. (9) With broadcast, cable, and satellite television; the Internet; satellite and Internet radio; MP3 players; and the like, the media outlet cup runneth over, providing many different choices for listeners to retrieve the programming content they desire. Despite these doomsday predictions of radio's relevance or deliberative future given corporate control of the medium and the content provided on it, there is reason for pause. Radio's history provides evidence of a rich account of resistance from the bottom up, with once-marginalized groups finding voice and expression on the nation's radio airwaves, even within the commercialized setting of terrestrial radio.

   In spite of claims of radio's extinction and irrelevance, such history makes radio's current relevance all the more evident. History reveals that now is not the first time radio or radio programming has been slave to corporate control. For example, during the network era, the commercial broadcast networks controlled most radio programming via their affiliate agreements, which bound local affiliate stations to play content provided to them by the corporate networks. (10) Such content was provided remotely and from the top down, with little reflection of local interest or norms. Still again, during the format era which followed the network era and facilitated the rise and development of the Top 40 music format, music playlists were (and still are) selected based primarily on aggregated national surveys, which became further and further removed from the listening preferences of local community members. (11)

   For deliberative purpose, it is important to note that the format era followed what some have referred to as the first "death" of radio (12) due in part to the emergence of television; (13) others, however, including cultural studies scholars, consider it to be more like a transition period in radio between the network and format eras. (14) This transition period opened up access in the mid-1940s to the early 1950s to the nation's radio airwaves to White (15) American youth and Black American musicians and, as a result, gave birth to voices of resistance on the nation's radio airwaves to mainstream American ideologies. These voices were from the marginalized segments of America's population. They challenged the dominant ideological norms and values that permeated mainstream society and that were reflected in the content provided from the top down by the then-existing, corporate-controlled radio network affiliate outlets and the new and emerging media outlet at the time--television. (16)

   This Article zeroes in on this history to show the unique and influential role radio has played in fostering communication in what some public sphere and deliberative democracy theorists call counterpublics, (17) which Habermas has historically dismissed as less effective than his idealized formal political public sphere in mounting challenge to authority to effectuate meaningful change. (18) This Article contends that these publics, found most often in the everyday lives, conversations, and interactions of ordinary people can, despite their disorganization, still challenge the hegemonic authority of the majority. For example, by playing on radio the musical tastes of the formerly unacknowledged youth of mainstream American society, the disc jockey, (19) through his guest appearances at high schools, teen "call-in" shows, and announcements regarding local events, tapped into and came to represent this segment of the local community. He gave voice to their concerns and interests that were otherwise rendered invisible by mainstream media outlets, and that were, at times, at odds with the larger dominant ideals.

   More specifically, in the mid-1940s to early 1950s, the playing of rock and roll--infused with the "rhythm and blues" sentiments of Black America through its Black musicians--on the nation's segregated airwaves in a racially segregated America, and its consumption by mainstream America's youth, signaled a challenge to the dominant and legally sanctioned ideology strictly prohibiting intermingling between the races, especially on such a socially and culturally pervasive medium as radio. Radio became the stage upon which the contest over social identity and meaning was fought, and it altered, via its heavy influence on popular culture, the way American youth (both Black and White) physically interacted both on and off the dance floor in a racially integrative way that was diametrically opposed to the segregated norms established and endorsed by mainstream America.

   By exploring this history as support for the proposal to include music into the calls to reinvigorate localism and resuscitate democratic deliberation (even if subverted) on radio, this Article poses a challenge to deliberative democracy theorists who suggest that challenges to ruling norms can only come via the overtly political public sphere and reasoned debate. (20) Moreover, this Article also calls into question the distinctions made between high and low culture among cultural studies scholars (21) and between high and low value speech among First Amendment scholars, (22) where high value, overtly political speech is deemed worthier of greater First Amendment protections than nonovert political speech that is often inclusive of everyday popular cultural expression.

   Finally, this Article ultimately encourages media scholars to include in their calls to reform radio not only local news and information, but also local music and popular cultural expression to reverse the tide of the homogenized, corporately produced content that currently stifles the potentiality of subversion. The early rock-and-roll era DJ--who once played bottom-up music and who was, as a result, instrumental in facilitating the contestation over identity meaning and making--has become more distanced from his local listening audience and its preferences due to syndicated programming, corporatized payola, and the new-market based, public interest interpretive standard promoting consumption. He now provides a more top-down, corporate-driven music programming platform that is increasingly sensationalized and homogenously geared toward promoting consumption, rather than discursive exchange. Moreover, despite today's current media-rich environment, radio remains relevant, not only...