Broadcasting and the Public in Australia

by Bob Hope-Hume

Abstract

The public sphere is that field in which private persons interact with other private persons and in so doing construct a 'public'. Public opinion is formed through this interaction in the public sphere. The media provide a major part of that interaction. Moreover, the media determine which voices are privileged.

It is publicity ( comment in the public sphere ) that forms, reinforces and directs public opinion. On the one hand we can argue that a fully informed public is better equipped to form public opinions while on the other hand it is to the advantage of various interest groups to control the voices heard in the public sphere. A truly participatory democracy requires a full range of voices to be raised in the public sphere. These voices should not be drawn exclusively from powerful, educated, rich or politically favoured sections of society or from other elites within a community. Private persons, sub-cultures and voices from the margins must be heard to ensure public opinion is not dominated by either special interest groups or the status quo.

In Australia government broadcasters, by virtue of being funded from the public purse, and community broadcasters who by virtue of allowing - and at times seeking - a range of public voices lay claim to the title "public broadcasters". However the government broadcaster maintains a world-view that does not challenge the status quo and allows the privileging of certain voices such as those legitimised by previous media exposure or media strategists from special interest groups. Therefore, to provide a full range of views to be aired in the public sphere community media must seek to provide a gateway for those at the margins who are otherwise excluded from access to the media. It is only through the foregrounding of those marginal voices that informed public opinion can develop. This paper will provide an overview of broadcasting and the public in Australia with background on the history and development of community radio. The paper examines the notion of the 'public' as a site of struggle and examines how community radio challenges the status quo in Australian culture as well as seeking to facilitate ideas on the role of radio as a democratic medium.

Broadcasting and the Public in Australia

The Australian Broadcasting Services Act 1992 divides radio services into the following sectors.

It is the area of community broadcasting that I wish to discuss in this paper, in particular community radio broadcasting.

Community radio is local and non-commercial. Commercial radio broadcasts in order to make money. Community radio seeks to make money in order to broadcast. Community radio is predominantly run by volunteers, there may be a skeleton staff but the majority of community broadcasters are unpaid workers. The primary reason for the existence of community radio is to provide entry to the public sphere for those who may normally be excluded. Some cities provide speaker's corners where a person may stand on a soapbox and talk to those within earshot who choose to listen. Community radio provides a larger soapbox on which the speaker does not have to confine her or himself to those within earshot. Radio then extends the range of the speaker's voice by expanding space for the speaker and compressing space for the listener.

Community radio provides access for voices from the margins. As local broadcasters, stations provide a balance for the spatially biased national and international networks. McLuhan ( 1964 ) saw such national and global media empires as the inevitable given the nature of the medium. The nature of radio as a space-biased or imperial medium leads to the creation of network empires. As media activists community broadcasters seek to subvert the nature of the medium and challenge the growth of media imperialists by flipping the medium part way towards a time biased notion of the local and the community. Paul Heyer and David Crowley argue,

In today's world, space-biased media in the form of modern electronic communications have assumed unparalleled influence. In the guise of giving greater access to and democratizing information, they can entrench modes of domination that in some way resemble what took place in previous epochs. It is the rich and powerful nations able to exploit this technology to its limits who, in the guise of making it available to others, extend their information empires.

( Heyer and Crowley, 1991, p. xix )


History of Community Radio

Radio in Australia was first constructed by legislation on a two tiered system of A and B licences. Those broadcasters with A licences were funded from revenue raised by a licence fee while those licensed as B stations raised revenue from advertising. This two-tiered system eventually divided radio into government and commercial broadcasters.

Non-government, non-commercial broadcasting had been attempted in Australia during the years of anti-Vietnam war protests when small transmitters were set up to broadcast messages of opposed to Australian involvement in the Indo-Chinese conflict. These pirate stations came into existence to publicise an ideology oppositional to the policy of the Liberal ( conservative ) government of the day, an ideology that initially received little publicity through the government broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), or the commercial stations.

Following the election of a Labor ( liberal/democratic socialist ) government in December 1972, Australia was one of the first countries to legislate for a third tier of broadcasting - non government, non commercial or community broadcasting. The Labor government of the time was keen to establish a new national identity. Government policy began to move away from an Euro-centric view towards a new construction of what it meant to be "Australian". The increasing acceptance of Australian accents on radio ( Potts, 1989, p. 12 ) which had previously been employed primarily for comic effect, was part of an increasing Australian nationalism as exemplified by the opposition to foreign military bases on Australian soil ( Potts, 1989 ). As part of this move towards the construction of a non-British Australian identity came agitation from lobby groups comprising such diverse membership as ethnic councils, audio and music buffs, academics and radicals towards recognition of the medium of radio as a public resource and the right of the public to gain access to the airwaves.

In 1974 the possibility of new radio stations in Australia was flagged by the federal government when the Minister for the Media, Senator Douglas McClelland announced the possibility of 200 new AM licences. This statement opened the possibility of public access to the airwaves and a break with the established two tiered broadcasting system of commercial/government broadcasters. In March 1974 the report of an independent inquiry into frequency modulation ( FM ) broadcasting ( The McLean Report ), which had been commissioned by the federal government, recommended the establishment of FM radio services in Australia. That month lobby groups for public access to the airwaves were formed with the establishment of the Alternative Radio Association in Melbourne and the Sydney Public Broadcasting Association.

Following the endorsement of the recommendations of the McLean Report by Cabinet in April 1974 the Department of Media held a national conference on public broadcasting in Sydney on July 3-4 that year. This conference pre-empted another non-government conference on public broadcasting also held in Sydney on July 5-6. At that early stage the government could be seen trying to set the agenda for the future of community broadcasting in Australia. Following the non-government conference the Public Broadcasting Association of Australia (PBAA) - now the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia ( CBAA ) was formed.

On September 23, 1974 Cabinet invited The University of Adelaide and the Music Broadcasting Societies of Victoria and New South Wales to establish stations. The University of Adelaide station 5UV was to be established on the AM band to provide educational talks. The MBS stations were to broadcast "fine music" on the new FM band. Community broadcasting was to begin following the Reithian ideals of providing education and high culture, an ideal which community radio has not entirely shaken free from. Australia's first legal community radio station, 2MBS FM, went to air on December 15, 1974 in Sydney, New South Wales. This was followed by 3MBS FM in Melbourne, Victoria and 5UV in Adelaide, South Australia. The demand for and interest in community broadcasting was made evident when the Australian Broadcasting Control Board received eleven applications for a community licence in Melbourne on April 10, 1975 compared to five applicants for a Melbourne commercial licence on May 14, 1975. Seeing the demand for such a public service the government decided to dispense licences to twelve tertiary educational institutions.

Western Australia's first public/community radio station began broadcasting on Saturday, October 16, 1976. 6NR ( New Radio ) began regular transmission from studios at the West Australian Institute of Technology ( WAIT ) on 927 AM. Programming included educational programmes from WAIT and Murdoch University, ethnic broadcasting, Christian evangelism, children's stories and local issues. On April 1, 1977 Western Australia's first FM station and second public/community station, initially known as 6UWA FM - later to be known as 6UVS FM when Murdoch University joined the station as a junior partner began broadcasting from the campus of The University of Western Australia (UWA) on 92.1 FM.

These legalised non-government, non-commercial broadcasters were known as "public broadcasters" until the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 brought a change of name to "community broadcasters" because of a perceived need by the government to differentiate between the non government "public broadcasters" - which claimed the term "public" by allowing public access - and the government "public broadcaster" ( the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ) - who claimed the term "public" because it was funded from the public purse and broadcast in "the public interest". So as a sign packed with divergent meaning the term "public" became a site of struggle.


The Public Sphere

The ideology of the term "public" as a site of struggle has a long history ( Habermas, 1989, Sennett, 1978 ) which is linked to a history of communication. During the Middle Ages the public was the crown and those of no rank were private ( Habermas, 1989, p.6 ). This meaning continues with the army's use of the term "private" to describe the soldier of no rank ( Habermas, 1989, p.6. ) The institution of the British public school also reflects this meaning as a school for the elite.

During the 18th century the boundaries of meaning of the term "public" moved to encompass the bourgeois. The imagined communities of nations became prominent ( Anderson, 1991 ) and the state extended its control of the margins. During this time there was a rise of the public as a political force. Daniel Defoe, an apologist for the Whigs, wrote of the party spirit as the public spirit. Thus the "public spirit" as an agent of hegemonic control came to be. A public spirited person acted in the interest of the state rather than in their own interest. The term suggested that the interest of the state was in the public interest of the private person. The period also saw the rise of a critical press scrutinising the public sphere. Publications such as The Public Advertiser took the private sphere of communication into the public sphere.

The role of such mass media was of great importance to the formation of the public sphere in 18th century France.

The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man. Everyone can therefore speak, write and print freely, with the proviso of responsibility for the misuse of this liberty in the cases determined by law.

( Declaration des Droit's de l'Homme et du Citoyen. August 26, 1789, cited in Habermas, 1989, p.70.)

The rise of the public sphere also saw the rise of a field of public opinion. Public opinion forms through discussion by private persons in the public sphere. Freedom of communication is important to the formation of public opinion. Democracy needs a fully informed public sphere and without such provision for communication, information and discussion merely constructs an illusion of public power.


Monopolies of Knowlege

Harold Innis (1972) devised the term 'monopolies of knowledge' to describe the way in which a priestly hierarchy maintained power by restricting the flow of information. Current parallels may be drawn in attempts to restrict information in the media. These restrictions are not confined to constraints imposed by governments. They can include restrictions imposed by media culture.

Lord Reith established the British Broadcasting Commission to provide educational and ( high ) cultural broadcasting. Government broadcasting in British colonies was based upon the Reithian model. The Australian Broadcasting Commission like the British Broadcasting Corporation was set up on Reithian ideology to provide cultural broadcasting of a British nature ( see Inglis, 1983, p. 11-12 ). For many years the ABC used British announcers where possible as the BBC English accent was considered to be of higher cultural value than the Australian accent ( Potts, 1989 ) and the male voice was considered to be more authoritative. The disembodied voice from the radio was like the disembodied voice of God ( Miller, 1993 ) and as God was male so was the radio voice. The Australian voices used emulated the Oxbridge accents of the BBC. The ABC continues with a principally elitist view of culture. While the voices may now present an educated Australian accent, the ABC does not accurately reflect the diversity of Australian culture for example, while ABC radio presents both male and female voices but excludes the voices of Australia's ethnic diversity are excluded. Kalinga Seneviratne informed the Seminar on Alternative Media in Asia and the Pacific held in Singapore in 1993 of his experiences in attempting to present a programme for the ABC. While the ABC international service, Radio Australia accepted his programme on non-Christian religions in Australia for broadcast, it was not considered suitable for broadcast within Australia because of Seneviratne's accent. To present a multi-cultural view of Australia the government set up the Special Broadcasting Service ( SBS ) retaining more direct control than was available over the ABC ( Dugdale, 1979 ) and as a consequence of that control the voices on SBS remain politically conservative in that they avoid voices of dissent and so are supportive of the status quo ( Seneviratne, 1993 ). While the ABC youth network JJJ does employ one announcer with an Australian/Asian accent, however, on ABC Radio 1 and Radio 2 the voice almost overwhelmingly remains Anglo-Celtic. Where change has come it has often been initiated by those who have come from a background in community broadcasting which has encouraged them to take a wider view of Australian culture and how it can be represented on air. We have voices from the centres representing the margins rather than voices from the margins (with the rare exception as noted in the JJJ case) speaking for themselves. Eric Michaels ( 1980 ) was concerned with problem of representation versus self-representation in the public sphere.

The Yuendumu TV station, despite a considerable initial flurry of interest ( spurred by its illegal 'pirate' status ) has been effectively insulated from further interest. None of its productions have been broadcast to the rest of Australia. The only distribution is via tape copies through Aboriginal networks. This is not mere disinterest; the tapes are judged by national broadcasters to be of "insufficient technical quality" for national attention. The national broadcasters prefer to send in their crews to make TV about the Aborigines making TV. But the conduct of European producers who appropriate Warlpiri media for "higher quality" productions has led to a ban on such activity in the community. Thus, Australia's first public television, and it's counterparts in at least half a dozen other Aboriginal communities, remains essentially unknown and its output has no audience beyond the local one ( Michaels, 1990, p.28 ).

Michaels use of inverted commas around the words "higher quality" draws attention to the way in which such terms are used to legitimise the privileging of certain voices and the marginalisation of other voices in mainstream media.

Stuart Hall (1970) has demonstrated how the media privileges certain voices and marginalises other voices in the media's construction of the sites of public and private spheres.

The role of the news journalist is to mediate - or act as the 'gatekeeper' - between different publics, between institutions and the individual, between spheres of the public and private, between the new and the old. ( Hall, 1970, p. 210 ).

In the execution of this role the media demonstrates what Hall calls an "unwitting bias"

... the troublesome question is one of unwitting bias: the institutional slanting, built-in not by the devious inclination of editors to the political right or left, but by the steady and unexamined play of attitudes which, via the mediating structure of professionally defined news values, inclines all the media towards the status quo.

( Hall, 1970, p. 211 ).

This "unwitting bias" occurs in the media's choices of accredited witnesses or the voices that the media presents.

The operation of unwitting bias is difficult to prove. Its manifestations are always indirect. It comes through in terms of who is or is not accorded the status of an accredited witness: in tones of voice: in the set-up of studio confrontations: in the assumptions that underlie the questions asked or not asked: in terms of the analytical concepts that serve informally to link events to causes: in what passes for explanation

( Hall, 1970, p. 211 ).

And so the voices that the media present become legitimised as voices in the public sphere. The media then seeks to present the voices that it has itself legitimised and the result is a crisis of legitimisation that supports the status quo.


Resistance Through Radio

Community radio must challenge these monopolies of knowledge by allowing the voices that are excluded by other media to be forwarded. Trade unions, environmentalists, non-Christian religions, indigenous people, ethnics and urban sub-cultures all access community radio. These voices provide a balance to the hegemonic forces which Hall identifies in other media. They are part of what Foucault ( 1980, p. 132 ) called "the battle 'for truth' or at least 'around truth'".

In their introduction to Harold Innis' Bias of Communication Paul Heyer and David Crowley state

... despite the ideology of a free press, this technology like others before it, developed restrictions on what was acceptable content, and fostered a particular kind of social control, which in turn led to a new series of monopolies of knowledge. ... what should be cultivated is an ongoing challenge to the extremes and inequities that result.

( Heyer and Crowley, 1991, p. xx ).

Historically new media ( i.e. new technologies of communication ) have allowed voices to challenge the dominant communication ideologies. Not only can the new rise to such a challenge but so too can the discarded or taken for granted. As an example of such a use for a discarded medium, CB radio - once a wide spread toy and status symbol that demonstrated the fetish for new technologies, now long passed by as plaything and relegated primarily to the use of truck and long distance bus drivers - has been used by activists to subvert dominant communication channels ( Zilm, 1993 ). While radio has not been as spectacularly dumped by former users, it has become a taken for granted media of the status quo. Community radio challenges this taken for granted nature of the medium by inserting marginalised voices rather than the voice of the professional broadcaster ( gatekeeper ) into the public sphere.

This insertion presents a site of struggle. To actively seek to subvert the status quo can mean that community radio itself is marginalised. This leads to a crisis of legitimisation and a crisis of funding for the broadcaster As community radio seeks to insert voices within the public sphere it aims to provide a balance between presenting an acceptable face to attract funding and audiences while seeking to challenge the very "common sense" notions those funding sources and potential audiences hold. A rather unfortunate trend from some community broadcasters in the nineties is to seek to maximise audiences in an attempt to attract sponsors to provide the necessary finance to continue. To maximise the audience the voices that challenge the status quo are silenced to be replaced by easier listening music, a programming move considered necessary by those stations as many of the traditional funding sources, such as the universities, are not continuing to support the stations.

An example of the high cultural domination of voices leading to the discontinuation of a major source of funding for community radio is the case of 6UWA FM/6UVS FM Under the management of former BBC presenter Nicholas Partridge the station's brief was to provide educational talks and fine music. The station's magazine - with the loftier title journal - included high cultural content such as articles on composers and short stories as well as technical and programming information. Three evenings a week some low audience air time was allocated to Non Classical Music ( NCM ) programming. This programming despite being less highbrow than the fine music programming still constructed itself in an intellectual manner. Originally set up to provide "educational talks and fine music" the station became a site of struggle over monopolies of knowledge and the privileging of voices outside the mainstream. From within the academy came mumblings about the amount of money the university was spending on the urban subcultures and dissenting voices heard on the station. The station was eventually closed by the senate of the university at the same time as the university opened a new high culture art gallery. The university thus demonstrated an unwillingness to present and legitimise those voices that challenged the status quo and the very monopolies of knowledge that were funding the voices of dissent.

Those who held privileged positions within the public sphere assumed the right to speak on behalf of the margins. Such monopolies of knowledge concerned Kant during the Enlightenment when he put forward his concept of tutelage.

Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another.

( Kant, 1957, p. 3 ).

For Kant freedom of communication meant freedom from tutelage.

Certainly one may say 'Freedom to speak or write can be taken from us by a superior power, but never the freedom to think!'. But how much, and how correctly, would we think if we did not think as it were in common with others, with whom we mutually communicate!

( Kant, 1949, p. 303 ).

For Kant it was necessary for a multiplicity of voices to be heard in public communication in order to achieve Enlightenment and freedom from tutelage. Kant promoted the right to communicate freely as necessary for an informed public sphere and hence an active and participatory democratic process.

The resistance to tutelage and the monopolies of knowledge upon which tutelage is based was demonstrated in the resurrection of 6UVS FM as RTR FM. The commitment to pluralistic expression by the community led to a co-operative effort by the volunteers involved with the radio station and the larger community towards getting the station back on air, The station eventually re-emerged as RTR FM ( Arts Radio ) with control of the station organised in a participatory and co-operative structure. As such the station severed its links with an elitist conception of a public sphere which sought to exclude voices from the margins.

The public sphere of 18th Century France, as described by Habermas, was not a participatory activity for all of society but rather a bourgeois activity where an informed citizenry with time available to pursue such activity, would meet in coffee shops to discuss issues. Radio in the 20th Century in its dominant form involves a private listener in a passive one way relationship with the medium. While the listener may be active in the sense that s/he may be decoding the message the listener is not active in using the medium in the way Brecht at the time of radio's inception perceived the technology's possibilities.

... radio is one sided when it should be two-.It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to receive as well as transmit, how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him. On this principle the radio should step out of the supply business and organise its listeners as suppliers.

( Brecht, 1964 ).

Even in talkback which claims to allow access to the medium, the content and views are controlled by a dominant presenter/producer ( Higgins & Moss, 1982, Rowe, 1992 ). Talkback provides a cheap means of filling air time rather than a strategy for democratisation of the air waves. Such use of the medium actively discourages participation in a public sphere by disempowering the audience.

The gatekeeper function of the media ensures that the views expressed maintain the status quo ( Hartley, 1982 ) and no public sphere of discussion emerges in the medium. As a private activity ( Baird, 1992, p.11 ) radio listening presents a face of "news and information" while discouraging interactive public discourse.

Community radio on the other hand actively engages the listener in the medium ( Hill, 1986 ) by becoming the virtual coffee shop of the airwaves, the electronic parallel of the 18th Century coffee shop public sphere described by Habermas.

In order to further a democratic, participatory, informed and communicative public sphere community radio needs to return to its grass roots of broad based community and activist support and lobbying in order to attract a wide range of informed views and to subvert the gatekeeper function of the dominant media. Community radio should seek to inform and provide alternate views, it should be local and open to the views of citizens. If it sounds like a babble of diverse, and at times unsettling, raised voices, rather than the smooth hegemonic voice of the status quo on mainstream radio, it begins to approach the coffee shop public sphere idealised by Habermas.


References

Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and the Spread of Nationalism. (2nd ed.). London: Verso.

Baird, L. (1992) "So What Is Radio?" in Baird, L. (ed.) Australian Film Television and Radio School Guide to Radio Production. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. p. 10.

Brecht, B. (1964) "The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication" in Willett, J.(ed.) Brecht On Theatre. London: Hill & Wang.

Broadcasting Services Act (1992).

Dugdale, J. (1979) Radio Power: Access Radio 3ZZZ. Melbourne: Hyland House.

Foucault, M. (1980) Power-knowledge : Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. ( Colin Gordon et al Ed. and Trans. ) Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.

Habermas, J. (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. London: Polity Press.

Hall, S. (1970) "A World At One With Itself" in New Society June 1970, pp. 1056-8. Reprinted in Cohen and Young (eds) (1971) The Manufacture of the News. London: Constable.

Hartley, J. (1982) Understanding News. London: Methuen.

Heyer and Crowley (1991) "Introduction" in Innis, H. A. The Bias of Communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. xix

Higgins, C. S.& Moss, P.D.(1982) Sounds Real : Radio in Everyday Life. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.

Hill, B. (1986) "Oz Radio Now" in Media Information Australia 41.

Inglis, K. S. (1983) This is the ABC : the Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1932-1983. Carlton: Melbourne University Press.

Innis, H. A. (1972) Empire and Communications. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Kant, I. (1949) "What Is Orientation in Thinking" in Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writing in Moral Philosophy. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Kant, I. (1957) "What Is Enlightenment" in On History. Indianopolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Michaels, E. (1990) "A Model of Teleported Texts (With Reference to Aboriginal Television)" in Continuum 3:2, pp. 8-31.

Miller, T. (1993) "Radio" in Cunningham, and Turner, (eds) The Media in Australia. Allen & Unwin. pp 41-58.

McLuhan, (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.

Potts, J. (1989) Radio in Australia. Kensington: New South Wales University Press.

Rowe, D. (1992) "'Just Warming 'em up': Radio Talkback and its Renditions." in Continuum 6:1.

Seneviratne, K. (1993) "Giving a Voice to the Voiceless: Community Radio in Australia" in Media Asia 20: 2. pp. 66-74.

Sennett, R. (1978) The Fall of Public Man: On the Social Psychology of Capitalism. New York: Vintage.

Zilm, J. (1993) "Nomad Radio" in Radiotext(e): Semiotext(e). Semiotext(e) 6:1.


Source: Bob Hope-Hume http://kali.murdoch.edu.au/~hopehume/bcast.html

Back to the Top or return to the Essays Index