Community radio stations fill many roles, especially in rural and indigenous communities where means of mass communication are almost non-existent. Radio is a relatively cheap medium and is financially possible for many communities and organizations. Freelance reporter Shannon Young is a headline editor for Free Speech Radio News (FSRN) and currently lives in Oaxaca, Mexico.
She discusses the power of community radio in the context of the ongoing indigenous civil rights/democracy movement in Oaxaca. It is one of the poorest states in the country and has the largest indigenous population in Mexico counting 16 languages amongst its citizens. Many of these communities have found in radio a way to preserve and disseminate their languages and cultures in the face of official neglect and the cultural onslaught of the mass media. In 2006 the local teacherâs union helped catalyzed a popular uprising using Radio Planton, the community radio station they had established in the capital city, as a primary organizing tool. The government eventually stepped in and shut down the station along with some of other radio and news outlets in the capital. The station came back on the air but eventually the operators shut it down out of fear of unjust prosecutions and death threats.
This wide-ranging discussion covering the genesis of Radio Planton from a yearly, local teacherâs sit-in to a revolutionary catalyst shut down by the government, provides an interesting overview of the independent media movement in Mexico and broader issues such as control of media, mediaâs influence on politics, social justice, indigenous liberation movements and much more.
Link? http://www.fsrn.org
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Sue Suprianos Steppin Out of Babylon is a radio interview series covering a broad range of important issues in todays world: peace and war, human and civil rights, communication, the media, the environment, food security, racism, globalization, immigration and matters of the spirit.
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