Медиатори на субкултура: Радио „Студент“ и югославският пънк през късния социализъм
Mediating Subculture: Radio Študent and the Late Socialist Yugoslav Punk

Summary/Abstract: This paper revisits the familiar relationship between the subcultural practices and their discursive media interpretations from two innovative angles. First, it analyzes how this particular dynamic unfolded under specific conditions of late socialism. Second, it turns the focus away from the mainstream media and looks closely at a small outlet that emerged around subculture itself. More precisely, I reflect on the complex role that Ljubljana’s Radio Študent played in the birth and proliferation of the punk subculture that developed in the late 1970s Yugoslavia. After sketching the unique institutional framework with- in which this medium emerged, I show how the radio’s early coverage of local punk in its most sensitive formative stage helped to forge a wider subculture around it. Radio Študent not only legitimized the new cultural phenomenon, but shaped its meaning on a long run, providing it with strong political connotations that came to dominate all later discussions and perceptions of local punk. Indicatively, the political tone was not one of subversion, but of invigoration, since punk was framed, even if at odds with the reality, as a new socially committed youth lifestyle. Rock critics and promoters that gathered around Radio Študent picked up marginalizing elements of the original punk idiom and in- sisted on the intrinsic social relevance of its local variant, turning it into an openly politicized movement.

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