Międzykulturowe komunikowanie lokalne: etniczne radio społeczne w Australii
Multicultural Local Communication: Ethnic Community Radio in Australia

Author(s): Mirosława Wielopolska-Szymura
Subject(s): Media studies, Communication studies, Politics and communication, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: community radio; ethnic radio; multiculturalism; media politics; Australia
Summary/Abstract: Although countries tend to differ when it comes to the implementation of multiculturalism, the shared element is that of giving access to media to various ethnic groups. Media systems functioning throughout the world do not meet the needs and expectations of the whole society and all of the cultural minorities; rather, they represent interests, opinions, and events belonging to either a dominating group or an elite influencing the media. Still, there are countries whose media politics strives for including the interest of the minorities (including the ethnic ones), which makes community media a significant – or the third – sector of their systems. The following reflections focus on the ethnic community radio in Australia broadcast by and for the members of minorities that, therefore, becomes a means of the transcultural communication. The purpose of this paper, in turn, is to analyse the systemic solutions and to describe the third radio sector in general terms with regard to the ethnic community radio in Australia understood as a form of social communication. In order to achieve that, a variety of factors are taken into consideration, including the acts regulating the media market, the official records containing statistical data and reports of inspection and regulatory bodies, as well as the websites of the radio stations. These have been analysed with regard to their histories, their presenters and programmes, languages in which programmes have been broadcast and their respective content. The ethnic community radio in Australia and its procedures, described in this paper, provide us with an example of effective systemic solutions, which – even if implemented partially – might serve as a basis for further regulations concerning radio stations in Poland.

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