Shifting Notions of Community in Community Media

The classical scholarly texts on community media have tended to define ‘community’ in community media as something that is small, local, geographically rooted, and characterized by intimate bonds among its members – almost in the sense of a Gemeinschaft. In parts of the Global South, this idea of community is even invoked mainly in the context of remote, rural populations heroically resisting mainstream, hegemonic media with media that promote the local, the neighborhood, the village, and such, both geographically and culturally.

Although the idea of ‘communities of interest,’ not bound by territoriality, has been in existence for some time, it is only recently that the intensification of migrations, national and global, the consequential fluidity of identities (e.g. hyphenated, diasporic), and the emergence of a range of communication platforms online are compelling us to re-examine the continued salience of the notion of ‘community’ in community media.

Chairs: Vinod Pavarala (University of Hyderabad) and Alejandro Barranquero Carretero (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

Speakers: Susan Forde (Griffith University), John Walsh (National University of Ireland Galway), Jessica Retis (University of Arizona), Jorge Antonio Saavedra Utman (Universidad Diego Portales), Martín Correa-Urquiza (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)