Issue 3 - December 2007

Abstract
To ground an assessment of community radio’s contributions to political life, this paper reviews recent developments in public sphere theory and discourse ethics. Tracing a genealogy of thinking from Habermas to Warner, the paper argues that formative contexts of contemporary politics such as the radical pluralisation of culture, the emergence of lifestyle politics and the epistemic change to a communication paradigm – also powerful forces in community radio – can find parallel theoretical resources in recent writing on the public sphere. The dialectical engagement of open and inclusive publicity (associated with liberal public life), with a more enclosed, strategic approach (associated with community groups’ decision processes) is not a theoretical obstacle, but a highly useful resource. Underpinning ‘circulation of opinion’ analysis, it can ground a contemporary policy analysis which values both normativity and diversity.

While community broadcasters continue to wrestle with regulatory constraints, policy limitations, lack of resources and internal conflict, technology is rapidly transforming the way media content i