Embracing the de-Westernizing debate in communication research (Wang, 2013) and the call to decolonize media studies (Thussu, 2009), this article contextualizes the practices of contemporary community radio stations through internationalizing the history of community broadcasting. In contrast to other histories of community media (Lewis, 1984;Milan, 2013;Rennie, 2006;Rodriguez, 2001), this research reflects on the growth and spread of community radio practices analysed in four distinct periods of development. These periods organize the activities and efforts of communities (social movement actors, non-state/corporate actors) deploying radio technology to create media by and for the community. This analysis assembles a longer timeline and global (internationalized) landscape for mapping the development of community radio. This article contributes new analysis that indicates the spread of community radio as an institution is rooted in a history of struggle and media activism engaged among disparate movements and actors who often captured the airwaves in defiance of state-run and for-profit broadcasters.

Global Communications is a book series that looks beyond national borders to examine current transformations in public communication, journalism and media. Books in this series will focus on the role of communication in the context of global ecological, social, political, economic, and technological challenges in order to help us understand the rapidly changing media environment. We encourage comparative studies but we also welcome single case studies, especially if they focus on regions other than Western Europe and North America, which have received the bulk of scholarly attention until now.Empirical studies as well as textbooks are welcome. Books should remain concise and not exceed 300 pages but may offer online access to a wealth of additional material documenting the research process and providing access to the data. The series aspires to publish theoretically well-grounded, methodologically sound, relevant, novel research, presented in a readable and engaging way. Through peer review and careful support from the editors of the series and from the editorial team of Open Book Publishers, we strive to support our authors in achieving these goals.Global Communications is the first Open Access book series in the field to combine the high editorial standards of professional publishing with the fair Open Access model offered by OBP. Copyrights stay where they belong, with the authors. Authors are encouraged to secure funding to offset the publication costs and thereby sustain the publishing model, but if no institutional funding is available, authors are not charged fees. Any publishing subvention secured will cover the actual costs of publishing and will not be taken as profit. In short: we support publishing that respects the authors and serves the public interest.

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Community radio has been defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as promoting non-profit ownership of stations and volunteer participation. The increasing commercialisation of community radio in Canada, evident in changing station practices and regulatory policies, has resulted in the erosion of volunteer run governance and programming. This article draws on community media, anti-oppression, and third-sector studies literature to investigate the experiences of volunteers from two stations, CHRY in Toronto and Radio Centre-Ville in Montral. Current Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulations define community radio by virtue of its place in the communities served. This article concludes that reducing the engagement and empowerment of volunteers in community radio programming and governance limits the place of community radio in the community. The authors will also identify best practices that are needed to re-centre community radio within the community while ensuring a sustainable non-profit community broadcasting sector.

Critical scholarship investigating media and the Arab uprisings has called for “a return to history.” This article argues that researching the contemporary constraints and opportunities of social movement media in the Arab region requires historicizing such practices. Reflecting on the role of media activism within the Arab uprisings necessitates broadening the historical context of social movement media in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region by investigating the diversity of media tactics and alternative political economies mobilized to resist the military-industrial communications complex. This article develops a political economy framework to historicize social movement media practices from Chiapas to Palestine and provides a critical reflection on the use of media for revolution before and beyond the Arab uprisings. Learning from the long and global history of revolutionary media struggle is beneficial to media activists and researchers working in the MENA region.