Community broadcasting and mental health: The role of local radio and television in enhancing emotional and social well-being

Abstract

This article sets out explore the role of community broadcasting in enhancing the emotional and social wellbeing of its diverse audiences. We argue that community-based broadcasting is having a positive impact on the state of mental health of its audiences. We make our argument by reviewing audience research data from a two-year study of the Australian community broadcasting sector 2004-2007. The findings reveal that the community radio and Indigenous television sectors are making a significant contribution to managing community mental health by empowering audiences to better understand and control issues that impact on their emotional and social wellbeing. This suggests opportunities for health care agencies to consider the potential of enlisting community broadcasting in future mental health campaigns. The study reinforces a claim that mainstream media need to be more aware of a growing dissatisfaction with their inability to 'connect' with their diverse audiences on such issues. It also provides further evidence for community radio as a key cultural resource meeting its expected outcomes in contributing to social gain.

Exposure to coronavirus news on mainstream media: The role of risk perceptions and depression

“…As COVID-19 perceptions of risk and media consumption are likely to be influenced by key demographics (e.g., age, underlying conditions), we collected key demographic variables for statistical control (Liu, Huang, & Brown, 1998;Primack, Swanier, Georgiopoulos, Land, & Fine, 2009). More specifically, participants reported on the following important demographic characteristics: sociodemographic characteristics, for example, age (continuous variable), sex (female, male) race (White, African American, Asian, Hispanic, American Indian, Middle East and North Africa [MENA] and others), and marital status.…”

A psycho-cultural approach to radio listening and creative production

“…Radio can work for listeners as a 'container' by giving expression to thoughts and feelings in a form that would not otherwise be possible, for example, by providing opportunities for listeners to think in different ways about subjects or initiating debate on subjects previously not discussed. A separate study of Australian community radio also provides evidence for this in the normalization of the previously taboo issue of mental health through radio programme discussion (Meadows and Foxwell 2011). Radio, like other media, can therefore have 'therapeutic' effects by enabling the projection of fantasies or by deepening one's understanding of sensitive issues.…”

“…So radio has this unique transitional (neither subjective nor objective) character based on its transcendent, sonic quality (voice, sounds and music). 3 As we have read from the articles in this issue and others (Ewart 2011;Meadows and Foxwell 2011), radio facilitates two simultaneous processes: a subjective self-maintenance or management process and an engagement with the world process. Both these themes can be thought through in terms of this concept.…”

Funding Nonprofit Radio Technology Initiatives in Canada

“…Studies on politics and media in countries such as Colombia (Murillo, 2003), Zimbabwe (Mhiripiri, 2011), and Brazil (Leal, 2009) were only tangentially pertinent; although they discussed the benefits of radio for discourse formation and social change, they did not provide any insight into the ways in which stations are funded to achieve these objectives. Other studies focusing on the relationship between community radio and mental health (Bonini, 2005;Meadows & Foxwell, 2011), empowerment and social change (Jallov, 2004;Wagg, 2004), democracy and ethics (Bresnahan, 2007;Gaynor & O'Brien, 2011;Rennie, Berkeley, & Murphet, 2010), as well as regulation and policy issues (Coyer, 2006) in countries such as Thailand (Elliott, 2010;Magpanthong & McDaniel, 2011) also failed to provide information relevant to the financial context of nonprofit radio, despite explaining the benefits of the radio sector itself. For example, Evan Light (2012) provides insight into the regulatory framework for community media in Canada, but only by way of introducing another topic: community radio participation in Québec.…”