Jesse Drew, UC Davis
Focusing on local, community-based voices of marginalized communities, this project explores the transition of how low power radio has undergone from urban pirate stations to the LPFM Stations of rural California.
Radio is place-based media, that is local, not global. California, which played a large part in initiating LPFM, has been in the forefront of this movement, and currently has over 200 stations. The Low-Power radio stations that have come on line are hyper-local, reflecting local communities, local issues, local characters and local personalities.
Paradoxically, in an age of global digital media, local radio is thriving.
Listen Here! Will provide an aural snapshot of the local phenomena of radio, and highlight the spectrum of California communities that are on the air.
The Listen Here! project will travel to a representative sampling of 8-10 LPFM radio stations to photograph, interview, record, edit and produce a radio program that will then be broadcast on each of those respective stations, bridging the places where they originate, connecting the local to the rest of California. After the broadcasts, the local productions will be available for listening and browsing collected media via an on-line interactive map. The map will then be available for future additions by other contributors.