Thursday, 18 December 2008

[creative-radio] Digest Number 2523

There are 2 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Catalan Government announces support for community media (communitym
From: Salvatore Scifo

2. US Army Wages iPod Warfare in Baghdad
From: George Lessard


Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1. Catalan Government announces support for community media (communitym
Posted by: "Salvatore Scifo" salvatore.scifo@communitymedia.eu salvatorescifo
Date: Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:53 am ((PST))

---Apologies for cross-posting---

Catalan Government announces support for community media
by N�ria Reguero in Barcelona for http://www.communitymedia.eu

The General Director for the Media and Audiovisual Distribution Services
of the Government of Catalonia, Gemma Dom�nech and the R�dio Contrabanda
and R�dio Bronka speakersThe General Director for the Media and
Audiovisual Distribution Services of the Regional Government of
Catalonia, Spain, has committed to recognise the not-for-profit media
before the end of the current legislature at the roundtable �Third
Sector Media in Catalonia: experiences and policies�, held on 27
November 2008 at the ECREA conference in Barcelona.

The debate, organized by the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the
Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the European Communication
and Research Education Association (ECREA), gathered media activists,
researchers and politicians at the Journalists College of Catalonia to
discuss, among other issues, the status of the implementation of Digital
Terrestrial Television (DTT), the release of new FM frequencies and the
inclusion of not-for-profit media in the Catalan and Spanish regulation.

The General Director for the Media and Audiovisual Distribution Services
of the Government of Catalonia (Generalitat de Catalunya), Gemma
Dom�nech (pictured above together with the speakers from Radio
Contrabanda and Radio Bronka), committed to recognise the Third Media
Sector as a separate one from the public service and the private
commercial media: �It is a great value to have not-for-profit media. I
do not think that you are pirates and I do not want you to be illegal
any longer. That is why the Catalan Government will start a debate next
year with the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia and all the actors
involved�, she stated.

Concerning the lack of frequencies granted to the Third Media Sector in
the Catalan region, Dom�nech pointed out to the problem of FM radio
spectrum saturation in Spain and argued that the Government of Catalonia
has no competences on that matter, given that this belongs to the
State�s General Secretary of Planning and Management of the Radio Spectrum.

Speakers and the public Spanish practitioners are demanding distinctive
regulation for the third sector since long time and the context seems to
have improved recently after the approval of two amendments to the
Spanish Law for the Protection and Promotion of the Information Society
(Ley de Medias para la Promoci�n de la Sociedad de la Informaci�n,
2007). Nevertheless, the General Director criticized the fact that this
law only allows the legalization of TV stations that were broadcasting
before the approval of the national law of local TV (Ley de la
televisi�n local, 1995).

Specifically in Catalonia, some progresses have also been made with the
approval of the Catalan Audiovisual Law (Llei de l�Audiovisual de
Catalunya, 2005), which recognizes the specificity of not-for-profit
media in the region. But, de facto, these media have been not granted
broadcasting licenses because the licensing process was not adapted to
the characteristics of not-for-profit media.

One of these projects is R�dio Contrabanda, a radio station based in
Barcelona, active since 1991 and part of the social movements of the
city: �We have a history behind us and the citizens� support, we do not
aim to make financial profit, thus, we can not be treated as an station
aiming for profit by illegal means�, remarked the station�s speaker Xavi
Apache.

R�dio Bronka, a station aiming to broadcast locally information not
covered by mainstream media, and La Tele, build up by the association
Asamblea de la Comunicaci�n Social, are other cases that face the same
situation as Contrabanda. La Tele has also been fined �60.000 for not
switching off the transmissions after it was decided that that it could
not get any license.

�We, the Third Media Sector, are citizen groups aiming to have our own
voice through our media, and our reality is an illegal �limbo� because
we do not fit neither in the public nor in the private categories�,
Javier Garc�a, member of the Spanish's Network of Community Media (Red
Estatal de Medios Comunitarios) and of the Free and Community Radio
Union of Madrid (Uni�n de Radios Libres y Comunitarias de Madrid), said.


N�ria Reguero
Communication Institute (InCom-UAB)
Autonomous University of Barcelona

Source:
http://www.communitymedia.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=1

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Salvatore Scifo
Editor, communitymedia.eu

www.communitymedia.eu
connecting community media research>teaching>policy>practice in Europe

Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. US Army Wages iPod Warfare in Baghdad
Posted by: "George Lessard" media@web.net themediamentor
Date: Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:20 am ((PST))


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [MRN] Army Wages iPod Warfare in Baghdad
From: "Austin Kelley" <austinkelley@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, December 18, 2008 10:17
To: "Micro radio" <microradio@lists.riseup.net>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/armys-ultimate.html

Army Wages iPod Warfare in Baghdad
By Nathan Hodge December 16, 2008 | 10:41:59 AM
Categories: Info War, Iraq Diary, Iraq's Insanity

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- During a humanitarian aid distribution in Baghdad's Sadr
City, Staff Sgt. Kent Crandall brought along a nifty iPod accessory: an
Army psychological operations loudspeaker. Crandall had loaded the iPod
with Iraqi pop music, which he cranked during the halal food handout in
this war-torn neighborhood.

This is only one of the tools in the psychological operations arsenal
here. Maj. Byron Sarchet, a PsyOps operations officer with 3rd Brigade
Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, told me about a second set-up that
uses his favorite method: microbroadcasting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbroadcasting

Radio geeks would be familiar with the tools: a 100 Watt Harris AM/FM
"radio in a box"
http://www.broadcast.harris.com/product_portfolio/prod_media/FlyawayBro.p701.pdf
transmitter coupled with a Marantz rack-mountable portable CD/cassette
player. The PsyOps team loaded up a laptop with contemporary Iraqi and
Arabic pop music and started broadcasting on a local frequency, 93.9
FM.The transmitter is designed for use by emergency responders. It has a
small range -- Sarchet estimated it had a reach of only a few kilometers
-- but in a densely populated area like Sadr City, it can reach a large
audience.

According to Sarchet, the whole thing was a "quick fix." He wanted to
broadcast a pro-coalition message during heavy fighting in the city. So he
liberated the radio transmitter from a State Department embedded
Provincial Reconstruction Team (e-PRT), put the radio on the roof of a
building, and started broadcasting.

"I stole that radio from e-PRT," he said. "It was in their office and they
weren't using it, and I said, 'I gotta have it – I'm taking it.' We're
going to broadcast into Sadr City on it."The programming is mostly pop
music, interlaced with coalition messages and numbers for an anonymous
tips line. Sarchet said the music was a counter to religious extremism of
the Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaish_al_Mahdi
militia, which had cracked down on the sale of pop music as part of a
puritanical campaign.

Radio 93.9 is still broadcasting in Sadr City, but the propaganda
propaganda is not over. You can still see Sadrist flyers up in the city,
and some graffiti is starting to reappear on the walls. "JAM slogans are
popping up again," Sarchet said.

_______________________________________________


Messages in this topic (1)

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