In recent years, the attacks from the right on community radios and free radios have increased but changed their modus operandi. While a few years ago leading figures of right-wing parties took legal action against reporting by community radios (e.g. against Radio Dreyeckland, Freiburg or Radio Frei, Erfurt), the strategy has now shifted by the right to the use of the parliamentary structures for these attacks. With the strengthening of the right-wing AfD (“Alternative for Germany”) party and its entry into parliaments, community radios have become the focus political activities of this party’s ‘political activities’ because of their reporting and their core anti-fascist ethos.
Free Radios in Berlin and Brandenburg were named in parliamentary questions in the Brandenburg state parliament. While in Saxony-Anhalt Radio Corax was the subject of parliamentary questions from the AfD in parliament. Then the AfD sent a complaint to the media authority of Saxony-Anhalt against Radio Corax. Furthermore, a few weeks ago they introduced a motion to the state parliament that stipulated that all public funding should be withdrawn from Radio Corax. The application was discussed in a parliamentary debate and then rejected by all democratic parties in the state parliament.
Even if these attacks have not been successful yet, a strategy against community radios can be recognised. The motions and inquiries in the various parliaments are similar in wording and the focus is on free radios critical reporting of AfD actions and the alleged left-wing extremist constitution of the radio stations.
It is obvious that the attacks by the AfD against community radios is the public discrediting not only of the radios themselves but also of anti-fascist approaches. And at this point the AfD is looking to create alliances with those in the conservative parties who have long been promoting anti-fascism as anti-democratic.
It is now essential that community radios do not allow themselves to be intimidated and confidently declare their democratic and anti-fascist ethos to the public and upheld them against political attacks. Especially when the attacks do not come from the camp of the right-wing parties, but from that of the liberal and conservative parties that see themselves as democrats. This is just the case in Flensburg (Schleswig-Holstein), where the young radio FRATZ is about to lose its local funding. There, the iberal FDP tries to withdraw the municipal funding for Radio FRATZ accusing them of one-sided reporting. The conservative party CDU supports the application, albeit not in the term of programming content, but because of the alleged discrimination against people who are legally not allowed access to Radio FRATZ as it is the case of members of the security forces such as the police. And, of course, both parties reject the accusation that they are using funding as a way to restrict freedom of the press.
In times of increasing nationalistic and authoritative forces, Community/Free/Associative radios -as independent, self-managed media but also as socio-political institutions- can be found alongside all those who are attacked for their commitment to a inclusive and democratic society. We should take this opportunity to stand up together and move from defense to the offensive against the forces of regression.
Every year, 3rd of May is a date which celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom, to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession.
AMARC Europe wants to use this 3rd May 2021 as a reminder to governments of the need to implement their commitment to diversity and media pluralism, by recognising the work of community media organisations around the world.
Precisely, this year’s World Press Freedom Day theme “Information as a Public Good” serves “as a call to affirm the importance of cherishing information as a public good, and exploring what can be done in the production, distribution and reception of content to strengthen journalism, and to advance transparency and empowerment while leaving no one behind”, according to UNESCO.
Community Media has strived and fostered the public ownership of media and the public direct participation in content production, and we will continue in the future despise the difficulties created by the lack of meaningful support to community media initiatives in most countries.
However, Community Media still faces lack of legal recognition in most countries around the world and, even in those countries where they have a legal status, they are continuously threatened by changes in media and broadcasting law and regulations, and lack of meaningful funding and support that would guarantee the sustainability of the Third Media Sector.
Citizen participation, social benefit, educational role … These are some of the key values of free or community media. We are talking mainly about a community media movement which has been active for decades in our country. In fact, the first documented experiences of this type of radio date back to 1976, now 45 years ago. The fight for legal recognition has continued throughout this time and 2021 should be, according to its protagonists, a key year for their requests.
Read this article, published by Cuartopoder.es here (in Spanish only).
AMARC Europe is the membership organization serving the community radio movement across Europe. The political representation of this broadcasting sector is the driving principle of our initiatives and actions. A stronger network means more impact. With your AMARC membership fees you join over 300 community radio stations and federations in over 20 European countries and over 3.000 AMARC members worldwide with the aim to strengthen the community media sector in Europe and worldwide.
In November 2020 AMARC Europe will hold its General Assembly in Brussels/Belgium – detailed information coming soon. In the course of the General Assembly also all applications for new members will be discussed and approved. So, this is now the opportunity to become a full member with AMARC Europe.
We are also calling on our current members to update their membership details and fees and get in touch if there are any questions via members@amarceurope.eu.
We remind you that all the community radios, radio federations or production groups can apply for the full membership. Single persons, researchers or any other radio activist can only apply for the “associated member” status. Please check our website to get more information at this regard.
In line with our statutes, radio stations should be “up to date” with the payment of membership fees in order to have the (active and passive) right to vote during the General Assembly. This means that if the membership fees were not payed in the previous years, we kindly ask you at this stage to update your subscription including the previous unpaid membership fee.
Why to become AMARC member? 10 Good reasons to do it.
AMARC Europe is promoting networking, lobbying and advocacy activities for the European community radio sector with European Union, Council of Europe, UN institutions and the civil society and NGO sector
AMARC Europe promotes and gives visibility to Good and Best-Practice examples within and beyond the community media sector
AMARC Europe provides political support for community media e.g. regulation processes, consultations on community media et al
AMARC Europe opens up for free its office, meeting rooms and infrastructure in Brussels for members e.g. for meetings or events
AMARC Europe provides continue communication and information exchange on the community radio environment in Europe and beyond
AMARC Europe is a multi-channel dissemination platform for information, needs and demands of its members and the community media movement
AMARC Europe is regularly organizing events & meetings on relevant topics for the community media sector
AMARC Europe provides diverse opportunities for common projects and activities with European and Non-European partners – participation in a worldwide movement
AMARC Europe offers possibilities for volunteers e.g. EVS
Purchase the .radio domain for 25€ per year instead of 300€
How is your Community Media responding to Covid19? Send us your programs, workshops or resources on the topic
AMARC Europe is collecting Community Media Responses, Programs or Resources relevant in the current Covid19 situation
We see at the moment many examples of how community media provide trusted, regular, diverse and/or multilingual information on the Covid19 developments for, from and by their respective communities. The European community media sector also critically covers the current societal developments and restrictions we are facing in different parts of Europe.
Your community radio is broadcasting programs on the Covid19 situation in your town, neighbourhood or country? You offer multilingual prevention info for your local communities? You have developed a webinar or workshop formats to support the local communities to continue program production? Let us know and send us all the activities you are taking in the current situation.
AMARC Europe is collecting your actions, resources and programs and is sharing it on its website to enable common knowledge sharing and exchange. Please share this information via members@amarceurope.eu and we will publish them as soon as possible.
Team AMARC Europe Newsletter Coordination: Alexander Vojvoda
AMARC Europe is looking forward to your comments, critics, complaints, feedback and suggestions for the AMARC newsletter. Please send your comments to alexander.vojvoda@amarceurope.eu
A newsletter from AMARC Europe at this time, in which Covid19 is the all-important topic and the measures against the disease have changed our lives a lot, can of course not be an attempt to keep the agenda.
And yet the kind of state of emergency must not lead us to wait paralyzed until everything seems to be all right again. The community radios are currently struggling with an additional burden for their existence and find their function and task under the challenges again different and maybe new. And we ask ourselves how AMARC Europe can act, have to position itself differently, can provide support and still be able to complete the tasks at hand and achieve the goals set.
Above all else, this is of course about the organization of the general assembly and conference in autumn 2020, which also includes mobilizing our members and also attracting new members who can be accepted at the assembly. And even if we still cannot know how long we will all be concerned with the Corona crisis and how long it will hinder our actions, we will do everything we can to get the General Assembly of AMARC Europe up with as many participants as possible put. This also includes launching a membership campaign this month.
Lots of strength and stay healthy Michael Nicolai AMARC Europe President
AMARC Europe Activities
Grassroots Radio
Responds on Covid19
As the Coronavirus is spreading across Europe, Grassroots Radio project partners (including AMARC Europe) are devoting their energies to arrange information initiatives to keep local populations informed about data and events connected to the health emergency. Additionally, there are members of the consortium who are also active to monitor governmental decisions regarding the organization of information about the virus.
This is the case of Active Watch, the Romanian human rights organization and member of the GR project that promotes free communication for the public interest. Liana Ganea, member of Active Watch and Reporters Without Borders as well as an active component of the GR project, answered to the microphones of Radio FRO, a free radio broadcasting in Upper Austria.
A significant part of the interview is dedicated to the measures that Romania is implementing in order to contrast fake news. Liana told Radio FRO that the Romanian government decided that local authorities cannot communicate data to journalists anymore. All data about the cases have to be communicate to a central body that is governing the crisis. This is an example of lack of transparency that the government has started to implement.
NGOs are rather buys to react against these policies. The declaration of state of emergency has introduced measures that are affecting freedom of expression, making the work of journalists and NGOs more opaque and difficult. One of the consequences of these decisions is that the government can ask the telecom regulator to delete any website that they think create fake news. According to Liana, this process is rather unclear both because there are not intermediate steps until the shutdown and because the criteria to determine the quality of a content have not been clarified. According to Liana, state authorities admitted that they lost track of the virus.
The interview has been conducted in English and included between minutes 11.45 and 23:00.
UNESCO Project: Digital Communication Rights for Community Media
AMARC Europe is proud to announce the beginning of a new project supported by UNESCO, “ Fostering digital communication rights for community media”.
In continuation with its strategic global perspective, AMARC wishes to fullfil its role promoting participatory democracy and active citizenship through the defence and advancement of community media.
In order to turn this aspiration into action, AMARC is strengthening its involvement in the promotion of the right to communicate in the digital sphere and in particular in relation to digital terrestrial broadcasting, transition and use of digital distribution methods, in line with UNESCO Community Media Sustainability Policy Papers, adopted in 2016.
This project will extend and reactivate the debates raised since few years in the domain of digital communication rights in several, regions covered by AMARC members.
ICTs and mobile telephony are opening up new frontiers for community broadcasters. For example, the mobile telephone, when used on its own provides person-to-person information and communication possibilities. However, when we combine it with a community radio station, it becomes a dynamic “collective” communication tool. In this way, mobile telephones can help to empower marginalized communities to become active participants in community dialogue, each contributing his or her own experiences and ideas.
In the transition from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting (DAB+), and in line with UNESCO community media sustainability policy papers “.. A key issue is ensuring that community broadcasters have access to the same ‘equitable’ portion of the frequency spectrum that they had in the analogue world. However, transmission works in fundamentally different ways in the digital environment, at least with most modern technologies, and this requires more carefully tailored regulatory approaches”.
Three aspects will be considered:
Reserving spectrum
Mitigating costs of the shift from analogue to digital broadcasting
Approaching the wider challenges of convergence
The general objective of this project is to raise the number of countries that have strengthened policies for adequate and tailored audio-visual regulation in the digital broadcasting sphere in favour of community media. At the end of the project, at least 5 countries will have taken steps to strengthen those policies.
Beyond European borders, AMARC Europe has already identified some possible countries where to concentrate the efforts. In the Asian Region, Bangladesh and its BNNRC will partner the initiative, as well as URAC in Senegal and the Community Media Network in Jordan. More countries will be involved in Central and Latin America.
AMARC Europe is the membership organization serving the community radio movement across Europe. The political representation of this broadcasting sector is the driving principle of our initiatives and actions. A stronger network means more impact. With your AMARC membership fees you join over 300 community radio stations and federations in over 20 European countries and over 3.000 AMARC members worldwide with the aim to strengthen the community media sector in Europe and worldwide.
In November 2020 AMARC Europe will hold its General Assembly in Ireland – detailed information coming soon. In the course of the General Assembly also all applications for new members will be discussed and approved. So, this is now the opportunity to become a full member with AMARC Europe.
We are also calling on our current members to update their membership details and fees and get in touch if there are any questions via members@amarceurope.eu.
We remind you that all the community radios, radio federations or production groups can apply for the full membership. Single persons, researchers or any other radio activist can only apply for the “associated member” status. Please check our website to get more information at this regard.
In line with our statutes, radio stations should be “up to date” with the payment of membership fees in order to have the (active and passive) right to vote during the General Assembly. This means that if the membership fees were not payed in the previous years, we kindly ask you at this stage to update your subscription including the previous unpaid membership fee.
Why to become AMARC member? 10 Good reasons to do it.
AMARC Europe is promoting networking, lobbying and advocacy activities for the European community radio sector with European Union, Council of Europe, UN institutions and the civil society and NGO sector
AMARC Europe promotes and gives visibility to Good and Best-Practice examples within and beyond the community media sector
AMARC Europe provides political support for community media e.g. regulation processes, consultations on community media et al
AMARC Europe opens up for free its office, meeting rooms and infrastructure in Brussels for members e.g. for meetings or events
AMARC Europe provides continue communication and information exchange on the community radio environment in Europe and beyond
AMARC Europe is a multi-channel dissemination platform for information, needs and demands of its members and the community media movement
AMARC Europe is regularly organizing events & meetings on relevant topics for the community media sector
AMARC Europe provides diverse opportunities for common projects and activities with European and Non-European partners – participation in a worldwide movement
AMARC Europe offers possibilities for volunteers e.g. EVS
Purchase the .radio domain for 25€ per year instead of 300€
Special Focus on European Community Media’s Covid19 Responds
Community Radios in Berlin
Have a New Home
Opening of the FRBB Studio in the House of Statistics, Berlin-Alexanderplatz on 31.3.2020 from 15:00-22:00
Berlin is not one city, but many. Radio is not made by itself, but by many. And the Free Radios Berlin Brandenburg do not have one studio, but – many.
So, in spite of all odds, on Tuesday, March 31st,2020 the now 15th studio of the provider community Freies Radio Berlin Brandenburg. The 15th is the quite most central studio – in the House of Statistics on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz.
Numerous and countless radio producers* broadcast from 15 to 22 o’clock a special programme, on the present, past and future of Free Radios in Berlin and Brandenburg.
With contributions from Colaboradio, Datscharadio, frrapó, Ohrfunk, Ohrsicht, onda, Pi Radio, Radio aporee, Radio Słubfurt, Radio Woltersdorf and Studio Ansage. a special programme, on the present, past and future of free Radio stations in Berlin and Brandenburg.
Anybody else forgotten? Sure, because… the Free Radios Berlin Brandenburg are open to access – just as free radios are.
Stay tuned – In Berlin at 88.4 MHz and in Potsdam at 90.7.
Starting Monday, 16.3, Radio Helsinki in Graz/Austria is providing daily information on the Covid19 situation in Austria. They are responding to current information from the federal government and fight against fake news (e.g. from social media), authoritarian tendencies and also panic.
Radio Helsinki states: “It is our concern to counteract the effects of drastic restrictions on freedom of movement and possible isolation.”
Sixteen Community Radios stations in Bangladesh have been broadcasting Coronavirus prevention education in line with the National Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID – 19.
Community Radio stations are also taking special care during designing, developing and broadcasting prevention education program on COVID -19 by considering the policy brief of ARTICLE 19 title is Viral Lies: Misinformation and the Coronavirus.
Media outlets and journalists should proactively report on disinformation, propaganda and discrimination by state or non-state actors in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak. Accurate reporting by reputable journalistic sources is one of the most powerful tools to
Media outlets and journalists should support effective systems of self-regulation, including both national press complaints bodies and ombudsmen or public editors at individual news outlets. Such bodies or officials should help to ensure the right of correction or reply to address inaccurate or discriminatory reporting in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Media outlets and journalists should adhere to the highest ethical standards, including equality principles, when reporting on COVID-19. They should report about COVID-19 accurately and without bias, avoiding stereotyping, and without unnecessarily referring to race or nationality or ethnic origin.
Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) has been monitoring and observation the situation 24×7 hours centrally and providing support and advice to the community radios as and when required. One broadcaster in each radio stations is working as the focal person to coordinate COVID -19 prevention programs. Sixteen community radio stations focal are working closely with the local district, upazila and union Coronavirus Prevention Committees and government offices for reinforcing information to develop the radio programs.
For community media and the community around them to share and inspire in solidarity, CMFE has created a Google doc forum, where you can upload documentation on how you work with and around the Coronavirus crisis.
You can upload · Multilingual materials · Links · Factsheets and studies · CM broadcasts/productions · Case stories of how Community Media make a difference
Team AMARC Europe Newsletter Coordination: Alexander Vojvoda
Articles: Francesco Diasio, Xenia Helms, Birgitte Jallov, Michael Nicolai, Mariacristina Sciannamblo, Alexander Vojvoda
AMARC Europe is looking forward to your comments, critics, complaints, feedback and suggestions for the AMARC newsletter. Please send your comments to alexander.vojvoda@amarceurope.eu
