Conclusion

Abstract

Community radio remains ubiquitous in the global media landscape, generating community spaces of cooperation and new social and political interpretations and meanings. Community radio embodies a distinct set of principles, practices and requirements, which, despite diverse historical trajectories and different manifestations within local communities, demonstrate a powerful contribution to local and national democratic processes. In this final chapter the author reflects on the community radio sector’s unique potential to contribute to the urgent requirements of democratic engagement, media participation and the valuing of a social voice. There is a growing crisis of democratic communication caused by the constraining nature of the commodification of communication, and the author calls for the illumination and utilisation of community radio spaces.