creative approaches
to living
cultural archives

Re-sounding feminist radio: using radio archives as transnational connectors
Caroline Mitchell, University of Sunderland, UK

Community radio programmes have created spaces for feminist/women’s organizations and acted as connectors (Thompson et al, 2005) between and amongst social and political movements – including women´s movements – and the audience. Archives of women´s community radio stations provide us with access to programmes, documents and accounts of feminist radio activities around the world. Digitalization has contributed to open access, online and collaborative archives and the ability to communicate the women´s movement and everyday acts of feminist rebellion within and beyond country borders.
Caroline Mitchell will present and discuss how Fem FM and other feminist radio archives (e.g. The Pacifica network) allow us to both study cultures of women´s radio production at different points in history and also hear creative activism afforded by women´s radio stations within and beyond national borders.
Drawing on research carried out as part of the Transnational Radio Encounters Project I will look at how archives can help re circulate programmes and thereby re-sound women back into history.

Lit.: THOMPSON, M. E., Anfossi Gomez, K. and Suarez Toro, M. 2005. “Women’s alternative internet radio and feminist interactive communications.” Feminist Media Studies, 5 (2), 215-236.

Bio

Caroline Mitchell has been active in production, teaching and research about community media and women and radio since 1988. In 1992 she was co-founder of Fem FM the first women´s station in the UK. She combines work as a Senior Lecturer in Radio at the University of Sunderland with work in community media evaluation and training. She is currently PI on the HERA Transnational Radio Encounters project carrying out participatory action research with community radio stations.

Bold strides or tentative steps? How community media share and archive content online
Joost van Beek & Kate Coyer, Central European University Budapest, Hungary

Joost van Beek and Kate Coyer present the research they conducted for the European project CAPTCHA – Creative Approaches to Living Cultural Archives on the online archiving and sharing practices of community media. Through a combination of case studies and interviews, they have explored efforts by community media in different countries, with different histories, and starkly varying resources, to facilitate greater access to their valuable audiovisual content online.

Shifting media use patterns mean that even smaller community broadcasters are likely to see an increasing share of their listeners prefer to tune in to their content when, where and how they like. Online platforms for sharing content also provide ways for communities to explore, search and interact with content which linear broadcasting lacks. With their broad networks of volunteers and long tradition of civic participation and innovation, community broadcasters are in some ways especially well-positioned to experiment with these. However, their frequently scarce financial resources and reliance on volunteers also pose constraints.

The researchers conducted close to twenty case study reviews of individual community media websites, as well as some shorter reviews and a national overview of practices among German community media, to analyze the scope of content and features offered and issues of structure, design, navigation and interactivity. In parallel, they conducted over fifteen in-depth interviews with people who have been involved with building or managing online archives or work with them on a day-to-day basis. They gathered further input from a range of community media practitioners at conferences and workshops.

While the research will result in customized recommendations for media at different stages of creating, expanding or re-evaluating their online archives and sharing practices, the researchers will use this presentation to present preliminary findings and invite public feedback.

The study’s interest in best practices extends to the technical and design solutions different stations have arrived at, but is at least as focused on the organizational and conceptual strategies broadcasters are deploying. Conceptually, do they prioritize providing regular radio listeners with the means to catch up with their favourite programs and broadcasts they missed? Pulling in a diverse online audience to explore content by theme or subject? Optimizing the exchange of content between stations? How do they juggle the different accompanying requirements? Internally, how do they establish effective work flow processes and ensure content and archiving standards, while encouraging optimal engagement by volunteer program makers? What training and guidance is provided, and how is user feedback gathered?

Bio

Joost van Beek has been a researcher with the Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) of the Central European University in Budapest since 2009, and previously worked at the Open Society Institute. Kate Coyer is Director of the Civil Society and Technology Project for the CMDS and co-organizes the Center’s flagship summer institute on internet policy advocacy. They previously co-authored a book chapter on Community Radio in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Opportunities and Challenges, and they are co-authors of A Safe Space No More? Looming Threats to Internet Freedoms, the Hungary country report of the Internet Freedom Report 2014. Joost was a contributing researcher and editor of Hungarian Media Laws in Europe, and Kate served as project advisor for that study.

Kate has engaged extensively with community media going back to when she helped build community radio stations with the Prometheus Radio Project. In addition to her research on media policy, communication rights, social media and digital advocacy, reflected in publications including chapters in The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy and Media Freedom and Pluralism, she co-authored the Alternative Media Handbook, contributed to the Community Media Sustainability Guide, served frequently as public speaker and trainer on community media-related issues, and co-organised several workshops on community media in Europe.

Archiving Methods and Visions of Radio Urban FM
Berat Gashi, Radio Urban FM, Prishtina, Kosovo

Radio Urban FM is in front of implementing two projects (activities) which have to do with digital archiving: 1) The establishment of a permanent digital library of radio outlets that during the 14 years of existence Urban FM has produced and broadcast. In Kosovo electronic broadcasting media (Radio and TV) starting from next year is passing entirely in digital mode, i.e. there will be no use of analog anymore. As such Radio Urban FM is in the need to exchange experiences and receive “know how” on the issue of digital archiving. 2) One of the biggest projects that Radio Urban FM is planning to initiate in the beginning of 2015 is the establishment of café-library Urban Radio Press Café – a gathering place for journalists, civil society, editors and/or of generally young people where they (while having their regular daily coffee) they will have the opportunity to have access in print and digital radio and press outlets. In the place will be a small library which will include the section where the digital library via PC`s, will be provided to guests. In this sense, when established this library will be unique (the first and only one in Republic of Kosovo) where we will provide audio / radio outlets for guests. People can listen to audio material in our place – starting from short radio stories produced by Urban FM, complete shows of Urban FM VJ`s but also shows and radio outlets from different world wide radio stations, as well books (in audio format), radio- documentaries, radio-drama`s etc.

Bio

Berat Gashi is one of the main coordinators in the process of establishing this café-library of Radio Urban FM in Prishtina.

30 years rolled by: Archiving physical archives of oldest European non-commercial student radio station Radio Študent Ljubljana
Marko Doles & Andraž Magajna
MTLRŠ, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Within Museological-technical laboratorium of Radio Študent (MTLRŠ) project of archiving physical (paper) archives from 1984-2009 has been finished. In collaboration with National Archives of the Republic of Slovenia (Ministry of Culture) we have selected, sorted and catalogued all kind of paper documents created on and connected with Radio Študent. The archival material (some also from very beginnings in 1968-9) contains legal and juridical documents regarding establishment of Radio Študent, old rule books, records of meetings of editorial boards, short and long termed plans of the Radio, internal and external correspondence, financial reports, central register of coworkers, radio listings, texts for broadcasts and programs, lists of played songs, materials about events organized by the Radio, posters and more and more. In the National Archives of Republic of Slovenia fund of Radio Študent has increased from 144 boxes to more than 400 boxes; in other words the fund of Radio Študent has expanded for app. 30 linear emeters. All the archive material is accessible for all scholars, researchers and other enthusiasts.
The short presentation will give a quick inside in the process of archiving paper (physical) documents, its accessibility, meaning, usage and application. It will also highlight our methodology used for (not only paper/physical) archiving – including fieldwork and on-air ethnography, which has been found out for only possible and most prolific way to get some archival material from ex-coworkers and their personal archives. Specific radio program broadcasted live at the end of the project – based on the application of archived material in collaboration with our listeners, composed of micro-reconstructions (which could be seen as one specific way of archiving) – will also be presented.

Bio

Marko Doles lives between Ljubljana and Pivka. As Bachelor of Arts in Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, he created and launched Museological-technical laboratory of Radio Študent. Since 2004 he works on Radio Študent – as sound technician and member of Music desk. Besides he is drummer, DJ and one of the leading persons in underground movements in Pivka.

Andraž Magajna lives in Ljubljana. Since 2010 he works on Radio Študent – first as program moderator and text interpreter, later also as sound engineer. Since the establishment of MTLRŠ, he is part of its crew. Besides he sometimes takes part in audio interventions, installations and performances. He has graduated in the field of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology on the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. He likes punjena vešalica and Wienerschnitzel.

From manual analogical recording to Radioco, our Free Software automatic digital archiving of live broadcasting system at CUAC FM.
Jose Maria Casanova, Fernando Souto & Isabel Lema Blanco
CUAC FM, A Coruña, Spain

CUAC FM, the Community Radio of A Coruña, has evolved from the cassette tape analog recording on its foundation in 1996 to current digital times implementing automatic recording, archiving and publishing systems. This has been a challenge to community radio station but through Free Software technologies, the adoption of organizational policies and plenty of volunteer work it can be possible. CUAC FM is the community radio station that broadcast community programs to the A Coruña metropolitan area. We are located in Galicia in the North West of Spain. It is managed by the Cultural Association known as Colectivo de Universitarios Activos. All this years and diversity have allowed us to deal with the evolution of media archive and recording technologies. This talk will be about the learned lessons over the years in digital audio recording, media archiving and publishing, recording scheduling, time synchronization and its integration with our mobile application and website. We will show the evolution and how technology has impact in how we manage our organization and the quality of the contents. We will present our recently developed broadcasting radio recording scheduling system Radioco developed in collaboration with Student of a Master Degree Thesis at University of A Coruña. This development done by Iago Veloso for CUAC FM is available as open source with GPLv3 license at http://radioco.org/about/, the recording system can even run in a Raspberry Pi as low cost solution. Radioco manages automatically the audio since the program are scheduled to they being published in a podcast. Radioco has been designed to be managed from a web browser, manage the scheduling of the radio station, record the live shows and publish the RSS podcast information included the information provided by each weekly show.

Bio
Jose Maria Casanova, Software Engineer and free software activists that participates in Spoiler, a live radio show about TV series aired on CUAC FM, the community radio that broadcasts to A Coruña Area. He is volunteer in the Technological Committee of CUAC FM leading the migration to GNU/Linux systems and Free Software at the broadcasting station. He has been committed to the promotion of Free/Open Source Software in different communities as GNOME and GPUL. He is also one founders of the Open Source consultancy Igalia. He teach software engineering at the University of A Coruña and has been the director of the computer science degree thesis about Radioco broadcasting radio recording scheduling system.

Fernando Souto, Software Engineer and mobile development geek and entrepreneur founder of Appeiros, a mobile apps development company. He has been a community radio activist that collaborates in the Technological Committee of CUAC FM. He has developed the first automatic recording and publishing system based in scripts and the CUAC FM mobile app for Android and IOS. This app allows the access to the audio archive of the different CUAC FM shows and allows live audio streaming. Fernando stared in the CUAC FM morning humorist show QNEP and now has his own live show Spoiler about TV Series.

Our current archiving method
Daniele Fisichella, Future Radio, Norwich, UK

We are a community radio based in Norwich (East of England) and we have more than 100 volunteers producing and presenting programmes for us. There is a big need for archiving and categorizing audio pieces and we are currently implementing a new system of doing it.  We are using a play-out system called Myriad to manage our on-air content and we have created different sections within the Myriad’s audio wall for different shows and contents. By using specific log in details and passwords volunteers can access their own archive, save/edit the content as well as add descriptions to the audio track that can be accessed by all the volunteers.  On our Myriad play out system there is a dedicated section called ‘Archive’ that is easily accessible by the live DJs through a shortcut on the play out programme front page. We have also established a naming convention for different shows and contents, using for example BK for Breakfast Show and INT for any interview content. We also use to back up all of our archive into our servers, archiving the tracks for years, content type and creating a special category (called ‘Gold’) where our best interviews are stored and can be used at any point as they are not time specific. All these archiving operations are carried out by a dedicated team of volunteers and coordinate by our Broadcasts Assistants. The archive is also reviewed every 4 months and out of date content is removed.

Bio

Daniele Fisichella, Future Radio Station Manager, works in radio since 2004. Previous work experiences include Italy’s national Radio, University of West London, Peterborough FM and talkSPORT.

Programme calendar as archive: calcms
Milan Chrobok, Pi Radio, Berlin, Germany

Calcms is an internet user interface which enables everybody who works in radio to independently design a radio programme according to agreed rules. This includes programme planning, programme descriptions, post-processing and archiving. Furthermore, Caclms is an interface for the purposes of web-based radio use, e.g. by incorporating the programme in websites, RDS, Twitter, Feeds, Magazin (PDF) and free.fm. Here, archiving takes place by publishing the material in the network. The presentation deals with this and with other possible potential uses of calms.

Bio

Milan Chrobok, technical implementation of various radio projects in Berlin: Radioherbst, Funkwelle, Herbstradio Kinofunk, Radio Einheit, DT64 Festival Radio; since 2010 active at Pi Radio and community radio stations on 88vier; editorial and technical coordination at Pi Radio: playout, live streaming, automatic editing of programmes, user interface for programme schedule management, incorporating the programme schedule into websites.

All guests and participants of the conference are invited to take part in a guided tour through the rooms and studios of Radio CORAX.

We meet at the station. It´s located 1 minute by foot from the conference place:

Radio CORAX
Unterberg 11
06108 Halle

UVisualize! – Visualisation tool for open archives
Ingo Leindecker, Radio FRO, Linz, Austria

The Cultural Broadcasting Archive (CBA) is an audio database by independent radio stations providing a central distribution tool for civil society media production. The publicly accessible exchange and communication platform supports the mutual transfer of radio broadcasts and the publication and referencing of content beyond the respective reach of local radio stations.
The long-term, collaborative archiving of media productions by radio stations from highly diverse regions of Austria and Germany has given rise to a continuously growing pool of alternative media reporting which is available not only for private use but especially for research purposes. In so doing, the CBA maps the social, political and cultural events in individual regions and has, over the last ten years, thus developed into an important contemporary document with strong local ties.
The platform is undergoing continuous further development especially with a view to maximizing its public and is constantly being adapted to the practice and the needs of independent radio broadcasters.

UVisualize! The creation of open access to digital media archives depends not only on political and technical solutions but increasingly demands suitable forms of presenting the content of growing databases. In addition to archiving, this increasingly places questions relating to an intuitive presentation and narration of content in the foreground. The WordPress plugin “UVisualize!” developed on the lines of CAPTCHA enables content to be structured and prepared visually in different ways (e.g. by way of maps, timelines, on three dimensional layers, etc.). In this fashion, collections can be made more narrational and more visually accessible.

Bio
Ingo Leindecker is an artist, cultural worker and self-employed web developer working at the interface between culture, technology and science. Long-term employee of Radio FRO. Actively engaged in the Austrian association of free radio stations. Member of the management team and developer of the Cultural Broadcasting Archive (CBA).

Safeguarding the oral heritage : Back on 10 years of experience in France
Frank Pohu, Fréquence Sillé, Sillé le Guillaume, France

For over 30 years European associative and community radios participate in local life by giving voice to elected officials, association leaders, youth, history buffs, writers, storytellers, musicians and scientists. These radios keep on various media unreleased recordings, testimony of an era, the need to safeguard and promote to contribute to the knowledge of this history marked by many changes, both at local and national level that in Europe. Radios have so far little explored this field of archives that are often abroad. However, it is essential today to launch a reflexion in Europe, combining radio and archives, based on various local expériementations to suggest ways for the establishment of a common methodology that would aims to bring radios and archives, taking into account their own specificity, and propose a retrieval model that meets European standards.

This intervention will therefore consider these aspects :

1. The presentation of an experiment conducted since 2003 by Frequence Sille in cooperation with a departmental center of public records/archives and radio in France
2. The tracks of reflection in Europe based on a discussion between public archives radios and public archives centers
3. A presentation of some theoretical and technical elements that can form a basis for the development of a methodology of a radio archive work.

Bio
Franck Pohu is Project manager and Training Manager of “Fréquence Sillé, Sauvegarde de la parole sarthoise” in Sillé le Guillaume, France.

How to setup your internet streaming to record and archive your audio streams.

Jose M. Casanova, CUAC FM, A Coruña, Spain

CUAC FM, the Community Radio of A Coruña founded in 1996, has been streaming audio through Internet since 2006 to increase audience coverage to places where the FM can not reach. CUAC FM uses Icecast Free Software project to publish our audio streams. At CUAC FM, in 2014 we have deployed darkice tool to manage the capture of the audio from the radio station mixer to the Icecast streaming server (<a href=”http://www.icecast.org/%29″>http://www.icecast.org/)</a>. It has allow us to re-encode it in many different codecs and audio containers (MP3, OGG and AAC) in different bitrates having different streams for mobile clients and CUAC FM website. Darkice (<a href=”https://code.google.com/p/darkice/%29″>https://code.google.com/p/darkice/)</a> features powerful options that allow you to dump in realtime to a file the audio that has been processed and with a simple integration of programmed tasks in the GNU/Linux operative system. Now we can maintain a simple structure for the 24hours/365days archive of broadcasting for legal purposes. It also serves as backup system to recover failures from our Live Broadcasting recording system. As complement we have developed simple scripts that manage the naming scheme of the shows archive in a monthly organization and updates the information of the shows in the RDS and internet streaming services. The use of Network Time Protocol has also helped in the synchronization of the split of the archives avoiding shows recorded being cut at the beginning. The talk will try to show the possibilities and how you can setup it in your community radio in a GNU/Linux system supported with Open Source tools.

Bio:

José M. Casanova, is a free software activists that participates in Spoiler, a live radio show about TV series aired on CUAC FM, the community radio that broadcasts to A Coruña Area. He is volunteer in the Technological Committee of CUAC FM leading the migration to GNU/Linux systems and Free Software at the broadcasting station. He has been committed to the promotion of Free/Open Source Software in different communities as GNOME and GPUL. He is also one founders of the Open Source consultancy Igalia.

Categorising, tagging, assigning and conducting research as a creative process. Where do art and order come together? How do artists use archives or archived material? Does the digital card index therefore need a digital artist? How can digital archives be handled artistically? What are the interests of community radio stations? What is the infrastructure like? Lale Rodgarkia-Dara and Karl Schönswetter want to use a live (radio) performance to transform material from archives and on-site recordings into a live feedback transmission and thereby establish a seamless transition between a reticent lecture and an in-your-face live show. What happens if the public annotates the transmission and creates a new work of art out of the archive molasses? An acoustic overwriting of a long day of busy conferencing mixed with archive material from the conference participants. Well, now we know.

Bio:

Lale Rodgarkia-Dara, born in Vienna, Austria. She works as a writer, radio-maker and “soundinstaller”. She tries to develop a new Electroacoustic Literature, that enables writers to read and perform in a collective (with electronic artists and humans) and as individuals with a distance to their own texts. Founded the monthly Elektronik Teatime and is producer at the international art-radio-network radia and part of the Mz. Baltazar’s Laboratory Collective and several other collectives. 2014 working as an external lecturer at the interdisciplinary centre for urban culture and public space at the Vienna University of Technology.2015 Artist in Residence at the Bioart Laboratory der Universidad Maimonides, Buenos Aires.

Karl H. Schönswetter is a founding member of the gold extra cultural association, Salzburg (established 1998, a member until 2007), producer of a weekly hip-hop radio show at Radiofabrik Salzburg (2000-2007), 2010 to 2011 editor at Supertaalk.at (Staffel 1), since 2011 a producer for the Vienna team of Radia.fm at Radio Orange 94.0, responsible for the (co)production of three Radia broadcasts: nitropic, Radio Convoy and Radiagund.

The plenary discussion takes as its point of departure the notion that ever since their inception, non-commercial radio stations, community radio stations, their programmes and their features have often only been partially documented. The archiving and naming of radio broadcasts is often simply forgotten, put off as an additional burden or is the last thing to be done in the everyday work of a radio station. Against this background, nearly every community radio station in Europe has developed its own structures and tools for storing the content of broadcasts. Even in the days of video cassettes, mini disks and CDs, the principles on which numerous hours of broadcast programmes were kept and stored depended on the individual designs of radio producers and technicians – everyone creates extensive media data records – to a great or smaller degree – in order to identify the audio material. What are the consequences of this unstructured form of archiving and what will we remember of the history of community radio in the future? Which (existing) structures have been developed in practice and which have proved their worth? Which archive structures are compatible with the idea of community-based radio stations? What opportunities does organised tagging and storage offer – maintaining the programme archive of community radio stations?

This discussion is widened by the possibility of online archiving, something which is primarily regarded by many members of the radio community as a tool for communication and sharing. However it has become clear, at the very latest since the Internet archive archive.org was founded, that the Internet can be a relevant storage site which not only stores data in a passive fashion, but sets it in motion by promoting and encouraging as much sharing as possible. The free radio stations are faced with the challenge of interacting anew with this tremendous virtual opportunity within their communities and of rethinking their radio stations within the medium of the Internet. What new questions do the community media face as a result of the intensive and omnipresent use of the Internet at the present time? Which new forms and means have the communities already created?

Speakers:

Ingo Leindecker, cba.fro.at, Radio FRO
Ralf Wendt, Portier freie-radios.net and Programme Coordinator of Radio CORAX
Dagmar Brunow, Universität Växjö, Sweden
Joost van Beek, Central European University Budapest, Hungary

Moderation: Stephanie Scholz, Radio CORAX