FM 88 MW 'THE RADIO is Guevara.
use and potential missing out.
Since just before Christmas, a pirate radio station with a difference has been transmitting spasmodically in Midlands. No easy listening' here. Radio Enoch is the first overtly right-wing, racist pirate station to appear in Britain.
Run by an organisation called People Against Marxism, Radio Enoch transmits for an hour on Sundays on the 41 metre band, and because it is -ALPHA TELSTAR SOUTH a factor of extraordinary importance... It explains, teaches, fires, and fixes the future positions of both friends and enemies' — Che Are socialists in Britain sufficiently tuned in to the of the airwaves?
GARDNER, who writes on TV and radio for the London magazine Time Out, argues that we are using transmitter kilowatt, is potentially receivable all over Britain. This event the -the breakthrough of extraparliamentary politics into the airwaves (albeit politics of the wrong sort -the organised left sharply up against a glaring inadequacy in its programme.
It also ought to give the first trade union sponsored conference on the media, organised WEST LONDON EDGE CITY -1000 *Democratic • the Media" debating point.
How deal
CARL development?
answer of social democracy will be to use the state and the law to suppress Radio Enoch, in the same way that stations are periodically closed of down.
But this is no solution revolutionary should be in favour of breaking state-licensed duopoly on broadcasting, and ought to bring such legalistic demands only strengthen it.
As we've learnt in other contexts, reliance on the state to deal with the right almost inevitably rebounds on the left. The only answer for the leftweekend fight to reply in kind. Accountability La real that COUMECS this music stations The obvious the day.
other pirate CUTTCHE socialists.
ideal forms of media BBC/IBA post-capitalist society.
programme:
otherwise, here and stepping-stones one of the crucial means Even class struggle.
trade co-ordinating During radios Office.
cation — A-M.Y.
Mcals of workers.
LONDON Unlike
limited nature jealously, Some people have suggested Secrets Act!
as there are now apolitical left-wing allocation stations should be the order of national"
The main problem isn't technical, but political. The left doesn't seem to have a clear position on radio and TV, and appears de facto to accept the more position. The only discussion revolves about the Whitehall. in a Certainly, none of the left's dial in New Unity's included - incorporate any demands, transitional or for radio and TV now and as compared socialism. measly The working class movement elsewhere. is still fixated by the printed word, with a nominal use of films as 'sugar on the pill' at political meetings.
This is a sadly significant silence as the mass media are radio' most important resources for the ruling class, to, as Guevara put it, 'fix' the positions of the working class - or as Enzensberger phrases it "sell the existing order The mass media today are a by which 'the reproduction of the relations of production' is secured.
small-scale control of these media could be an equally crucial resource for the working class, affecting the have whole style and content of the As a means of organising union struggles, SHOTE wave radio could be a stunning innovation, for example for and directing flying pickets during strikes.
the fire fighters' strike in late 1977, strikers in South London began to use the the in their engines for precisely this purpose, until they were jammed by the Post But possibly more impor tantly, radio in particular could be a local or national means of political discussion and edu- a mass caucalor maximising trade of union democracy, and a way of linking together isolated groups •newspaper. the audience isn't self-selecting and ScEne commodity of the newspaper.
Potentially everyone can spin of the dial, and tune in.
It is not surprising then that the state defends its duopoly even keeping information about the exact of bits ot the frequency-spectrum guarded from the public by the Official Its ostensible ECOSULLS are technical - to allow a rational of limited resource the Tran, theain discussion te, open discussion broadcasting needs, on a local basis at least would be a much democratic way of resolving the problems, rather than behind the closed doors of Besides, saturation point has nowhere been reached. Spin the York City and and you'll pick up something in the region of 40 stations, satisfying a wide range of social needs, seven and fewer lage MaUTON A poster from May '68 announces "They are brainwashing you' and suggests that the capitalist-controlled TV and radio are turning us into sheep (mouton).
'Free radio' in Italy operates about so stanons in a city unt size of Rome. Recently the BBC, as well as experimenting mobile 'neighbourhood South Wales, commissioned *feasibility study' for community radio in London.
This SCUICH unpublished document tentatively explore the idea of 25 such stations for the capital alone!
These moves by the BBC are clearly a response to both a widespread dissatisfaction with the large, unwieldy, alien local stations and the second wave of land-based pirates which emerged recently described by some as "elec tronic squatting'!
Spasmodic, mostly operating on Sundays and still mainly the preserve of wide-eyed radio hams or frustrated, would-b dee-jays, they di T still an important development.
Only Corsair and Skyport in south-west are vaguely left-wing, between the records And if outfits like Radio Enoch are not to have a clear field, we too must join the battle for the airwaves.
Initial costs are low little as E50 for a transmitter with a radius of several miles. • And unlike newspapers, overheads are virtually nil. A costly "hobby" for the present pirates could be a cheap investment for any national or community organisation.
While some sections of the labour movement are still vainly discussing the re-launch labour movement newspaper costing millions, a network of radio -stations would probably cost a tenth of that for decent coverage.
But individual, illegal The tures are not enough. should be linked to a national campaign to defend and extend the pirates and to break the present oppressive, undemocratic restrictions on control and ownership of the electronic Trade unions should demand their own stations and help open the airwaves for the rest of society.
Socialists should join the Community Communications Group (ComCom) - for all its political weaknesses still the only nationally organised body which has begun to research tackle the present restrictive system.
Their knowledge and experience could be invaluable in the struggle for the left and trade unions to enter the electronic MOUTON TELEVISION MOUTON RABIB TELEMEN Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 15
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