‘Unrelenting passion and selflessness’: Theorising the affective labour of community radio practitioners

Abstract

Around the world, community radio is supported by volunteers who freely give their labour to keep stations on air. This work is crucial to ensuring that community radio can fulfil its ideological and, in some cases, legislative obligations to maximise community participation in media production and increase the diversity of voices on the airwaves. Further, the characteristics that differentiate community media from its commercial and state-run counterparts – not-for-profit, community ownership, maximalist participation, among others – are embedded within and the direct outcomes of these labour practices. This article suggests that a key connection between these complex traits and impacts is the affective labour of community radio practitioners. Though the affective labour of volunteers is central to the functioning of community radio, there is relatively little work exploring this dimension of community radio. Drawing on 51 in-depth interviews with community radio practitioners from across Australia, this article explores how affect is circulated both by and through the work of community radio practitioners, and the implications of this for community radio work. The findings suggest that affective labour is central to the community-building work of community radio and its role in weaving people and communities together.

Keywords

affective labour broadcasting community media community radio labour volunteering

Introduction

Community radio stations around the world exist by virtue of countless hours of volunteer labour. From the voices behind the mic to the equally important work that takes place off air, volunteers are the lifeblood of community radio, supporting and enabling the work of a limited number of paid practitioners. In addition to the media-related work of production and broadcasting, there are myriad jobs to be undertaken to ensure the smooth functioning of even the smallest community radio station. What is overlooked, though, is the immaterial labour associated with community broadcasting. This form of labour has long been associated with media work – practitioners leverage their emotions, knowledge and creativity to cultivate and manipulate affect in audiences (Hardt, 1999), ostensibly as a form of storytelling but more often to sell a product, lifestyle or ideology. Siapera (2019: 245) goes so far as to suggest media workers’ ‘whole subjectivity’ is mobilised as an economic resource. While the motivations of community radio practitioners may be different to those in the broader mainstream media industry, the importance of immaterial, affective labour is the same. Broadcasters seek to make their listeners feel a certain way; equally, station staff try to cultivate a particular atmosphere or environment for those visiting to position the station as a community space with a particular identity. These goals require significant affective labour and underpin, in part at least, some of the greatest strengths and points of difference of community radio from its mainstream counterparts: community radio is not-for-profit, by and for the community, offers more democratic access to media production and is a space for voices and perspectives not represented in the mainstream media. While these characteristics have been the subject of much academic work (see, e.g. Bailey et al., 2007; Rodriguez, 2001; among others), this article argues that a crucial and under-theorised connection between these complex traits and impacts lies in the affective labour of community radio practitioners.

This article draws on the findings of two distinct studies situated within the Australian community radio sector. Australia is home to a large and diverse community broadcasting sector which has been an integral part of media landscape for almost 50 years. With over 500 services across the country from remote outback regions to the inner cities, Australian community radio serves groups who are underrepresented in mainstream media (CBAA and CBF, 2023). The size and diversity of the sector make Australia a rich site for community radio research but, of relevance to this study, the Australian sector is also grappling with the issues of volunteer attraction and retention that are so widespread across community radio globally (Gordon, 2015). As such, a case study of Australian community radio has potential to offer broader insight into the role of affective labour in community media more broadly. The studies in this article offer two perspectives: one explores the breadth of practitioner experiences at community radio stations across the country while the other focusses in-depth on a single station over time. When analysed together, the findings of these studies offer important insight into the role of affective labour in community radio: particularly how practitioners mobilise and are mobilised by the transmission of affect. Understanding affective labour within community radio offers a more holistic view of the work undertaken by volunteers and staff, which is necessary for both ensuring the ongoing sustainability of the medium and positioning the role of community radio within broader discussions of community building.

Community radio and labour

A counterpoint to commercial and state-run broadcasting models, community radio offers a more egalitarian, community-engaged approach to media production. While the specific models, approaches and legislative environments differ around the world, there are several consistent defining characteristics of community radio. Community radio is not-for-profit, participatory and seeks to provide space for views and voices that exist outside of mainstream media narratives (Coyer, 2011; Fox, 2019; Rodriguez, 2001). Similarly, while approaches to management and staffing differ from station to station, a common feature of community radio stations is minimal paid staffing arrangements with a significant portion of labour performed by volunteers (King, 2017; Moylan, 2019). Despite the heavy reliance on volunteers within community radio stations around the world, there is a dearth of research exploring the labour involved. The literature on community radio work can be broadly categorised into two areas: research with a theoretical focus on participation and more pragmatic explorations of day-to-day work.

Labour as participation

A participatory perspective sees labour within community radio, and particularly those that enact it, as emblematic of the participatory ethos and practices of a station or even sector. Participation is crucial to community radio’s positioning as ‘citizens’ media’: a space where collectives can actively enact citizenship by ‘intervening and transforming the established mediascape’ (Rodriguez, 2001: 19). Indeed, participation and citizen access are seen as both central to and characteristics of community media (Dreher, 2017, among others). Naturally, the term ‘participation’ is not without its critics. Building on the decisive work of Arnstein (1969) and her typology of the various guises of participation, several authors have critically interrogated ‘participation’ and how it is applied within various contexts. For example, Downing (2014: 336) refers to ‘participatory’ as ‘an empty buzzword’, while Cornwall (2007) suggests ‘participation’ could even be categorised as a ‘fuzzword’: a term so ambiguous and pervasive that they act to conceal ideological differences. Cooke and Kothari (2001) go so far as to refer to participation as ‘tyranny’. Suffice to say, the term is polarising. Referring more specifically to media systems and processes, Carpentier (2016) argues it is more useful for critical analysis to demarcate between two interpretations of participation: a sociological approach and a political approach. A sociological approach sees participation as simply taking part in social process: a definition which is sweepingly broad but also offers scope to consider both the involvement of an individual in a process and as belonging to a broader system such as a community or even a society (Carpentier, 2016). The second approach – political – harks back to Arnstein’s work and refers to the equalisation of power in decision-making processes. Within both the sociological and political perspectives are both maximalist and minimalist approaches to participation, and phenomena such as engagement, access and interaction which are necessary precursors to, but not constitutive of, participation (Dahlgren, 2013). While a participatory perspective is a valuable lens for exploring the broader context of community radio labour, viewing the labour as merely emblematic of a station or practitioner’s role within the participatory landscape of a station reveals little about the experiences of that labour itself.

Labour as instrumental

The second broad perspective within the literature positions community radio labour as part of a process – a means to an end – rather than as a discrete focus of analysis. Here the labour of community media practitioners – staff and volunteers – is viewed instrumentally: as a way of producing a programme, as contributing to the station’s goals, as a way of ensuring the sustainability of the station into the future, and as a way of volunteers benefitting from the experience. Within this body of work – which includes both academic and grey literature – volunteers and volunteering are a key focus. Recruiting and retaining volunteers is an omnipresent concern for industry, with work exploring various efforts to engage specific communities (Baker, 2007) and attract volunteers more broadly (Bryant and Pozdeev, 2014). Related to this is the sizable body of literature exploring the benefits participants gain from their work in community media. There is a strong emphasis on skill development and training in both industry and academic work (Backhaus et al., 2023; Forde, 2015; Forde et al., 2003), alongside other broader and more intangible benefits including social connection, identity and empowerment (AMARC, 2007). Yet within this large and diverse corpus of literature there is little that explores or analyses the labour itself.

A notable exception is Moylan’s (2019) writings on the cultural work of community radio. In this illustrative text, she contextualises practitioner reflections on community radio labour within their broader cultural and social landscapes, revealing the significant role this work plays in not only providing locally grounded information but also in preserving culture through storytelling and empowering individual practitioners. While Moylan draws extensively on the day-to-day experiences of practitioners, including discussions of the challenges of recruiting and retaining volunteers, in framing community radio work as cultural labour, her overarching argument positions community radio work as a multifaceted form of participation that produces nuanced and empowered community representations. Through Moylan’s work, it is clear to see the connection between the two strands of literature focussed on community radio work.

While both perspectives – the participatory and the instrumental – offer valuable insight into the broader role and outcomes of community radio labour, both obscure the labour itself and how practitioners navigate the physical, mental and affective demands of this work. While there is clearly considerable research and analysis that needs to occur in this space, this article now turns to one of the least discussed elements of community radio work: immaterial labour.

Immaterial labour in community radio

As the digital creative economy has gained size and influence over the last few decades, with it has come a significant body of scholarship critiquing the labour practices and particularly the exploitation of free labour. Terranova (2000) suggests ‘free labor is the moment where this knowledgeable consumption of culture is translated into productive activities that are pleasurably embraced and at the same time often shamelessly exploited’ (p. 37). While Terranova focusses on free labour within the digital economy, her perspective offers an important lens for viewing the (largely voluntary) work of community radio practitioners in terms of their contributions to the production of culture and its perceived value. As discussed, the vast majority of those working in community radio are volunteers contributing significant volumes of unpaid labour: in Australia, this labour has been valued at over $250 million (CBAA and CBF, 2023). However, the same critiques levelled at those that exploit free labour for profit cannot be levelled at community organisations that ostensibly serve altruistic goals. Fast et al. (2016) situate this kind of labour within a typology of free labour specifically within the media industries. While ‘Volunteer’ is one of their seven metaphors of those engaged in free labour – ‘high degree of unconstrained choice’ to ‘reach an altruistic goal’ (p. 971). Of most relevance to the focus of this article though, is what Fast et al. (2016: 968) describe as ‘The Carer’, where the work is ‘specifically related to maintaining affective ties and links of the interpersonal level’ as well as ‘emotional support’. Positioning this work as a (highly gendered) form of free labour is an important framing for the activities, responsibilities and expectations of those involved in community radio.

Community radio work encompasses a broad range of tasks; there is much more to be done than simply selecting songs and presenting on air. Much of this works transcends the media products that are created and, commensurate with other media industries labour, much of the work that takes place can be conceptualised as immaterial: that is, work that produces a service, knowledge or communication (Hardt, 1999). At face value, this seems to encapsulate the bulk of what community radio practitioners do: in producing and presenting a broadcast they are providing a community service and communicating knowledge and culture, be it through music selections, news bulletins or talks programming on various topics. However, the nature of immaterial labour can be further broken down into three categories: the first as referring to the increased importance of communication technologies in industrial production processes, the second is focussed on analytic and symbolic tasks, while the third is affective labour (Hardt, 1999). Of particular interest to this research is this third form which describes the production and manipulation of affect and is grounded in human contact and connection (Hardt, 1999: 98).

The growing awareness of affective labour has been linked to the broader ‘affective turn’ in cultural studies (Baker and Cantillon, 2019). Gregg (2009) traces two key research streams: the first emerges from media consumption work – fan and reception studies – where affective labour explains meaningful work that takes place for no direct profit (financial or otherwise) but instead contributes to community building and belonging among those with a common interest. This stream explores the unpaid labour that takes place within media industries, for example, in the service of a particular fandom (Andrejevic, 2008; Ouellette and Wilson, 2011) or as participation in digital cultures of crowd-sourcing and start-ups (Terranova, 2000). The second stream stems emerges from the work of Hardt and Hochschild, among others and positions affective labour as a form of immaterial labour. Critical feminist scholars have been vital in positioning the affective labour of the household alongside the ‘emotion work’ associated with caring and service jobs as work in the way physical, manual labour is considered work (Hochschild, 2012). While it is useful to connect the affective labour associated with media consumption with an immaterial labour approach (see Bonini and Gandini, 2016), of relevance to this research is understanding the affective labour associated with media production processes.

Affective labour in media work is a growing, if still under-researched, space. Media can be considered “affect generators” (Reckwitz, 2016) which, in turn, positions media affects as “driving forces” in the contemporary age of media saturation (Lünenborg and Maier, 2018). A wide range of media workers find themselves tasked with this affective labour from journalists (Siapera and Iliadi, 2015) to social media content creators (Duffy, 2016), even those tasked with curating branded Spotify playlists (Garland, 2023). This labour has become embedded within contemporary media work.

Community radio is no different: broadcasters deploy their own emotions to elicit emotions from their listeners. Affective labour is particularly relevant to radio as a medium as the well-documented intimacy of aural media such as radio and podcasting (Fox, 2019; Moylan, 2019) has be found to be a powerful conduit for deep affective experiences (Copeland, 2018). It is important to distinguish here between emotions and affect, particularly within the context of media studies where both may be triggered or transmitted through media content. Leading theorist Massumi (2021: 61) considers feelings or emotions as what can be recognised, expressed and communicated – as individually and socially intelligible - whereas affect is experienced as an ‘identified intensity’ that can escape conscious recognition but is felt nonetheless. Affect and emotion are not discrete phenomena but instead exist on a spectrum or continuum that is both complex and interconnected (Cavalcante, 2018). Affective labour in media work is clearly rich conceptual ground and much of the contemporary literature offers necessary critiques of the market-driven, capitalist structures that dominate media work. What is missing from these discussions, is the nature of media work that takes place on the periphery: community radio, with its non-profit model, participatory ethos and reliance on volunteer labour has been framed as questioning, if not entirely subverting, these structures (Fox, 2019; Rodriguez, 2001). As such, much of the literature and theorising on media work and immaterial labour does not neatly fit the unique context of community radio. Equally, while there is work that highlights the role of community radio as a conduit or vehicle for affective labour – as a site where music fans gather and share (Baulch, 2017) or as a platform for collecting and sharing community audio archives (McCoy and VanCour, 2021) – a distinct gap exists in how affective labour is understood in the specific context of community radio production. There is, therefore, a need for research specifically focussed on the immaterial labour that takes places within the unique context of community radio.

Community radio in Australia

Having discussed the importance of exploring the affective labour taking place within community radio, we turn now to how this phenomenon might be investigated. Given the diversity of community media globally, context is of absolute importance if any meaningful conclusions are to be drawn. This research took place within the Australian community broadcasting sector. Community broadcasting is well-established and relatively well-supported in Australia; however the perennial and perhaps universal issues of ongoing financial sustainability and community support reinforce the need to better understand and articulate the nature of labour within the sector.

Community broadcasting has a long history in Australia, with the push for a ‘third tier’ of broadcasting beginning in earnest in the early 1970s, concurrent with both the free radio movement in Europe (Lewis, 2006) and a similar push in the US (Anderson et al., 2020). Following a period of advocacy by fine music enthusiasts, ethnic communities, left wing political groups and universities, the sector was formally enshrined in legislation in 1978. Since then, community radio stations have been established across the country. There are more than 500 community broadcasting services serving communities based on either their geographic location or ‘communities of interest’ which covers First Nations communities, young people, older people, ethnic communities,¹ people with disability, the LGBTIQ+ community and special interest music (CBAA and CBF, 2023). The sector is largely self-funded, with government grants representing just 7.5% of sector funding (Community Broadcasting Foundation, 2020). Community radio stations are restricted to 5 minutes of advertising per hour (ACMA, 2022), which leaves stations relying on alternative approaches to fundraising including sponsorships, subscriptions and paid airtime (Order, 2016). Given the limited funding available, it is no surprise that the sector relies heavily on the work of volunteers. Paid staff make up less than five percent of community media workers in Australia: there are 930 full-time equivalent paid staff across the sector compared to 17,800 volunteers (CBAA and CBF, 2023). This further highlights the value of theorising how (mostly) free affective labour drives the Australian community broadcasting sector. Before doing so, we outline the research method that informs this article.

Research design

This article emerged from two research projects focussed on different elements of Australian community broadcasting: a history project focussed on a single station and research focussed on training and career outcomes of community radio participants. Both projects involved in-depth, semi-structured interviews as a key method of data collection. While other methods were involved – in the case of the historical project, there was also archival analysis and elements of practice-research, whereas the training project also involved a mixed-method survey - it was data from the qualitative interviews that revealed most about the affective dimensions of community radio work. As such, this corpus of data forms the basis of this article.

A total of 51 interviews were conducted across the two projects, 26 from the history project and 25 from the training research. The interviews ranged from 11 minutes to over 3 hours and the interviewees were recruited through snowball sampling for the history project and maximum variation sampling for the training project (Gray, 2018). This sample, while not representative, offers a snapshot of both the breadth and depth of the Australian community radio sector. By interviewing participants from a range of locations and stations (training) and exploring a single station over a range of time periods (history), the data highlights the diversity of experiences within both a single station and across the sector.

The interview data were recorded, transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. While beyond the immediate scope of both research projects, the affective dimensions of the participants’ experiences in community radio were identified separately in both data sets as key areas for further analysis. Upon completion of both projects, additional phase of thematic analysis with a specific focus on issues of labour and affect was conducted to explore those topics in more depth. The interview excepts discussed in the following section were selected to showcase the key themes that were identified in the data. The excerpts either represent a general sentiment expressed by several interviewees or illustrate a unique experience relevant to the themes.

Findings and discussion

The data collected as part of these research projects yielded significant insight into the role of affective labour in the experiences of community radio practitioners – staff members and volunteers. These findings can be considered under two broad themes: firstly, broadcasting affect, which describes the immaterial labour that goes into cultivating and transmitting affective dimensions through on-air content. This component is crucial to the performance of station identity and the construction and maintenance of listening communities. Secondly, there is the immaterial labour that contributes to the affective environment of the station itself, which we have termed ‘narrowcasting’ in reference to the specific geographic concentration of affect. This work is central to attracting and retaining volunteers and staff as well as positioning the station as a community space. Across these two broad domains, community radio practitioners find themselves embedded in a cycle of affect: their work requires the embodied labour of deploying affect to engage listeners which, in turn, reinforces the affective realm of the community radio station itself and the interwoven relationalities therein.

Broadcasting affect

While the myriad benefits of community broadcasting far exceed the broadcast content itself – Meadows et al. (2007), among others, espouse the value of community radio as ‘process’ rather than product – the importance of the broadcasts themselves cannot be overlooked. Despite the widespread availability and accessibility of curated playout software – the far more labour-intensive research, curation, production and presentation of broadcast content remains a significant component of community radio work (Moylan, 2019). While the transmission of affect was not discussed in so many words, several presenters discussed the importance of making listeners feel a particular way:

. . . we’ve got a lot of nice listeners out there that we love to mix with, and they ring us up and, yeah, you just try and make them sound like they’re the only person around that you’re talking to. (Presenter, regional station)

This affective transfer was recognised as an important part of broadcast presentation. Broadcasters sought to make their listeners feel a certain way - uplifted and energised, socially connected, part of a community, even evoking the sense of a particular time. This was certainly the case for one of the ethnic broadcasters interviewed for the project. She explained that many of her listeners had migrated to Australia around the same time that she did – in the late 60s and early 70s – and are seeking comfort and connection to culture through nostalgic music and a familiar language:

. . . Now [the listeners] are much older. And they prefer someone to talk to them in their language and they revert to old songs: ‘Yeah, I remember that. And I remember my mother, you know, singing that song.’ To me, it’s just a little bit of company for them. (Ethnic program presenter, regional station)

Despite the widespread appreciation and enjoyment that presenters derived from their work on community radio, the burden of the affective dimensions of this labour was also highlighted.

. . . if you come in [to the radio station] and you’ve had a real bugger of a day, you gotta make sure that everybody else [listening] doesn’t realise it . . . you’ve got to be able to be friendly and be happy. (Presenter, regional station)

This reflection illustrates the complex relationship between affect and emotion: to achieve a particular affective impact on the listening audience – a collective, general emotional state rather than a specifically recognisable emotion – the broadcaster must regulate their own subjective emotions. In this way, we see emotional labour as a subset or type of affective labour, mobilised to serve the broader affective goals of the station. Hochschild (2012: 147) identifies three characteristics of emotional labour: contact with the public (face-to-face or ‘voice-to-voice’), requiring the worker to produce an emotional state in another person, and where the employer can exercise a degree of control over the emotional activities of the worker. In the work of community radio practitioners, the first two characteristics are apparent, yet the third requires deeper analysis. Given the significant discrepancy in the number of volunteers compared to the number of paid staff members in the Australian community radio sector, it is reasonable to assume that any exercise of control is likely to involve volunteers – be they presenters or board members. Management of volunteers in a not-for-profit context is a very different relationship compared to that of an employer-employee (Ward and Greene, 2018). Further, Australian community radio practitioners widely report a significant degree of autonomy over their practice and content: a characteristic of community broadcasting which is valued by practitioners (Backhaus et al., 2023). Despite the differences, the earlier interview excerpts demonstrate that control over the emotional activities of practitioners is taking place, but that it is self-imposed rather than enacted by an employer, as in Hochschild’s definition. Though presenters recognised the constructed nature of their broadcasts in terms of the tone and affect they conveyed, it wasn’t necessarily seen as inauthentic. One presenter described the perceived difference between community radio work and other forms of media labour:

I just always knew that I didn’t like commercial, because I didn’t like the idea of advertising dictating what you could do and say. And so, the community right here really fits, I think, my personality and . . . my values. . . I really enjoyed that kind of the intimacy of radio where it’s not like a performance like TV. (Journalist, metro station)

This practitioner views the perceived authenticity and a sense of connection or ‘intimacy’ between the broadcaster and the listener as unique to community radio compared to commercial radio or television. Another community radio practitioner saw this ‘intimacy’ as reflecting his own positioning within the community: a view that shaped his approach to broadcasting:

I guess it’s part of that community radio thing. Like this is your community that you’re involved in and speaking to . . . Anyone is always welcome in here because it’s a community show for the community. It’s not for me, I’ll just facilitate it. (Presenter regional station)

Many broadcasters spoke of their perceived obligations to their communities, which were variously framed as listeners, those who lived in the same area or those who shared a particular interest or culture. While many of these communities exist outside of their community radio mediatisations, there was a strong sense among interviewees that broadcasting and other station activities (such as attending community events), brought community together. Therein lies a key difference between emotional labour and affective labour. The work of community radio broadcasting involves not only managing the emotions of the broadcaster and, by extension, the audience, but also involves what Siapera (2019: 282) describes as ‘the creation of networks and communities, which, in turn, (re)produce society in specific ways’. Given the lack of commercial imperative and managerial oversight of these practices, we might consider the community radio stations themselves as microcosms of affect – communities of their own creation that exist in a cycle of self-perpetuating affective practices tied to a shared and constantly reinforced vision of the station’s identity and purpose.

However, this research has thus far failed to consider the implications of affective work for practitioners. The practitioners interviewed were highly invested in and passionate about their work and their stations. As one practitioner described: ‘I was like, “this is just so important and it’s so interesting and there’s nothing else like it”.’ Equally, practitioners often downplayed the labour and expertise their roles required, with another describing themselves as ‘just the person behind the desk pushing the buttons’. There are implications for this level of investment though. For one practitioner, this seemingly endless cycle of expectations and labour led to them ultimately leaving the sector:

I wrapped up at [community radio station] for the reason that I was just supremely burnt out. . . It’s just a sector that . . . relies on that unrelenting passion and selflessness . . . It’s just one of these things where you put your own needs aside for the greater good of the programme. Or the station in my case. . . not maliciously in any way . . . (but) it’s expected that people come to the sector and give an arm and a leg . . . It’s a culture that’s developed over time in a sector that is, you know, massively under-resourced and relies on people power . . . I guess the question that is . . . still an unanswered thing for me, and probably always will be, is . . . Where do you stop? (Former practitioner, metro station)

Burnout and exhaustion are not new phenomena is community media, with Gordon (2006) observing high levels of workload stress among both paid staff and key volunteers in her survey of the British and Australian sectors. Recognising the additional burdens that affective labour places on volunteers as well as the culture of overwork is vital in ensuring that volunteers and staff are adequately supported .

Narrowcasting affect

The second element of affective labour that takes place within community radio is the cultivation of affective atmospheres within the station itself. The above discussion demonstrates that affective labour in community radio broadly aligns with what takes place in other media context – albeit without the profit/ratings incentives of commercial outlets. However, the affective labour that contributes to the atmosphere or ‘feel’ of a community radio station is less understood. Unlike other forms of media with commercial or institutional imperatives, community radio is ostensibly a community space where seemingly disparate individuals and groups can come together and connect over a shared goal or affective investment (Bailey et al., 2007; Bedford, 2019). Herein lies a key difference between community radio work and the other forms of unpaid media labour characteristic of the ‘age of platform capitalism’ (Srnicek, 2017): where corporate platforms exploit the free labour of users for content and for profit – what Fuchs (2015) describes as the ‘audience commodity’. In contrast, community media creates spaces for relationality, collectivism and communal values without the commodification of platform capitalism (Cibin et al., 2020). Nonetheless, as the preceding section has demonstrated, there is a significant labour cost associated with creating and maintaining these spaces. The challenge is ensuring that participation remains meaningful and embedded in community routines rather than a burden of addition labour (Cibin et al., 2020).

The affective environment or space of community radio stations was discussed by several participants. It was variously described as a ‘a safe environment to learn, to grow’ (presenter, metro), ‘so welcoming and so engaged’ (station manager, metro) and as ‘in your element, it’s your area, it’s your environment’ (presenter, regional). This sense of creating an inclusive, supporting and safe space was reinforced throughout the data.

This is not for a particular thing, you know, this is for everyone. You have a right to this place. You’re welcome here . . . We want to build this place together. (Station manager, regional)

However, what was broadly not discussed was the labour that goes into creating these kinds of spaces and experience. While interviewees from across the data set spoke of the affective environment of community radio stations, it was only station managers who discussed the labour that contributed to such an environment. One station manager discussed the work that went into adapting the station’s practices to better suit young volunteers:

One of the things I . . . worked really hard on was understanding how people want to interact with you and make that first contact. So, it’s quite scary for young people too. And look, a lot of young people who want to get into radio are a bit marginalised, they’re a bit kind of out there, they’re bit funky. . . . They just want to get involved and do something that kind of interests them. So, you need to open up those dialogue avenues. Maybe there’s ways they’re comfortable with. So often that’s submitting a form online, or sending an email, or having a door that’s open with someone friendly who will give them the rundown of what’s what and inviting them in to feel like there’s a friendly atmosphere where they can do what they need to do and flourish. (Station manager, metro)

Another station manager saw this affective work as central to creating a positive environment conducive to volunteers and the broader community:

I’m a very positive person, you know the glass is full, right, Most of the time. Well, I think that’s important because you really . . . set the tone for the way the volunteers interact with each other, the way the whole station feels. . . . And so I think, . . . doing what we do internally will reflect externally. (Station manager, regional)

For this interviewee, there was a clear link between the affective environment and the broader sustainability of the station, particularly in terms of volunteer retention: ‘It should be a fun place, especially if you’re a volunteer. You know a happy volunteer is going to be a solid volunteer.’ While the labour associated with creating these spaces was not explicitly discussed, it was clear that management play an important role in setting the affective environment of the stations.

Our findings point to multiple roles of affective labour in the experiences of community radio practitioners, which we have conceptualised under two broad themes, broadcasting and narrowcasting. Community broadcasting relies on immaterial labour that both cultivates and transmits desirable affective dimensions through on-air content and within radio station cultures. Community radio practitioners work through cycles of affective labour that are crucial to station identity, the construction and maintenance of listening communities, attracting and retaining volunteers and staff and positioning the station as a community space.

Conclusions: Why the immaterial matters?

Affective labour clearly plays a vital role in contributing to the value of community radio as both a mediatised and community-based space. While the manipulation of affect by media workers is not a new phenomenon, how this takes place within an environment within community radio is under-researched. Australia is home to a well-established and diverse community broadcasting sector, yet one struggling with the perennial issue of volunteer attraction and retention. Given the diversity of community broadcasting models around the world, the findings of this research are not intended to be generalisable, rather this article has sought to act as a starting point for further explorations of affective labour in community radio, particularly as the issues raised here seem to raise more questions than they answer. This concluding section brings the key findings into conversation with areas for future research to build an argument for the importance of developing a deeper understanding of affective labour in community radio work.

Affect and sustainability

At the foundational level, affective labour is important in community radio due to its contributions to the sustainability of stations. Human resources are central to station sustainability (Gordon, 2015) and this research has demonstrated the importance of the affective environment of a station for securing and retaining volunteers and staff. In the Australian context, volunteering has been trending downwards for at least two decades, exacerbated by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic (ACNC, 2022). This is neither a new nor isolated occurrence (for example, see Putnam’s, 2001, influential work Bowling Alone). The Australian community radio sector, however, has proven more resilient to this trend than other community organisations (CBAA, 2021).

As discussed, there is a significant body of literature that explores the benefits of volunteering, but framing community radio as spaces or objects of affect sheds light onto its enduring appeal for volunteers. While personal and professional development have been identified as welcome outcomes and, in some cases, motivations for participating in community media (Backhaus, Anderson and Bedford, 2023), this fails to entirely explain the enduring appeal of community media. In discussing ‘Happy Objects’, Ahmed (2010: 41) invokes Nietzsche’s work on the retrospective attribution of causality to explain how objects can be affective before they are encountered or experiences:

Certain objects are attributed as the cause of happiness, which means they already circulate as social goods before we ‘‘happen’’ upon them, which is why we might happen upon them in the first place.

The interview data prompts a question: would the interviewees been as likely to get involved if the stations were not already considered ‘happy’ or positive spaces? In this way, the affective labour associated with constructing community radio stations as ‘happy’ objects has real implications for volunteering and, in turn, sustainability.

Equally though, while the evidence presented here strongly positions community radio stations as ‘happy objects’ which elicit a positive experience for the interviewees, it is important to bear in mind that this is not universal. There is a need to avoid a normative view where community media is intrinsically seen as ‘good’: drawing on the example of extreme nationalists, Coyer (2011: 170) suggests that the notion of ‘good’ depends on how the community is defined. To oversimplify: one person’s happy object may be another’s hate speech. Groups cohere around a shared orientation to particular objects (Ahmed, 2010), in this case, community radio. These groups have been conceptualised as ‘affective communities’ (Backhaus, 2022) and, as such, must be subject to the same critique of other communities around access, exclusivity and assumptions of homogeneity. While establishing stations as affective spaces can be valuable in establishing affective communities based on shared investment in the same object, this can equally be exclusionary and isolating for those that are either inadvertently or deliberately marginalised from participating.

Affect and audiences

A further important element of the affective labour of community radio practitioners that lies beyond the scope of this article is how this affective work is received. There is a significant body of work concerned with issues of media affect in fields such as media psychology and reception studies (Cavalcante, 2018), but research that brings together both the production and reception of media affect may offer important insight. For audiences, media affect can be sticky, cumulative and can leave ‘residue’ (Watkins, 2010), yet it is equally important to consider audiences as agentic, resilient and able to develop strategies to manage emotions and affects generated by media (Cavalcante, 2018). This was not a consideration of any of the practitioners interviewed in this research – the broad assumption being that audiences received the broadcasts uncritically with the intended affect successfully shared. An explanation for this is the relatively limited meaningful contact between practitioners and their audiences. Despite the blurred boundaries between producers and consumers of community media, Guo (2017) found that direct contact between community radio broadcasters and their audiences was dominated by existing relationships, and that there was limited interaction beyond pre-existing personal circles. Further, Atkinson’s (2008) work found that interactions with audience members rarely exceeded superficial encouragements, which may explain the assumptions expressed by practitioners in this research. However, this is clearly an area that merits further investigation, particularly given the wealth of work on audiences as active and agentic.

Affective labour as work

Finally, considerations of affective labour are vital because they contribute to our understanding and broader positioning of the work that takes place within community media. While there are a range of reasons and motivations underpinning participation, ‘passion’ is a key recurring theme, not just in this research but in the work of others (Felton, 2024; King and Rahemtullah, 2019; Moylan, 2019). Yet, as this article has discussed, there is a dark side to this ‘unrelenting passion.’ While the affective labour of community radio practitioners is crucial to both the curation of the station identity and the community surrounding the station, it is important to avoid a normative view that sees this as an unquestionably positive phenomenon. The intense affective investments that community radio practitioners make in their stations can lead to a range of issues. Burnout and mental health concerns are paramount and require careful management and support structures. Without an understanding of the complex contributing factors that lead to burnout, it is impossible to effectively advocate for adequate supports, be they at the station or sector level. Recognising the additional load that affective labour places on staff and volunteers contributes to a more nuanced understanding of community radio work. Where affective labour is unrecognised, community radio work is undervalued which has implications for resourcing, training and funding.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Community Media Training Organisation and Dr Charlotte Bedford.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Dr Backhaus is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award (project number DE240100416) funded by the Australian Government.

ORCID iDs

Bridget Backhaus

Heather Anderson

Notes

References

ACMA (2022) Community Radio Broadcasting Licences. Canberra: Australian Government.

ACNC (2022) Australian Charities Report, 8th edn. Melbourne: Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. Available at: https://www.acnc.gov.au/tools/reports/australian-charities-report-8th-edition (accessed 29 August 2022).

Ahmed

(2010) Happy objects. In: Gregg

Seigworth

(eds) The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp.28–51.

AMARC (2007) Community Radio Social Impact Assessment: Removing Barriers, Increasing Effectiveness. Montreal: World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters.

Anderson

Backhaus

Fox

, et al. (2020) Fifty years of resistance and representation: A historical account of Australian community radio, Journal of Radio & Audio Media 27(2): 234–254.

Andrejevic

(2008) Watching television without pity: The productivity of online fans. Television & New Media 9(1): 24–46.

Arnstein

(1969) A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35(4): 216–224.

Atkinson

(2008) Towards a model of interactivity in alternative media: A multilevel analysis of audiences and producers in a new social movement network. Mass Communication and Society 11(3): 227–247.

Backhaus

(2022) “Just like us”: Community radio broadcasters and the on-air performance of community identity. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 36(4): 581–594.

10.

Backhaus

Anderson

Bedford

(2023) Community Media Destinations: Spotlight on Training. Brisbane: Griffith University.

11.

Bailey

Cammaerts

Carpentier

(2007) Understanding Alternative Media. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education.

12.

Baker

(2007) Young people and community radio in the northern region of Adelaide, South Australia. Popular Music and Society 30(5): 575–590.

13.

Baker

Cantillon

(2019) Affective qualities of creative labour. In Deuze

Prenger

(eds) Making Media: Production, Practices, and Professions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp.287–296.

14.

Baulch

(2017) The everyman and the dung beetle: New media infrastructures for lower-class cultural politics. Cultural Politics 13(2): 202–226.

15.

Bedford

(2019) Rethinking the “community” function of community radio online – an ageing punk perspective. 3CMedia 9: 31–43.

16.

Bonini

Gandini

(2016) Invisible, solidary, unbranded and passionate: Everyday life as a freelance and precarious worker in four Italian radio stations. Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation, 10(2), 84–100. https://doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.10.2.0084

17.

Bryant

Pozdeev

(2014) Build it and they will come: A case study of the impacts of governance on programming volunteer recruitment within community media organisations. Third Sector Review 20(1): 141–162.

18.

Carpentier

(2016) Beyond the ladder of participation: An analytical toolkit for the critical analysis of participatory media processes. Javnost-The Public 23(1): 70–88.

19.

Cavalcante

(2018) Affect, emotion, and media audiences: The case of resilient reception. Media, Culture & Society 40(8): 1186–1201.

20.

CBAA (2021) State of the Community Radio Sector. Sydney: CBAA.

21.

CBAA and CBF (2023) Roadmap 2033. Gadigal Country: CBAA & CBF.

22.

Cibin

Robinson

Scott

, et al. (2020) Co-designing convivial tools to support participation in community radio. Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media 18(1): 43–61.

23.

Community Broadcasting Foundation (2020) About Community Media. Available at: https://cbf.org.au/learn/about-community-media/ (accessed 20 July 2023).

24.

Cooke

Kothari

(2001) Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed Books.

25.

Copeland

(2018) A feminist materialisation of amplified voice: Queering identity and affect in the heart. In: Llinares

Fox

andBerry

(eds) Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp.209–225.

26.

Cornwall

(2007) Buzzwords and fuzzwords: Deconstructing development discourse. Development in Practice 17(4–5): 471–484.

27.

Coyer

(2011) Community media in a globalized world: The relevance and resilience of local radio. In: Mansell

Raboy

(eds) The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp.166–179.

28.

Dahlgren

(2013) The Political Web: Media, Participation and Alternative Democracy. New York: Springer.

29.

Downing

JDH

(2014) Social movement media in the process of constructive social change. In Wilkins

Tufte

Obregon

(eds) The Handbook of Development Communication and Social Change. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, pp.331–350.

30.

Dreher

(2017) Social/participation/listening: Keywords for the social impact of community media. Communication Research and Practice 3(1): 14–30.

31.

Duffy

(2016) The romance of work: Gender and aspirational labour in the digital culture industries. International Journal of Cultural Studies 19(4): 441–457.

32.

Fast

Örnebring

Karlsson

(2016) Metaphors of free labor: A typology of unpaid work in the media sector. Media, Culture & Society 38(7): 963–978.

33.

Felton

(2024) Keep it locked (down): how Melbourne’s community radio stations performed scene functions in the context of the coronavirus pandemic Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 38(2): 181–192.

34.

Forde

(2015) Review of the community broadcasting sector’s National Training Program. Melbourne: Community Broadcasting Foundation. Available at: http://www.cbf.com.au/cbf-update/review-national-training-program/ (accessed 24 July 2023).

35.

Forde

Meadows

Foxwell

(2003) Experiencing radio: Training, education and the community radio sector. Australian Studies in Journalism 12: 83–103.

36.

Fox

(2019) Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

37.

Fuchs

(2015) Dallas Smythe today – The audience commodity, the digital labour debate, marxist political economy and critical theory. Prolegomena to a digital labour theory of value. In Fuchs

Mosco

(eds) Marx and the Political Economy of the Media. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp.522–599.

38.

Garland

(2023) Music, phones and bank loans: The unproductive labor of branded spotify playlists and the limits of ‘affective labor’. Journal of Extreme Anthropology 7(2): 1–24.

39.

Gordon

(2006) A comparison of new British community radio stations with established Australian community radio stations. 3CMedia.

40.

Gordon

(2015) The economic tensions faced by community radio broadcasters. In: Atton

(ed.) The Routledge Companion to Alternative and Community Media. London: Routledge, pp.265–275.

41.

Gray

(2018) Doing Research in the Real World. London: Sage.

42.

Gregg

(2009) Learning to (love) labour: Production cultures and the affective turn. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 6(2): 209–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420902868045

43.

Guo

(2017) Exploring the link between community radio and the community: A study of audience participation in alternative media practices. Communication, Culture & Critique 10(1): 112–130.

44.

Hardt

(1999) Affective labor. Boundary 2 26(2): 89–100.

45.

Hochschild

(2012) The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/griffith/detail.action?docID=870020 (accessed 14 March 2024).

46.

King

(2017) History of struggle: The global story of community broadcasting practices, or a brief history of community radio. Westminster Papers in Communication and Cultural 12(2): 18–36.

47.

King

Rahemtullah

O-S

(2019) Community radio contradictions in Canada: Learning from volunteers impacted by commercialising policies and practices. Journal of Alternative & Community Media 4: 20–36.

48.

Lewis

(2006) Community media: Giving “a voice to the voiceless”. In Lewis

Jones

(eds) From the Margins to the Cutting Edge: Community Media and Empowerment. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp.13–39.

49.

Lünenborg

Maier

(2018) The turn to affect and emotion in media studies. Media and Communication 6(3): 1–4.

50.

Massumi

(2021) Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. London: Duke University Press.

51.

McCoy

VanCour

(2021) Community audio archiving. ARSC Journal 52(2): 339–347.

52.

Meadows

Forde

Ewart

, et al. (2007) Community Media Matters: An Audience Study of the Australian Community Broadcasting Sector. Brisbane: Griffith University.

53.

Moylan

(2019) The Cultural Work of Community Radio. London: Rowman & Littlefield.

54.

Order

(2016) Australian community radio: Funding challenges and dilemmas. 3CMedia: Journal of Citizen’s, Community and Third Sector Media 8: 61–75.

55.

Ouellette

Wilson

(2011) Women’s work: Affective labour and convergence culture. Cultural Studies, 25(4–5), 548–565. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2011.600546

56.

Putnam

(2001) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.

57.

Reckwitz

(2016) Practices and their affects. In: Hui

Schatzki

Shove

(eds) The Nexus of Practices. London and New York: Routledge, pp.126–137.

58.

Rodriguez

(2001) Fissures in the Mediascape: An International Study of Citizens’ Media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

59.

Siapera

(2019) Affective labour and media work. In: Deuze

Prenger

(eds) Making Media: Production, Practices, and Professions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp 275–286.

60.

Siapera

Iliadi

(2015) Twitter, journalism and affective labour. Sur Le Journalisme, About Journalism, Sobre Jornalismo 4(1): 79–89.

61.

Srnicek

(2017) Platform Capitalism. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

62.

Terranova

(2000) Free labor. Social Text 18(2): 33–58.

63.

Ward

Greene

(2018) Too much of a good thing? The emotional challenges of managing affectively committed volunteers. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 47(6): 1155–1177.

64.

Watkins

(2010) Desiring recognition, accumulating affect. In Gregg

hSeigworth

(eds) The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp.269–285.