Expanding Cooperative Governance in Low-Power Radio Stations

How are you going to run your radio station? Who is going to decide what programming gets aired and how money is spent? What happens if there is conflict between volunteers?  These are just some of the question that are tackled in Broadcasting Democracy: Expanding Cooperative Governance in Low-Power Radio Stations.

Broadcasting Democracy is a set of tools for facilitators and educators who want to organize a democratically run community radio station. It is structured as an online presentation with an accompanying printable version. The tools in Broadcasting Democracy are intended to help you facilitate your group in deciding on, designing, and instituting democratic governance structures for your community radio station.

The tools focus on the organizational aspects of managing your station-- including growing your capacity, involving volunteers, your community, and each other in a democratic manner. The six online modules are designed so that you may use to the content or exercises that are relevant for your group at a particular time. The modules are:

1. Mission
2. People Power
3. Governance
4. Writing It Down
5. Group Dynamics
6. Community Engagement

Each module includes educational material on the topic, exercises for a facilitator to use with their group, sample documents, and case studies from existing radio stations and other democratically run organizations.

Broadcasting Democracy tools:

• Online presentation

• Downloadable Microtext (PDF)

Broadcasting Democracy is a collaborative project between the Democracy at Work Network and the Prometheus Radio Project and is based on months of research relevant to how community radio stations are governed and operated.