Steppin' Out Of Babylon: Radio Interviews

Community radio stations fill many roles, especially in rural and indigenous communities where means of mass communication are almost non-existent. Radio is a relatively cheap medium and is financially possible for many communities and organizations. Freelance reporter Shannon Young is a headline editor for Free Speech Radio News (FSRN) and currently lives in Oaxaca, Mexico. She discusses the power of community radio in the context of the ongoing indigenous civil rights/democracy movement in Oaxaca. It is one of the poorest states in the country and has the largest indigenous population in Mexico counting 16 languages amongst its citizens. Many of these communities have found in radio a way to preserve and disseminate their languages and cultures in the face of official neglect and the cultural onslaught of the mass media. In 2006 the local teacher’s union helped catalyzed a popular uprising using Radio Planton, the community radio station they had established in the capital city, as a primary organizing tool