RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

within a few уеагз , with about a hundređ remaining on the air in 1985 (Duckworth, 1988). This repticated the Italian and French experience mentioned earlier . The explosion of free expression after a long period of enforced silence is awesome to behold. However, it is also usually short-lived. As Downing ( 1988) notes, the explosion of alternative međia in the sixties and seventies arose out of a coincidence of political turmoil in industrially advanced societies with the increasing availability of small-scale media technologies . However, since then, the assumption of a universal need to (mass ) communicate , serving as part of the rationale for the concept of the right to communicate , 1 ) has not really been borne out. It has been found that; it is unrealistic to want to accustom the community to continuous self-expression . Participation quicKly runs out of steam anđ becomes artificial .. . (The middle classes ) appear to show a great propensity towards participation . It is in fact from these very middle classes that уоипд "mtellectuals" have emerged who are prepared to conduct a certain type of social and cultural activity . . . (European Experiments .... 1 977 : 17). This is why Swedish narradio , set up specifically to provide means of easy access to the airwaves for апу voluntary association that wants it , has become a međium of intra-group or intra-organizational communication , with few others showing апу mterest (Vichniac, 1980). Even established political or social forces show interest in uaing it only at a time of conflict (cf .Narradio , 1981). In the Danish community radio experiment, political parties soon gave up efforts to run апу of the few stations they applied for and only about 2 5 per cent of ”culturally and politically active" listeners expressed a particular interest in news and debate on local issues , with others content to listen to the news , and to music, phone-in, bingo and religious programs (Petersen et al . , 1984; Petersen et al;. , n . d . ) Fast social change , political anđ social turmoil, dissent , a sense of injustice and being discriminated. against , the flare-up of discontent over a particular issue - all these f avor wider interest and participation in communication , even if differences in communicative competence still give ап edge to better-educated , middle-class activists who are usually to be found actually managing and operatmg alternative međia . At times of relative stability , alternative commumcation often