• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.720-731
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• 2016

This study aims to understand characteristics and roles of community media in Seoul to discuss the meanings of the media. Community media is constructed based upon the networks of relations of community participants, whose characteristic relations of participants within the network determines the roles and meanings of the media for the community. Research have shown that community media's unique open, participatory, and horizontal communicative structures enable to realize such objects. For this study, we chose Mapo FM to conduct case study based upon network analysis of 'participant network' of the media. In particular, we tried to measure the density and centrality of the network, which can explain the relational characteristics of the networks of the media. In addition, we also conducted in-depth interviews of participants to better understand the problems and meanings of the community media. The findings suggest that unlike the conceptual and theoretical assumptions, the community media under the study lacks of open, participatory, and horizontal ways of participation in the media.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.78
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• pp.79-115
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• 2016

This study, by proposing a case study of community radio, attempts to expand the horizon of academic and social discussion on the medium that has been disproportionately skewed towards discourses on alternative media, technology, and programming content. As residents of local community actively participate in the production process, they reconstruct their cultural identities. In that sense, community radio is a medium that makes it possible the re-negotiation and reconfiguration of cultural identities of local residents. That is to say, a case study on the specific ways in which community residents appropriate community radio in reconstructing their identities offers us some entry points where we may come up with a new perspective on the identity of community radio. The results of fieldwork show that community radio, as it is closely intertwined with the residents' participatory cultural practices, is a medium of 'lived culture' -i.e., a medium that contributes to the making of civility, communitarianism, and social network. Community radio, then, may be redefined as an interactive medium that contributes to the formation of social rapport and solidarity.