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The eRadio project proposes to be an effective aid to increasing
interaction and reduce alienation among the members of dispersed
communities by using a holistic approach to participatory and
interactive web radio-production, with ad hoc methodology and
ad hoc electronic tools.
Through eRadio individuals can contribute to a participatory
process of community self-discovery, identification, and assimilation
by voicing their concerns and views as well as by expressing aesthetic
and cultural ways of rejoicing.
eRadio participators can trigger processes that may lead to the
sustainability and empowerment of different segments of the dispersed
community, and of the whole, by airing issues of collective importance
and thus moving individuals, groups, and institutions to reflection
and cooperation.
Volunteers become communicators that get others to tell anecdotes
or discuss issues as they audio-record them. Then they creatively
edit and transmit the finished audio pieces via the web and, if
local conditions permit it, they radio broadcast it.
Interactive transmission from different sites is done by two
or more segments of the dispersed community.
The project includes development of a hardware and software package
that supports simple task-based production of digital audio files.
The hardware is a simple computer called "VoxPopBox" which can
be connected to a portable digital recorder in order to download
audio clips that have been recorded in the field. The software
is divided into four task areas which guide the user through gathering
audio, producing a piece, publishing their work, and listening
to other audio publications. Each box is connected to other boxes
via the Internet.
This thesis describes the pilot implementation of the eRadio
project with the Tulcingo community, which is a dispersed transnational
community with a hometown in Mexico and about half of its population
in New York City.
After two nine-day workshops, we produced and transmitted two
radio programs, one from the town of Tulcingo and the other from
the city of New York. As a result the Tulcingo community is interested
in a long-term eRadio implementation. If done, Tulcingo would
be an eRadio seed community from which other communities can bloom.
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