Community media : field, theory, policy

The submission consists of twenty-three outputs, spanning over three decades. These range from books and chapters to reports, journal articles and edited publications. The accompanying commentary aims to set the submitted work in context, demonstrate that it constitutes a coherent whole, and that it makes an independent and original contribution to knowledge and the advancement of the academic field of community media within the discipline of media studies. A number of overlapping contexts are summarised: the socio-historical setting in which the practice of electronic community media first emerged; the ‘personal/professional’ context in which reflection on practical experience led to developments in theory and policy analysis; the academic context of the development of British media studies where at first radio was marginalised and there was no discursive space for the notion of community media, then a later stage where a wider range of theoretical contexts brought community and alternative media into the academic frame. Three main sections discuss, respectively, the candidate’s contribution to the identification and categorisation of community media, the application to it of theoretical perspectives, and the development of policy analysis. All three areas, it is argued, were part of a wider strategy aimed at bringing recognition to the field and which involved activities outside the scope of the submission (advocacy, interventions in mainstream media) but which are part of the context of the submitted work. For that reason an appendix (B) lists all the candidate’s publications on the subject, while others list conference presentations and other relevant activities. In addition, the documentation includes a brief career summary and statements by co-authors.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

London Metropolitan University

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Lewis, Peter M.

• 300 Social sciences
• 380 Commerce, communications & transportation

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

N/A

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.londonmet.ac.uk:1217