The Telecommunications Act of 1996 eliminated national ownership caps on radio stations and relaxed ownership restrictions in local markets according to their size, rapidly accelerating the concentration of the radio industry. Prompted by their petitions and letters, on January 20, 2000, the FCC created the Low-Power FM (LPFM) license as a regulatory strategy for bolstering localism in radio broadcasting. The purpose of this research is to investigate the meanings, rhetoric, and application of localism within U.S. broadcasting by exploring (a) how LPFM became an acceptable strategy for restoring localism to U.S. broadcasting, (b) LPFM stakeholders? conceptions of localism, and (c) how they codify their conceptions in communication policy and practice. The research aims to answer the question: how do stakeholders position and utilize LPFM to promote and institutionalize the rhetoric of localism? The project examines FCC documents relevant to the shaping, creation, and aftermath of the LPFM policy in order to collect official definitions of localism and identify the Commission?s plans for protecting and promoting the principle through LPFM service. The project supplements textual analysis of documents with data from interviews consisting of open-ended questions with members of the Audio Services Division. Second, the project performs ethnographic case studies of selected LPFM stations, collecting multiple forms of data to reveal the meaning and shape of localism within daily LPFM broadcasting. It investigates stations varied in geographic location and sociopolitical interests using site observations, interviews with station managers, staff and volunteers, and textual analysis of documents and media produced by station members. By investigating both official documents concerning LPFM and lived realities at low-power stations, the project explores localism as a conception that underlies the structure of policy, and a practice evident within station operations and routines. In this way, the project contributes to scholarship on U.S. communication policy by considering the relationship between regulation that functions to institutionalize social values and agents that respond by conforming to, negotiating, or resisting such ideals. It also furthers understanding of the significance of local, community-oriented speech in American democracy, and particularly speech by and for marginalized communities by providing a detailed examination of small, rural stations, which are often overlooked in popular market research and studies of community radio. Additionally, the project serves as a source of information for LPFM licensees by describing approaches to operating low-power stations, including methods of generating programs and strengthening community relations.
