Review: Microradio and Democracy

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Microradio and Democracy: Low Power to the People
by Greg Ruggiero

Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1583220003

Microradio & Democracy takes you on a condensed ride through the rise of the low power radio movement. Don't worry that the windows are tinted - the story you slip through resonates with all resistors.

Written by Greg Ruggiero, who has been involved with New York's Steal This Radio and has written extensively on the micropower movement, this pamphlet is an excellent encapsulation of the micropower movement of the '90s, although it's a bit heavily weighted toward the left politically (granted, most of the high-profile stations in the movement are oriented the same direction).

For example, Microradio & Democracy begins with the premise that commercial media is inherently wrong, and lays out the history of free radio from this angle. While the movement's much more complicated than a simple debate of capitalism versus socialism, it is commercialism which has caused the majority of complaints and grudges that lead to the formation of microradio stations.

It hits the high points and notable events of the time well, spending significant effort to mention the regulatory developments, Congressional activity and court cases that have shaped the movement. Ruggiero doesn't profile a "model microradio station" like others have done, either; he delves into enough detail to make the listener understand why those he mentions talk their talk.

The last half of Microradio & Democracy explains the FCC's LPFM rulemaking, and is a straight-through critique and analysis of the regulation from the perspectives mentioned above. It includes some interesting observations from Peter Franck, one of the lawyers involved with the National Lawyer's Guild's Committee on Democratic Communications - the organization that handled Stephen Dunifer's legal defense.

Unfortunately, many of those comments are now glaringly dated. Still, Microradio & Democracy provides a good "snapshot in time" of the microradio movement in the late 1990s - just as it crossed the verge of a threshold it never did before.

But even so, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - and we've come too far to do that. So if you want to know what all the stink's been about, this is a good text to start with.