The past thirty years has seen a growth of ethnic minority radio stations. They occupy spaces in the public, commercial, community and pirate broadcasting sectors and are seen to provide valuable services for marginalised listeners. Yet, little is known about the practices of broadcasting within these stations and the role staff and their programmes play within their communities. This doctoral thesis is the first analysis of the development and continuing existence of a set of case study ethnic minority radio stations and how they employ the concepts of ethnicity and identity. To achieve this, it puts the daily interactions and practices that go on within the radio stations at the heart of the analysis. The paucity of research in this area demanded the synthesis of different theoretical ideas to fully explore the meaning of these interactions. The study utilises a modified structuration theory (Giddens, 1984; Stones, 2005) to blend the separate areas of ethnicity, identity (Karner, 2007) and radio in everyday life (Scannell, 1996). Structuration theory comes with few instructions for use. A major contribution to theoretical knowledge is the presentation of a theoretical, methodological and coding framework. The qualitative, case study approach and a blended strategy enable the valuable use of structuration theory for studies of the media and everyday life. This thesis argues that the structures of ethnicity, identity, and the station are the medium and outcome of agent action and that agent action is orientated by the structures of the station, broadcasting, ethnicity and identity. Contingent to this analysis are the life narratives of the staff and the ‘cultural competences’ they bring to the stations. The theoretical framework illuminates the processes of ethnicity, highlighting the importance of both a reified and a fluid identity, broadcast as part of the programmes, to understand how these stations and their communities are so tightly bound.

This thesis analyses the media coverage and dominant institution responses to the media and protest tactics employed by three different protest groups. The three case studies examine the interactions between protest groups, their political targets, and the mainstream media. It pays particular attention to each group's media and protest tactics, and how their messages transition from protest action into media coverage and political debates. The three different protest groups comprise of a Cardiff community campaign to save a pub called Save the Vulcan, the environmental direct action group Plane Stupid and their protests against airport expansion, and the mass protests of G20Meltdown against the G20 summit held in London in April 2009. This thesis analyses the media coverage of each group using the concept of political opportunity structures to ascertain the influence of the political and media context on protest groups and their actions. Interviews with activists involved in all three protest groups, and ethnography conducted from within one of the groups, namely, the Save the Vulcan campaign revealed differing attitudes towards the choice of media and protest tactics. All three groups were aware of their portrayal in media coverage, and actively geared their tactics towards attracting media attention. The research analysed protester communications on the internet and leaflets to explore how they represented their issues. A content analysis of British newspaper articles examined the impact of each group's media and protest tactics on press coverage. Offical documents from the dominant institutions of the police and centralised political institutions were examined to ascertain the debates surrounding the issues. On the basis of these empirical findings and discussion this thesis argues for a revision of the theorisation of political opportunity structures. This grants increased recognition of media coverage and importance of protest group aims and goals in the assessment of their success and failure to communicate their messages. Finally, the thesis argues that political and media opportunities do influence the success and failure of protest groups, but it is the effective use of media and protect tactics that puts protest groups into a position to succeed or fail.