Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 181-191).

The thesis on The Specifies of Alternative Radio Formats Targeted Towards Young Adult Listeners reflects radio broadcasting which is mainly targeted on young listeners. It focuses on the current image of this broadcasting in terms of Czech media environment. At first, the thesis familiarises its readers with basic terms that are used in connection with the issue of radio formats. Then it continues with the overview of music and journalism genres, which are crucial for the distinction between various radio formats. The closing chapter of the theoretical part introduces two radio stations which were chosen to represent the cathegory of alternative radio format; these are Radio 1 and Radio Wave. In the following empirical part, a one-week broadcasting of these particular stations is being analyzed. Afterwards, a summary of the main similarities and differences between the stations is presented. The main attributes of alternative radio format as such are summed up then. In the final chapter, the thesis presents an additional public opinion research, which explores the image of alternative radio held by young audience. For the sake of clarity, the findings of this thesis are presented from the most general facts to the most concrete ones.

My dissertation is a story of journey. In one sense it speaks to the ways in which my assistant, Fei, and I decided to attempt research inside a very small internet radio station that I came to call Youth Web Radio (YWR) for the purposes of this dissertation. YWR was the first licensed internet radio station in China. It was a station intended for a young audience. It was also the brainchild of the Beijing Communist Youth League and the product of university-educated creatives. It operated out of Beijing from 2005 to 2018, and fully closed down due to a lack of the resources necessary to make a full transition from a project of the party-state to a viable profit-generating commercial organization. At times the story I write moves around the idea of fieldwork. The actual time I spent in the field was from November 2014 to July 2015. But the journey that I write in this dissertation entails more than the days when we were on the ground in Beijing for the research. It includes narrative that speaks to how previous trips and life experiences started to build an energy and desire in me to do some kind of post graduate work in China, or rather on an aspect of what I had been experiencing in China, which had much to do with education. It also includes narrative that speaks to the circuitous path it took to find YWR as a field site, but also as a focus or draw for an attempt at ethnography. At other times the story I write moves around the conception of time though never in a straightforward explicated sense—more so in the way the narratives reach into different pockets of my life at different moments, and find their way into the story. I somehow couldn’t write this dissertation without including pieces from moments in my life that in one sense felt removed from the task at hand, which was to tell an ethnographic tale of a sole fieldwork experience. Yet in the sense of lens and connection, they felt utterly important to our story and as if to leave them out meant leaving out a piece of the truth of the writing. Though this story is about my personal journey, I write it as our story due to the ways in which it is also about the different people I have encountered in my life in time and in place, to of course include the fieldwork experience, and who I see as contributors to the way the story unfolds—scholars, thinkers, friends—and in the sense of this being an anthropological endeavor as interlocutors as well. In this dissertation, lived transition is about both interlocutor and anthropologist, the story the interlocutor tells and that the anthropologist writes is also about the transition in which the anthropologist herself is engaged. Through this lens of lived transition the dissertation speaks to my own life and in doing so speaks to how a group of young people narrated “becoming a company” and “internet radio” in China’s government-monitored media industry, and as to how I came to write their story as our own.

This master's thesis studies and compares the methods that Czech alternative radio stations, Radio 1 and Radio Wave, use while creating the music component of their broadcast. Their alternative format defines their specific approach towards music, which is appealing for this type of research. The theoretical part of this thesis provides insight into the issues of the radio station's musical programming, describes the alternative radio format and the studied radio stations, including the musical component. Music directors and DJ's go through decision- making processes in a similar way that news editors write news articles. That is why the second part of this thesis applies the gatekeeping research framework to the musical programming. Based on the interviews with the radio station's music directors and DJ's, this thesis discovers a wide range of aspects that affect alternative radio station's musical broadcasts. The gatekeeping research levels help to compare these influences within the two stations.

Dans cette thèse, nous nous demandons comment les mouvements contreculturels ont trouvé de nouveaux lieux d’expression grâce à la plus grande accessibilité de l’audiovisuel, grâce aussi au combat des « radios libres ». Plus précisément, nous cherchons à savoir pourquoi et comment la société et l’audiovisuel français ont permis la constitution d’un média alternatif radiophonique comme Radio Ici et Maintenant (RIM) et comment cette radio a trouvé un modèle économique viable pour diffuser son idéologie. Nous verrons que l’existence et la persistance de RIM est due à la conjonction de deux phénomènes : d’une part la diminution du coût d’entrée dans la radiophonie grâce au développement et au combat des « radios libres » qui ont donné naissance aux radios associatives (avec leur modèle juridico-économique spécifique), et d’autre part la diminution du coût d’entrée dans le marché religieux avec le développement de la contreculture New Age française issue de la contreculture américaine, elle-même issue des pensées religieuses alternatives occidentales (liées à l’ésotérisme, au médiumnisme) et des religions orientales (l’hindouisme et le bouddhisme). Ainsi, le modèle juridico-économique spécifique des radios associatives a permis de faire vivre puis persister l’idéologie « radiolibriste » et New Age au sein de RIM. Mais ajoutons que ce modèle n’aurait pas été possible s’il n’avait pas été porté par des animateurs bénévoles, des invités militants et des auditeurs actifs dont nous analysons ici le profil sociologique. L’intérêt scientifique de ce sujet provient du fait qu’il s’agit principalement d’étudier RIM qui est une ancienne « radio libre ». Elle a été l’une des radios les plus importantes au sein du mouvement. C’est la plus ancienne des radios locales privées parisiennes. C’est aujourd’hui une radio associative de catégorie A. Cette catégorie correspond à un grand nombre de radios (environ 600), mais celles-ci sont peu étudiées. Enfin, c’est une radio New Age et l’un des seuls médias audiovisuels français New Age. Croisant histoire et sociologie du religieux, des médias, de la communication, de la politique, des sciences, cette thèse repose sur une écoute assidue, sur de nombreux entretiens et discussions informelles, sur l’étude de différents fonds d’archives (papier, audio, numérique) et sur de nombreuses observations de type ethnographique. Nous donnons dans une première partie les outils scientifiques pour pouvoir analyser ce phénomène. Nous verrons ensuite dans quel contexte historique, radiophonique, économique, social, juridique et politique RIM fait son apparition et continue d’exister aujourd’hui. Enfin, nous nous focalisons sur le modèle radiophonique proposé, et sur les acteurs de cette radio. / In this thesis, we wonder how countercultural movement found new places of expression through the increased accessibility of audiovisual, thanks to "free radio" fight. Specifically, we want to know why and how society and the French media have enabled the establishment of an alternative media like Radio Ici et Maintenant (RIM) and how this radio has found a viable business model to spread its ideology. We shall see that the existence and persistence of RIM is due to the combination of two factors: firstly the reduction in the cost of entry into the radio broadcasting through the development and struggle of "free radio" that gave birth to associative radios (with their specific legal and economic model) and also the decrease in the cost of entering the religious market with the development of the French New Age counterculture issue of the American counterculture, itself the result of religious thoughts Western alternatives (related to the esoteric, the mediumship) and Eastern religions (Hinduism and Buddhism). Thus, the specific legal and economic model of associative radios allowed to live and persist "radiolibriste" and New Age ideology within RIM. But add that this model would not have been possible if it had not been worn by volunteer facilitators, invited activists and active listeners which we analyze the sociological profile. The scientific interest of this subject is the fact that it is mainly to study RIM which is an old "free radio". She was one of the most important radio stations in the movement. It is the oldest Parisian private local radio station. Today, it is a community radio (category A). This category corresponds to a large number of radio stations (about 600), but these are little studied. Finally, this is a New Age radio and one of the only French audiovisual media New Age. Crossing history and sociology of religion, media, communication, politics, science, this thesis is based on a constant listening, on numerous interviews and informal discussions on the study of different archives (paper, audio, digital) and numerous ethnographic observations. We give in the first part scientific tools to analyze this phenomenon. We will then see in which historical, radio, economic, social, legal and political context RIM appeared and continues to exist today. Finally, we focus on the proposed radio model and the actors of this radio.