The Role of Radio in our Australian Rural and Regional Places: A Queensland Study

The Role of Radio in our Australian Rural and Regional Places: A Queensland Study

Local media owners demonstrated leadership to ensure Radio and indeed other media outlets, were present in rural and regional Australia. Commencing in the period from mid 1930s to the 1940s, many centres had established their own commercial radio service. The ABC was also establishing a robust group of stations to service all parts of Australia.
Over the decades ownership has changed and so too the influence and impact of the local radio station.

The notion of 'local' affords the market, in most cases, local news, information programs and community service information. Against a globalised understanding of the world, local is a contested concept. In this context local is geographically defined and is fiercely upheld by these local communities served by a variety of local radio stations.

This paper will focus on some key Queensland regional and rural centres, specifically Roma, Charleville, Longreach and Winton, responses to the place of media in their community. I will discuss findings from some data gathered in these communities. I have used both qualitative and quantitative methods to provide baseline data. These sites are of interest as they are representative of many locations around Australia in terms of climatic and economic impacts, as well as the loss of local media sources. Local communities are seeking a robust local voice and the changing mediascape offers little comfort to this important part of Australia. What is being sought, some current models and concepts for consideration will be provided in this paper.