Low Power to the People

Never mind the Orwellian forces of corporate radio—a new generation is quietly tinkering its way toward a far more democratic world. In this clear-eyed, closely observed account, Christina Dunbar-Hester gives us a compelling glimpse of that generation and with it, a new way to see how technologies and people can make one another political.

Fred Turner, Associate Professor of Communication, Stanford University; author of The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties

Christina Dunbar-Hester's Low Power to the People will challenge what you think you know about media activism. Blending ethnography, technology study, and cultural and policy history, Low Power to the People shows how technological politics are never just about technology. As activists fight for greater media democracy and access, they come up against issues of expertise, identity, and exclusion. Dunbar-Hester demonstrates that in itself, technology is never enough for social change. Rich with ethnographic detail and political insight, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the politics of media and technology today.

Jonathan Sterne, author of MP3: The Meaning of a Format and The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction

In this compellingly argued, well-written work, Christina Dunbar-Hester offers an ethnography of the radio activists who helped birth low-power FM radio and also successfully challenged FCC media ownership rules. She probes the expressive culture of left-wing activists who see radio as inherently democratic and a tool for community empowerment, and technical competence as a challenge to socially embedded expertise and elitism. While sympathetic, Dunbar-Hester deftly underscores the contradictions of their politics and practices.

Robert B. Horwitz, University of California, San Diego, author of The Irony of Regulatory Reform: The Deregulation of American Telecommunications and America's Right: Anti-Establishment Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party

Low Power to the People offers a richly detailed exploration of the struggle for low-power FM as it played out both at the grassroots level and in the halls of Washington... Dunbar-Hester offers a convincing argument that an 'old' medium like radio has the potential to be at least as open and democratic as does the Internet, and that we need to more critically examine claims about the intrinsic character of different communications technologies.

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

[A] captivating narrative that reproduces the passion, emotions, and tensions of the field....

New Media & Society

In Low Power to the People, Dunbar-Hester delivers a perceptive interrogation of [the] intricate entwinement of technology and politics, and the activist's 'labour of love' (embracing passionate and playful work) to enact inclusive ideals for social change, which is compelling and inspirational for scholars and activists alike working to further media democracy.

Feminist Media Studies