Community radios in portugal: Mapping an overlooked alternative media

Abstract

In Portugal, community projects that involve broadcasting already appeared in the 21st century. These were linked to the development of the Internet, their primary place of existence, because there were no transmissions for the radio waves in FM. The Law of Radio in Portugal does not include a third broadcasting sector, which means these community radios were not, officially speaking, community projects. In this regard, how should one look at this? How many radios are there? If they are community projects, what kind of characteristics do they present? These are some of the questions that guide our research and inquiry. Furthermore, it is not easy to move forward with a community definition of radio, as we will see according to some authors. These community radios represent a change, a new time in which the shared production and the civic participation assume an added importance. Thus, this work’s focus is to create a paradigm of criteria that will allow us to analyze and classify the Portuguese community radios, based on an extensive bibliographical research.