Abstract

This dissertation studies Canadian campus radio broadcasting and its relationship to the circulation of local music. I examine three campus stations in two cities and one town of varying size, population, and location. These stations include CHMA in Sackville, New Brunswick, CKUW in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and CiTR in Vancouver, British Columbia. Following extensive analysis of policy documents and station-produced texts, as well as interviews with staff members, volunteers, and local musicians, I argue that a campus radio station does not simply respond to federal broadcasting regulation by ensuring programming differs from what is available on commercial and public radio. Rather, there is self-awareness throughout the sector that is decidedly attuned to local music. In each locality, numerous cultural institutions, including campus stations, work together to support local and independent music. The histories of these three stations illustrate the various paths taken in order to acquire FM radio licenses, extending from university campuses to also serve surrounding communities. The ways in which a station represents its community falls somewhere between how community representation is defined by a station mandate, and the process by which communities are imagined by campus radio practitioners. Individuals are connected to a segment of an overall music scene through a shared taste culture for which content is produced. A tension emerges between the taste and expertise of a practitioner or programmer and the ideal goal of fully representing his or her community. Despite instances of exclusion and hierarchies of taste, however, the promotion of music that is propelled by cultural status circumvents the purely economic model ingrained in commercial radio, producing alternative values and methods for circulating music.