lo Squaderno (Sep 2009)
Spectrum for the common People
Abstract
This is an account of a real event and one that might be repeated around the world. An everyday utility in the guise of a mobile phone, combined with the cheapest and most readily available forms of broadcast media, has started to accumulate power able to challenge the hegemonic control of the mainstream media and empower those, hitherto, without a media voice. This extraordinary piece of technology has been adopted as a daily utility by about two thirds of the globe, but it is also part of the bedrock of communications for alternative, radical and activist media. The mobile phone now constitutes the basic tool kit of the citizen journalist and the combination of mobile telephony and accessible media such as community radio, the‘blogosphere’ and social networking sites are providing an alternative interpretation of events which often challenges the mediated or ‘official’ version. It may be argued that the mobile phone has become both a popular cultural artefact but is also used in support of popular insurgency and citizen journalism (Gordon 2006).
