"We All Run This Station": Considering How Kid DJs Advocate for Change Through Community Radio

• In Event: Youth Media as Method and Message: Participatory Approaches Toward Educational Equity

Abstract

Objectives:
Once considered a "new" force in education (Ryan, 1938), radio (or, recently, podcasting) is a powerful tool for K-16 teaching (Armstrong et al., 2009; Bosch, 2007; Morgan, 2015; Wilson et al., 2012). While many have examined youth's digital creations, few have explored how children use technologies to enhance understandings of community or reimagine preferable futures. Whereas others have studied collaborative child-adult broadcasts (Bonati, 1997) or how podcasting supports literacy learning (Liao et al., 2013; Toohey et al., 2015), in this paper, youth panelists describe how they used radio as "a tool to carve out opportunities in which ideas of self and other are imagined, produced, and lived" (Bosch, 2007, p. 277).

Theoretical Perspectives:
This paper examines how middle-grade children used digital literacies and addressed social issues through child-produced radio segments. Grounded in the belief that children need more space to "be loud," this kid-radio extracurricular program was developed to offer children a safe space to express themselves and positioned youth as "knowledge creators" (Armstrong et al., 2009, p.88).

Methods and Data Sources:
Because of COVID-19, we generated data in shared online spaces beginning in January 2021, which included: a) Monday DJ Meetings where youth initially recorded their radio segments; b) Tuesday "Open Mic" Studio Sessions where youth refined their segments; and c) Thursday "Hot Seat" Recording Sessions with local adult guests. Besides creating video recordings of each meeting, the adult researcher downloaded the weekly child-produced artifacts from SoundTrap. The researcher had informal conversations with child-DJs as they brainstormed for their scripts while also engaging them in more formal interviews. Here, the researcher inquired about their choices, both in terms of the stories they shared and the technologies they used in ways common to digital research (Vasudevan et al., 2010).

Findings:
As youth describe in the focal radio artifact we will share, children called attention to various social topics (i.e., #BlackLivesMatter, COVID-19, climate crisis) while also cultivating skills in script-writing and audio-engineering. Specifically, youth described (a) who they are; (b) the type of tool(s) they used for planning and creating; and (c) the purpose/topic of their production practice. Together, the youth and researcher considered the affordances/constraints of studio tools and how kid-DJs used said technologies to communicate their ideas. As evidenced in their productions shared in this presentation, children often used the microphone to discuss issues they may not approach as easily off-air; their productions became outlets for political expression (Wilson et al., 2012).

Significance:
This presentation will help adults—educators, researchers, caretakers—to nuance their understanding of children’s needs and their digital literacies (Bekker et al., 2015; Jocius, 2018). Further, the stories shared in this presentation can help adults refine their educational practices by highlighting the benefits of child-radio. Ultimately, this study offers new possibilities for bolstering children's confidence as equity-oriented change agents by examining the possibilities of child-radio as a pedagogical tool while emphasizing the benefit of developing reciprocal relationships with community organizations.

Author

• Cassie J. Brownell, University of Toronto