Campus Radio Stations expose a variety of topics to students at universities and colleges all over the country. The stations are typically student-run and most include a large variety of music interlocked with sports programs, local and world news. The following link is an example of a station centered around music. http://kwva.uoregon.edu/index.php The station has multiple programs with all different types of musical genres and DJ’s. While the station is primarily based on music there are also some comedic broadcasts and some programs on news. The radio station at Ithica College is even more in depth because music is only a small part of the media outlet. The station includes multiple programs on music, sports, and events giving students not only entertainment, but the opportunity for students to stay in the loop You can also listen to the broadcasts live on the website. http://www.wicb.org/. Stanford’s station has the same in depth variety and they also have a late night broadcast every Wednesday night, which gives the station an edge in entertainment and comedy. http://kzsu.stanford.edu/. Lastly, another great example is the station at Emerson College. This station like Oregon’s, is very centered around music, but this one also includes live performances and contests which makes the station very interactive with its audience. http://www.wers.org/. All of these stations are great examples of the topics covered on campus stations. Each site shows how creative the stations are and how they act as a very entertaining and beneficial media outlet for students. For more information on college radio stations the following blog is where I found the previous links. www.wicb.org. The blog discusses the top 12 college radio stations and is a great source of information on the topic. These links really show the atmosphere of college radio, which involves creativity and independence.
Campus Radio Stations are notorious for creativity and individualism because they are a media outlet run for students by students. Even though this idea sounds great on paper, the students are not the ones who have the final say on the topics covered. While they do have a good amount of input, controversial issues are monitored by the national government, because ultimately the government funds and therefore runs campus radio stations. Censorship is a very important issue within the media and campus radio stations are a great example of governmental control over media outlets. Now it can not be said that the federal government directly monitors each broadcast. Generally there are managers who oversee the stations and directors who monitor them and so forth. Stations usually have a relatively loose leash, but there are topics in general that are controversial and are left aside to prevent turmoil. Here is a link to a blog that was created by a journalist and radio personality; a specific post talks about a station where a broadcast was shut down by the hosts themselves due to censorship. http://cameronscommentary.wordpress.com The blog post on the right hand side titled “Student Program Pulled Off Campus Radio Station” talks about two student radio hosts who volunteered to remove their program from the stations line up. This shows that there is in fact control over what is said on the air and in this case the students shut down their broadcast because of it. While College Radio Stations are very beneficial, there is some censorship involved.
Here is a video about the station at Rogers State University in Oklahoma. This station is 99 percent student run and therefore has less of the censorship I mentioned above and more independence. See what you think!
