Compassion fatigue
voices, on the grounds of possible interference
with high-power transmission.
As internet services have expanded, so has
interest in, and development of, web-radio, often
referred to as ‘web-casting’. Both public and
private radio broadcasters already make available
programmes on the Web, but the opportunities
for individuals, groups and communities to off er
alternative broadcasting services through the
Net have burgeoned worldwide.
Web-radio draws benefit from low start-up
costs and relatively cheap equipment, as illus-
trated by Groovera (formerly OverXposure
FM) of Seattle, US, where Tim Quigley webcast
programmes from his sitting room from 2003.
Paris-based Deezer claims over 4m users, while
Whole Wheat Radio (WWR) of Talkeetna,
Alaska, off ers 24-hours-a-day music run by an
all-volunteer community.
Former London pirate radio Rinse FM received
its broadcasting licence in June 2010, while Forge
Radio (formerly Sure Radio) broadcasts in term-
time at Sheffi eld University. Cost and increased
competition prove constant hazards, as the Isle
of Wight station, Wight FM, found in 2009 –
starting up on 1 February and closing down in
December of the same year. See dab: digital
audio broadcasting; podcast; radio
‘shock jocks’; streaming; youtube.
Compassion fatigue Media reportage of world
suff ering risks aff ecting mass media audiences
in unintended ways, often prompting resistance
rather than empathy. Th e news becomes too
much to bear, causing what is termed compas-
sion fatigue. Susan D. Moeller in Compassion
Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine,
War and Death (Routledge, 1999) defi nes it as
a ‘defence mechanism against the knowledge
of horror’. Moeller is highly critical of what she
terms ‘formulaic coverage’ of world disasters
which, in American reporting, suff ers what she
sees as Americanization of events (see event:
americanization of).
Ultimately, Moeller argues, the fault lies in
piecemeal, often haphazard, selective and poten-
tially hysterical media coverage of foreign news:
‘Compassion fatigue, and even more clearly,
compassion avoidance are signals that the cover-
age of international aff airs must change.’ Th at,
she asserts, means a need for ‘great reporters,
producers and editors’ and a will ‘to invest in
such an un-sexy news beat as international
aff airs’. She urges that events beyond our shores
should be reported ‘day in day out, year in year
out’; in short, ‘to get back to the business of
reporting all the news, all the time’. See coupsfi nancing, programming, etc. remains at levels
other than the local.
Th ough the term ‘community radio’ was prob-
ably fi rst used in the UK by Rachel Powell in a
pamphlet Possibilities for Local Radio (Centre
for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University
of Birmingham, December 1965), the idea goes
as far back as the beveridge report, 1950,
which proposed the use of VHF frequencies to
‘establish local radio stations with independent
programmes of their own. How large a scope
there would be in Britain for local stations
broadcasting programmes controlled by Univer-
sities or Local Authorities or public service
organizations is not known, but the experiment
of setting up some local stations should be tried
without delay’.
In 1962 the pilkington report recom-
mended that the BBC provide ‘local sound
broadcasting’ on the basis of ‘one service in
some 250 localities’, stations having a typical
range of 5 miles. Th e 1971 government White
Paper launched commercial radio, but radio
broadcasting through the next decades was to
remain under the duopoly of the BBC and the
Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA).
Pressure to produce a ‘third’ force in broad-
casting in the UK, to consist of highly individual
and genuinely local stations, grew in the 1980s.
Throughout the country, groups dedicated to
the furtherance of community radio multiplied,
providing information, exerting pressure at
national and local levels. Th e question that needs
to be asked in identifying and characterizing
community radio is whether, as well as aiming to
serve the perceived interests of the community,
that radio is also run by the community.
Th ough the most familiar model is generally
associated with public service broadcast-
ing (psb) initiatives, variations on community
radio are to be found throughout the world,
particularly in the United States. Here, in
January 2000, the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) approved the use of Low
Power FM (LPFM) or micro-radio services
that would be used for community-orientated
programming, to serve schools, civic clubs, state
and local governments, churches and other non-
profi t-making organizations.
However, the fullscale development of this
microcasting met with the obstacle of vested
interest as represented by corporate radio. Th e
National Association of Broadcasters (NAB),
working on behalf of the commercial sector,
pressurized Congress for legislation that had
the eff ect of eliminating the majority of the new