Internet radio

It is common to regard the Internet as the poor man’s medium. “Anyone” can publish (anything) online – which of course is very far from true. Print media have been among pioneers to use the Internet, with a lot of problems following (lack of payment, advertising revenue, copyright etc.). More recently broadcasting corporations have started to use the Internet not only for text/image but to distribute their original programming, i.e. radio and television programmes. Gigantic changes come fast, with YouTube, Spotify and many other innovations made possible by rapidly increasing bandwidth.

So far, Internet radio has received much less attention. But also for radio, the Internet represents huge possibilities, cheap distribution, redistribution, networking, diaspora communication … and there are plenty of sites to explore. Internet radio is cheap to produce and needs much less bandwidth than video, TV. If you are curious, on a rainy day you might browse e.g. AMARC (World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters), Pulsar (Latin America, radical information agency), or Radionomy (global, music and more), or just have a peek at this month’s pick of African music.