Free and community radio stations in Spain during COVID-19. An approach to its impacts and their learning through their contents and organization

Abstract

Introduction: the COVID-19 pandemic brought with it a health, social and economic crisis that also affected free and community radio stations in Spain. This paper aims to approach, through the analysis of the contents of two spaces produced during the confinement and the organizational forms adopted by these projects, the most important impacts of this situation and the lessons learned from them. Methodology: the work is based on qualitative methodologies, such as content mining and web ethnography, which have allowed us to delve into the contents and adaptive strategies deployed by these broadcasters in the face of the exceptional situation experienced. Results: The analysis of El Otro Coronavirus and the Cadenazos Ibéricos de Radios Libres shows the communicative and organizational challenges that these stations had to face and how their adaptive responses contributed to the establishment of a subaltern public sphere and what lessons have been learned from these efforts. Discussion: these results have allowed us to understand in depth the role played by these media in the context of the health exception experienced during the pandemic and, consequently, to critically value it as a useful tool for those communities and subaltern groups that were relegated to the margins of the public sphere. Conclusions: after the analysis carried out in this paper, we have determined that the confinement derived from COVID-19 constituted a new milestone in the history of the free and community radio movement, as it allowed to demonstrate once again its resilience, its public utility and to resume collaborative dynamics that took on a new meaning in that context of isolation.