ABSTRACT
Community radio stations often intend to serve the needs and preferences of a local listenership, though they frequently face competition from other radio stations, online streaming technology, and other forms of entertainment. They also operate within a regulatory environment managed by governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations. This chapter examines how these marketplace factors affect programming decisions made within radio stations at the macro level and illustrates their local impacts through a case study of the Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP). I argue that stations like CHIRP facilitate public intimacy and personal relationships in local spaces and places via imagined communities that are more social than they are imaginary. Through participatory musicking, their staff, volunteers, and listeners help construct musical locality together.
