The Listener as Accomplice: Italy and France¹

Abstract

The shock of radios libres (free radio) hit Europe at about the time community radio in North America became established — the mid-1970s — and it occurred in the same climate of radical protest. The world was smaller now, thanks to television whose audiences in the late Sixties had seen police beating students in Paris and Chicago, and Russian tanks rolling into Prague. By now, protest had turned to participation and media was a prime field for power-sharing.