Women's Radio (Austria)

Until the state's broadcasting monopoly ended in 1993, civic movements from two different camps had critiqued Austria's hegemonic and one-dimensional media landscape. For one, commercial broadcasting licenses were the goal; the other sought social, media-political, and cultural change. Whereas the first camp pivoted its licenses on mainstream commercial music, the second built up a solid, networked, nonprofit structure to promote diversity both in content and participation.

From the beginning, feminist ideas were brought into the project by women activists and artists, who argued that if marginalized groups were to participate fully, then specific, viable, and sustainable structures would be needed. Their aim was to ensure that there women-related content would be broadcasted and women's participation would be ensured, with women having regular shows and serving as management and technical staff members.

In terms of content, one idea was to reserve parts of the schedule for women's shows, for instance, one whole day per week or sections of the daily schedule. Discussions about organizational arrangements also developed from early on and are still relevant today. As Vienna's Radio Orange manager has stressed, ensuring participation by marginalized groups is the responsibility of everyone involved in the station.

To promote open access actively, a strategy tried at the outset was to “take the radio outside.”

Broadcasting equipment was brought to women's locales such as feminist centers, meetings, and events to arouse interest. Personal networks also brought new participants into the studios. From the beginning, the activists' reputation in certain communities for striving to establish a space for “genuine” women's politics, queer politics, and liberation facilitated the entry of new volunteers. Part of this credibility was because of gender-equal representation at all kinds of executive levels in the stations, as well as a result of the symbolic representation of women and all genders in radio language, press releases, and overall.

A recent international project at Radio Orange promoted antisexist consciousness and strategy development for a more gender-equal radio landscape. Frequently, European funding serves radio stations' networking concerns, joins local and international perspectives, and enables trans-local activities. Via the medium of radio, diverse European women's projects are linked together, and this exchange enriches the stations' experiences. In 2008, a new AMARC-Europe Women's Network was launched to facilitate mutual exchange and cooperation.

Interviews in the 2008 radio study referenced subsequently showed that women's radio initiatives were especially concerned with developing new knowledge, skills, and efficient resource use to improve their shows. Particularly in volunteer training, empowerment and autonomous expression were of central concern. Women's collectives were actively developing appropriate concepts or broadcasting formats and were questioning modes of expression and communicative routines to adapt them to changing needs.

One example in which women in a radio collective attempted to position themselves as mediators of empathetic encounters was the project Fremd bin ich eingezogen (I came here as a stranger) in the Frauenzimmer (Women's Room) program at Free Radio Freistadt. Through radio portraits, it introduced women who had moved to Austria at a certain point in their life. The idea behind the series was to challenge prejudices through acoustic encounters between the listeners and the women narrating their personal history.

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