Ritual Communication through Community Radio: A Case Study of FM Uken in the Amami Island

Abstract

This study aims to explore the role of FM Uken, a community radio at Uken village of the Amami Ohshima, a subtropical island located between Kagoshima and Okinawa. Uken village, the residents of which was less than two thousand, has opened FM Uken in 2010 as the second community radio in the island. Since then, this small, but the uniquely operated community FM broadcaster has affected to open other two community FMs in the island. Particularly, its unique radio programming became the model for the programming of these two radio. The program is organized with the mix of self-produced programs and various programs produced by other broadcasters including prefectural broadcasters （ MBC and Kagoshima broadcasting operated in the mainland ） and community FM broadcasters （ FM Amami, FM Setouchi, and FM Tastsugo in Amami island, Rainbow FM in Tokyo city ） . Even though this mixed programming is quite rare com-pared to the programming of community FM broadcasting in general, it could help for small-scaled community FM broadcaster to program for long period of time. FM Setouchi and FM Tastsugo have kept FM Uken’s style in their programming for broadcasting. Because of this mixed programming, the research questions were raised in this study: 1） how listeners of FM Uken would listen to the mixed program, 2） how listeners of FM Uken would feel FM Uken in everyday life, and 3） what kind of the meaning to the local community FM Uken would be. This study conducted the in-depth interview with key persons and village people and focus group interviews. In addition, the content analysis of the request messages from listeners was conducted. The results revealed that the listeners discerned FM Uken-produced programs from various different programs with their ears. Also, the listeners have been using FM Uken broadcasting for enjoying and utilizing in various situations in their everyday life. It also highlighted