Youth Voices on the Airwaves: Representations of Young People

Geography, with its natural focus on landscapes over soundscapes, has historically been recognized for its visual bias. In recent years, however, a small number of influential studies have made strides to push the boundaries of geographical thought and praxis in presenting soundscapes as relevant to geographical debate, moving away from previous discussions of space and place which were firmly rooted in visual epistemologies. In particular, this chapter turns attention to the portable soundscape of community radio and considers how young people have the agency to present themselves on the airwaves. Moreover, this chapter extends this analysis by focusing on how community radio functions as a platform for youth voice, thus enabling young people to create cultural (re)presentations of themselves. Synthesizing different studies which explore the power of community radio as a platform for youth voice, relationship-building, and identity formation leads to the contention that, although soundscapes are a relatively new object of geographical research, they are an increasingly important one. By examining the complexities of young people’s explorations of self and youth voice, this chapter makes use of an extended case study of KCC Live, a volunteer youth-led community radio station in Knowsley, UK. This chapter considers a move beyond perceiving youth voice as an ideal outcome, acknowledging the limitations of its conceptualization, and recognizing the ways in which voices are shaped by, and shape, the contexts which produce them.