History: RADio568

Background of RADio568

My day job is as a professor in film and media studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justic. I started RADio568.com as a digital platform for students and faculty to share their their audio projects and express their ideas about the world they are inheriting.

RADio568.com began several years ago in the Communication and Theatre Arts Radio568-words-only5 Department [CTA] of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and moved over to “media studies” in the English Department. Initially, RADio568 was created to give JJAY media studies students authentic experiences of creating mass media products and broadcasting in “live” situations. Audio projects continue to be designed as significant adjuncts to the students’ academic understanding of the impact of media in our time. By producing their own media programs, students can become aware of the ways [corporate] media forms sociological imaginations [for instance, see C.W. Mills] is central to gaining agency and making positive change. We use knowledge to “unplug” from hidden and powerful messages that bombard us through the media throughout our days. Doing media enables deeper realizations about ourselves and how we are formed by our milieu.

RADio568 continues as an internet station that features a variety of live programming and podcasts produced by students and faculty at the college — but it has grown as my interest in audio production and podcasting has grown. See the Podcasts Archive page for past programming — emanating both from the college and my own podcasting experiments.

Our first broadcast / podcast efforts was WJJCRH — John Jay Community Radio Hour. Students broadcast from a makeshift “station” in the CTA Department and then in various environments around the college. We produced a live Internet radio program of music, interviews, discussions, and college announcements. Co-producers received hands-on experience in creating and running a real-time radio program. It was quite exciting and fraught with technical problems. Issues, Period ran for several issues-period-archive semesters with support from the Political Science Departments. Looking at current events, student hosts engaged their guests in discussions about economic, social, and political issues. Guests included both faculty experts in their field and student leaders on both the political Left and Right. It is my hope that it will continue someday at the college as a mid-day broadcast featuring activities at the college and students expressing their interests and concerns in clear and respectful conversations. The institutional energy to produce such communal programming is not available at this time. But maybe …

Windermere-Tales10 As my interest in radio and podcasting grew — I wanted to expand my experiments. With the help of my podcasting partner and wife, I set up a home studio and facility for broadcasting and recording outside the studio. The goal of Windermere Tales was to describe, week by week, life on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 21st Century. More specifically, I wanted to paint the human face of the pre-war building my wife and I have lived in — raised a family — for decades. I spoke with the people who inhabit this magnificent edifice on 92nd Street and West End Avenue. Other programming was tried out: after the election I stopped listening to media news and called out around the country to have non-journalists tell me what was going on. #nonewsmedia4now was broadcast from November 8, 2016 to December 7, 2016. It was a most interesting experiment in local conversations about the political moment.

We are now onto our latest podcasting experimentation — Bar Crawl Radio. My wife I love the life that emerges from a well-run bar and there are some great bars on the Upper West Side. We wanted to capture some of the fascinating conversations that emerge at bars — many times with strangers who at this communal gathering place are freed from their day-to-day caution. For us the bar can become a public space where talk can be freed in fun and informative ways. Bar Crawl Radio brings in local NYC politicians, artists, and bar owners to talk about what interests them. We also feature our own slant on the nightmarish events of the Trump era through skits and low-key commentary. BCR podcasts can be found on iTunes and Stitcher.