Institutioning and community radio. A comparative perspective

In recent years, designers have pointed to the role of institutioning, the way in which design processes and institutions are mutually shaped, constrained and enabled. This paper seeks to expand this discussion to the field of grassroots communities, a concept that enlightens the intersection between geographic communities and communities of interests/practice. The research draws on empirical work exploring the different experiences in four distinct socio-cultural and institutional contexts of Uganda, Ireland, Portugal and Romania to investigate how institutioning relate to the design of a new form of community radio based on an innovative technology. It also explores what are the practices that designers and grassroots communities use to manage and navigate potential constraints of institutioning, and offers comparative insight into how institutioning influences the design outcome. Using the concept of institutioning, we will show how, in this interaction, the grassroots communities in the making overcome the “space vs interest” dichotomy, and how institutions as well as communities play a role in shaping - and are potentially shaped by - the design process.