Merging the digital and analog worlds to “pass the mic” to those at the margins
“[When we focus] more on national and not local…you’re losing all of the stories about what’s happening right here at home and in your backyard.” — Candice Springer, WBUR CitySpace
In Season 2, Episode 7 of The Move Podcast, hosts Ceasar McDowell and Ayushi Roy interview Candice Springer and Desiree Arevalo, who manage WBUR’s new CitySpace arena in Boston. In this episode, The Move explored the complexity and considerations involved in building physical spaces that allow for difficult conversation and engagement, specifically in a divided and segregated city like Boston. One practice CitySpace is leveraging is planning for analog and digital means, one of the eight Civic Design principles created by Cesar McDowell.
WBUR is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts, and owned by Boston University. The independent journalism station is also the largest of three NPR member stations in Boston. In addition to the uniqueness being a new state-of-the-art multimedia venue grants, CitySpace is special for merging the divide between the digital and analog. As Candice Springer, CitySpace Assistant Director of Community Engagement, put it, “ CitySpace…was born out of this idea at WBUR that we need to continue to connect with our audience in more engaged ways…at CitySpace, you have the unique opportunity to engage with hosts and reporters or…podcast-makers and…have civic conversations.”
WBUR’s mission to “continue their [digital] conversations in person” at CitySpace ranges from readings, interviews, debates, conversations, panels, podcasts, and performances to story slams, theater, comedy, book clubs, and demonstrations. By merging the digital with the analog, WBUR strives to deepen the connection with their audience, diversify their listeners, understand what truly matters to community, and highlight local events as opposed to just those at the national level.
As Candice and Desiree elaborated, the deliberate creation of spaces that enable conversations that get to the heart of social crises — such as gun violence — draw upon lessons learned from affected communities. Particularly, ensuring conversations around impacted communities “pass the mic” to the community. Leading with accountability and authenticity, Candice and Desiree work to create a space in which the public can struggle, as Carl Moore put it, “with traditions that bind them and interests that separate them so they can realize a future that’s an equitable improvement on the past.” That is the work of democracy.
Similar attempts to create spaces for critical discussions through digital and analog means have sprung up across the nation. One example is Radio Espacio, located in Boyle Heights, California.
Radio Espacio is housed within Espacio 1839, a storefront that also serves as a radio studio, art gallery and community gathering place. The store is owned as a collective by Latino East Los Angeles natives: multimedia journalist Marco Amador; artist Nico Avina; former bookstore owner Elisa García; and disc jokey David Gómez. The owners strove to merge media and community space-making with Chicano cultural richness, social activism, and political expression. The result is Espacio 1839.
As a community-based digital radio station, Radio Espacio is by and for the Boyle Heights community. Radio Espacio has over a dozen channels, two of which are “Boyle Heights Beat: Pulso de Boyle Heights” and “Corazón del Pueblo,” which translates into “heart of the neighborhood or town.” Pulso podcast is a community journalism venture led by youth reporters and designed around quarterly neighborhood meetings where youth solicit ideas and concerns. Pulso covers topics spanning racism, immigration, and teacher strikes to the success story of a local person-of-color owned business with a passion for indigenous Pre-Hispanic diets, and more. Corazon del Pueblo Podcast, described as “a Community Cultural Arts & Social Justice “Radiospace,``’’seeks to connect community members, as it sees connectivity as critical to “dialogue, empowerment, creation & healing.” To that end, it seeks to, “explore personal & collective journeys with healing the self, with family & with community.”
As Espacio 1830 co-owner Marco Amador states, “independent media centers don’t exist in a lot of our communities, but they exist in other communities. Historically, these kinds of resources are denied in our community.” Spaces that merge the digital with the analog world, and that facilitate both online and face-to-face interaction and community-building, are especially critical in communities of color. “Passing the mic” for communities of color to relay their own stories is a critical step towards building a democracy conscious of those traditionally relegated to the margins.
