The Civil Defense understanding of the role of radio in disaster tends to focus on its value in providing essential information during and after the event. However this role is compromised when a station’s premises are destroyed, or rendered inaccessible by official cordons. The Radio Quake study examines how radio stations in Christchurch managed to resume broadcasting in the aftermath of the earthquake of February 22, 2011. In New Zealand’s heavily networked and commercialised radio environment there is a significant disparity between networked and independent stations’ broadcast commitments and resourcing. All Christchurch radio broadcasters were forced to improvise new locations, complex technical workarounds, and responsive styles of broadcasting after the February 22 earthquake, but the need to restore, or maintain, a full on air presence after the earthquake, rested entirely on often financially tenuous, locally owned and staffed independent radio: student, Iwi, community access, and local commercial stations. This paper will explore the resourcefulness and resilience of broadcasters riding out the aftershocks in hotels, motels, bedrooms, and a horse truck, using digital technologies in new ways to reimagine the practice of radio in Christchurch.
This article examines the representation of Christchurch, New Zealand, student radio station RDU in the exhibition Alternative Radio at the Canterbury Museum in 2016. With the intention of ‘making visible what is invisible’ about radio broadcasting, the exhibition articulated RDU as a point of interconnection between the technical elements of broadcasting, the social and musical culture of station staff and volunteers, and the broader local and national music scenes. This paper is grounded in observations of the exhibitions and associated public programmes, and interviews with the key participants in the exhibition including the museum's exhibition designer and staff from RDU, who acted as independent practitioners in collaboration with the museum. Alternative Radio also addressed the aftermath of the major earthquake of 22 February 2011, when RDU moved into a customised horse truck after losing its broadcast studio. The exhibition came about because of the cultural resonance of the post-quake story, but also emphasised the long history of the station before that event, and located this small student radio station in the broader heritage discourse of the Canterbury museum, activating the historical, cultural, and personal memories of the station's participants and audiences.
Local independent radio stations in Christchurch, New Zealand, had their operations severely disrupted by major earthquakes in September 2010 and February 2011. This article examines the experiences of three radio stations that were shut out of their central city premises by the cordon drawn around the city after the 22 February quake. One of the stations continued broadcasting automatically, while the others were unable to fully get back on air for several weeks afterwards. All of the stations had to manage access to workspaces, the emotional needs of staff and volunteers, the technical ability to broadcast, and the need to adapt content appropriately when back on air. For the locally based radio managers decisions had to be made about the future of the stations in a time of significant emotional, physical, and geological upheaval. The article explores how these radio stations were disrupted by the earthquake, and how they returned to air through new combinations and interconnections of people, workspace, technology, content and transmission.
