Multitheoretical Approaches to Community Media: Capturing Specificity and Diversity

The concept of “community media” (CM) has shown to be, in its long theoretical and empirical tradition (cf. Janowitz, 1952, 1967), highly elusive. The multiplicity of media organizations that carry this name has caused most monotheoretical approaches to focus on certain characteristics, while ignoring other aspects of the identity of community media. This theoretical problem necessitates the use of different approaches toward its definition, allowing for a complementary emphasis on different aspects of its identity. This chapter combines four theoretical approaches to capture both the diversity and specificity of community media.