Presentation short abstract

Through radio, we can pre-figure how to co-create a 'light' infrastructure that is human-to-human, that can connect and access the emotional core of our movements. Radish Radio invites you to help us imagine how to leverage this medium, to inspire empathy, connection, hope, and courage.

Presentation long abstract

Emotions are energy in motion.

In a world where billionaires exist; a world of AI overreach and surveillance capitalism, online communications infrastructure has become a machine to manufacture rage and consent, to secure the future of capital accumulation. Billionaire-resourced far-right influencers, podcasters, and rage-bait content generators, stir up fear and rage, steering whole populations further right.

Individuals in these spaces feel disempowered and ineffective, relegated to passive roles - consumers and witnesses. As genocide, climate collapse, and apocalyptic futures unfold on our screens, we feel hopeless, powerless, and isolated. This collective emotional state locks us in a self-fulfilling doom spiral of passivity and despair.

We need a communications infrastructure that is human-to-human, where people can engage, create, imagine, and build. Radio is a trusted space for dialogue and praxis, on our own terms, without the filter of algorithms, or corporate ads, or data harvesting. Through radio, we can pre-figure how to organise for a "light infrastructure" that is human-to-human, in the hands of people, and in the interests of people, not capital accumulation.

Radish Radio invites friends to join us in imagining the radio of tomorrow. What if it were owned by you and for you? What if it were a place of radical hope, empathy, courage, and creativity? Radio combines the intimacy of long-form audio with music, and its ability to access our emotional core and stir us. What if, through accessing our emotions in this way, we could also build the structure that keeps us safe and connected?