Ep2. It's The People's Radio - barriers to accessibility for PWD - Kim Stewart - QUT - 4ZZZ

In 2017 Kim Stewart conducted research as part of a doctorate of Creative Industries at Queensland University of Technology to discover the experiences of people with a disability who had been involved in community radio. ABSTRACT Listening to the views and experiences of people with disabilities is a key process in realising increased participation of people with disabilities in community radio in Australia. Accordingly, the stories of community radio producers with disabilities provide the foundation for this research. This four part documentary series is the creative output of research conducted as two related projects. This project (n=19) used practice-led research and purposeful listening to answer the question: “What factors empower or are barriers to participation by people with disabilities in community radio?” The experiences of research participants with a disability and their allies who have volunteered in Australian community radio were recorded in semi-structured interviews and referred back to them for accuracy and comment as a draft edit of a radio documentary, It’s The People’s Radio. The attitudes and cooperation of other volunteers in the sector were found to be fundamental to enabling participation of people with disabilities in community radio in Australia. The research provides the first examination of the participation of people with disabilities in Australian community radio and adds to the body of work of other researchers in this area. A separate exegesis discussion of the findings is published elsewhere.