Radio Emily

Reviving college radio as an act of algorithmic agnosticism

The decision to re-ignite Radio Emily came from fellow MDes student Jefferson and I’s conversations surrounding the ways we might be able to help Emily Carr students connect and form community. Music seemed like an obvious medium given the connection we’ve observed between people at music events in the past, and the communities we have both built through music. After speaking to student council about the idea, we realized the infrastructure was all there from the previous radio manager five years ago, it just needed to be turned back on.

We decided we would plan to recruit students to host radio shows and help with the design and social media identity of the radio by making a booth for ECUAD’s Club Day. I created a poster, which we had posted at our booth and around the school. The poster was riso printed on three different styles of paper using black and red ink.

We also wanted to include an interactive element to the booth. We decided to make an activity where people could write their favourite song on a piece of paper, put it into a box Jefferson made out of scrap paper, and then take a song from the box to enjoy someone else’s favourite song. Jefferson also brought his DJ gear and performed at the booth, which not only drew people to our booth, but also brought an uplift in energy to the Club’s Day experience as a whole.

One of the radio-specific papers I was inspired by for the development of Radio Emily was MacLennan (2013)’s writing on the development of Canadian public radio audience in the 1930s. MacLennan notes that the development of new technology brought new opportunities for new listening experiences. I think Radio Emily is actually doing the opposite in a way- we are taking a step back in the technological timeline in order to give people a different kind of listening perspective than their current habits.

I also find the radio relevant to current discourses on algorithmically recommended listening platforms. Prey (2018) writes of the complicated political economy and process of algorithmic individuation that occurs through the data collected by platforms like Spotify and Pandora Radio. Part of the inspiration for Jefferson and I’s restarting of the Radio Station at Emily Carr was to create a space to learn about new music that was fuelled by people who share a space, restoring the human element of music discovery.