Radio Free Hawaii: The Rhetoric of Media Dissent

Jeela Ongley, English

From 1991 till 1997 Hawai'i airwaves were caressed, bombarded and intoxicated by a unique, listener-driven brand of radio.  Short-lived but influential, 102.7 KDEO-FM Radio Free Hawaii is a generational landmark that made waves by eschewing traditional programming in favor of a listener-determined balloting system.  The result was a station that might play Nirvana, Pachabel's Canon, Cypress Hill, Bob Marley and Radiohead back-to-back, while supplementing the programming with political commentary from a heavily-accented Bangladeshi and ads for Club Hubba Hubba. By contrasting the operation of mainstream radio with that of Radio Free Hawaii, the rhetorical power of Radio Free Hawaii becomes apparent as a truly revolutionary experiment. The primary evidence of the industry is found vis-a-vis a brief historical survey of radio in Hawai'i; consideration of the currently dominant models of radio production; and interviews with the people responsible for the station regarding the ideology they put forth. The rhetorical modus operandi of  Radio Free Hawaii implicates the FCC and the industry not only of commercially-driven homogenization of the airwaves, but of silencing the voice of the people.

    The rhetorical analysis in this paper examines the station ideology over time. The two main areas of consideration are: 1) How Radio Free Hawaii initially presented itself and its intentions to be an alternative radio station, and 2) How its self-presentation and operations changed through the process of broadcasting. Essentially, how the act and experience of broadcasting changed the founding vision of the meaning of Radio Free Hawaii's self-presentation.