The Prison Radio Association (PRA) states its core aim as contributing to the reduction of reoffending through ‘the power of radio’ (PRA 2017a). I use this statement as a starting point from which to explore the key ideas around radio as a socially and individually transformative medium in order to inform the understanding of how it came to be used in prison. Through discussion of existing literature, this chapter outlines the shifting relationship between radio broadcasting and social change and argues that the evolution and establishment of radio within prisons is indicative of new opportunities for media activism, demonstrating the enduring social relevance and impact of radio.

The unique position of prison radio is a central theme throughout this study, relating at once to institutional and governmental roles while equally framed in a commitment to prisoners’ rights. In later chapters I outline key developmental stages in the PRA story, demonstrating the extent to which prison radio discourse and practice remains rooted in social activism and highlighting the importance of organisational independence in the process. In this chapter, I place the development of National Prison Radio within a wider debate on the history and future of non-commercial broadcasting, based on the balance between governmental regulation and control on the one hand and the countercultural opportunities it produces on the other.

As prison radio is a non-profit, socially-motivated media that focuses on the voices, representations and empowerment of a marginalised and disenfranchised group, the understanding of it is informed by discussion of alternative, activist, citizens’, and community radio theory. In addition, partnership working with both the Prison Service and the BBC connects the development of the PRA to the changing role and function of institutional, mainstream media. Developing through the late 1990s and early 2000s in the UK, the convergence of two themes within the non-commercial media sector impacted on the establishment of the PRA:

• • An increasingly regulated, formalised and professionalised community radio sector, repositioned as a public service with a specified community development remit.

• • An increasingly deregulated, managerialised and marketised public service broadcasting (PSB) sector, struggling to redefine and justify its role through a reinvigorated focus on community engagement.