Student radio stations in the Siberian Federal District: editorial and program policies

Nowadays a lot of Russian universities have their own student radio stations. According to various sources there are from 20 to 30 such stations. The aim of this work is to describe them in the Universities of Siberian Federal District, represent and characterize their editorial and program policies. The content and means of expression of radio programs, the broadcast, statutory documents and station pages in social networks and their websites, are the empiric material of our research. A questionnaire survey and expert interviews with the heads of radio stations were conducted in order to find information about the editorial policy. They often confuse "student media" with "university media" or even "department media", but these definitions should not be seen as synonyms. Radio stations which are taken as objects in this research are student radio stations. That means that the role of university staff is minimized, also these stations are not considered as an educational facility of journalism departments. During the preliminary stage of our work we found that student radio stations worked in six universities of five cities in the Siberian Federal District. This research shows the stages of the station creation from the emergence of the idea to the development of the working plan. Student editorial offices have from 9 to 26 members. Student radio stations have one or several channels of distribution: their own website and/or their own page in "VKon-takte" social network and/or university canteens. All radio stations have solved the problem of funding differently: with the help of university or department administration, national or municipal grants. All radio stations avoid programs that are somehow connected with politics; we have found that the editorial policy is not written anywhere. Analysis of the programs shows that informational and analytical genres of broadcast journalism dominate. Amid informational genres, news, reportage, interview and report are popular. Amid analytical genres, interview, discussion, review and preview are popular. They were found at all radio stations; mostly they are dedicated to films or music. Amid documentary and art programs, there are composition, performance and story. Informational, musical and entertaining programs take one-third of the broadcast of student radio stations each. Student staff of such radio stations tries to make the content of a good quality using all radio's means of expression. In general, creating programs in order to self-express, spending time with adherents and experience of work management are distinctive features of student radio stations which influence their content in theme and genre aspects.

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