Communication Theory ISSN 1050-3293

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place:

Revisiting Localism for the Digital Age
Christopher Ali
Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Local broadcasting is at a crossroads in Western media systems. While regulators work to

address emergent challenges, an enduring tension within the discourse of local media regu-
lation remains how to define “the local.” Stemming from the inability to meet this challenge,
an artificial duality has emerged between communities of place and communities of inter-
est within regulatory discussions. The larger epistemological question, therefore, remains
undertheorized: How can we think through these issues in a productive fashion, rather
than reducing them to an artificial dichotomy of spatial versus social? Through the use of
illustrative instances from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, I argue that the
neo-Marxian theory of critical regionalism is a useful framework to approach this question.

Keywords: Localism, Local Television, Critical Regionalism, Media Policy, Media Regulation,
Ofcom, CRTC, FCC.

doi:10.1111/comt.12091

This is a time of uncertainty for local broadcasting in what Collins (1990) calls the
“North Atlantic triangle” (Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom).1
Local television journalism has declined, nonnews programming is largely absent,
and in some cases local television stations have closed completely. The economic sus-
tainability of local broadcasting has been challenged both by the global recession and
by digital distribution, which brings with it audience fragmentation, advertiser grav-
itation, and user-generated content (Canada, 2009; Ofcom, 2009a; Waldman, 2011).
While regulators and policymakers struggle to address these structural and cycli-
cal challenges, most notably in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada where
they are particularly acute, an enduring tension within the discourse of local media
policy has been left unexamined: how to define “the local.” “What is local?” “Who is
local?” and “Where is local?” all represent questions encountered by regulators, but
seldom discussed. Put differently, what does it mean to be local within the parameters
of media policy and regulation in the digital age?
Historically, regulators have relied on a place-based definition of the local from
which to base regulations for local television—the primary vehicle for local news and

Corresponding author: Christopher Ali; e-mail: cali@virginia.edu

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C. Ali Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place

information, even today (Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2011). The local is
a city, a town, or village; it is a place on a map. This has meant assigning a television sta-
tion to individual localities through the assignment of a transmitter, a license, and the
use of spectrum. Through these actions, the station was to provide an outlet for local
expression and reflect the meaning of these places (Anderson & Curtin, 1999). Broad-
cast signals, however, have never respected political boundaries, although they can be
confined through transmitter power allotments (Anderson & Curtin, 1999). Digital
media, or what Wilken (2011) calls “teletechnologies,” on the other hand, pull us even
further from the comfort of geographically defined places, creating a condition of “no
sense of place” (Meyrowitz, 1985). The neoliberal reflux within the global political
economy has further accelerated a “time-space compression” (Harvey, 1989), engen-
dering the “space of flows” of capital, texts, and mobility, and diminishing the “space
of place” to which the human condition has been tethered for generations (Castells,
1996; Entrikin, 1991). These challenges have important and immediate consequences
when it comes to the regulation of the broadcasting industry more generally and local
news in particular. Is local news, for instance, specific to an immediate geographic
locality? Is it news that is of interest to the local population? Or is it news produced
within the locality? In other words, what should “count” as local?2 These are seminal
questions when determining the informational and communicatory needs of Ameri-
can, Canadian, and British communities. Localism in media policy has not been able
to keep up with these changes in social relationships, technology, and community
formation (Braman, 2007). By evading these issues, regulators miss an opportunity to
bring this foundational policy principle in to the 21st century.
We need ways to think through these issues, rather than reduce them to artifi-
cial and ultimately reductive dichotomies of “social localism”—defining localism in
terms of common interests and tastes—and “spatial localism”—defining localism in
terms of where we live—or leaving the market to decide. In sum, what is missing
from regulation is a deeper engagement with the ideas of localism and community.
Using examples from a larger study on local television regulation in the United States,
United Kingdom, and Canada (Ali, 2013), I propose that the theory of critical region-
alism (Frampton, 1983, 1985) is a useful theoretical lens from which to address these
challenges. Developed within neo-Marxian architectural theory, critical regionalism
recognizes the importance of geographically defined places, but avoids reductionism
by taking into account social relationships and the influences of globalization and
capitalism. Critical regionalism forces an interrogation of localism that goes beyond
place to include elements of culture, identity, and language. Rather than treating these
elements as “add-ons” or “alternatives” to physical dimensions of the local, critical
regionalism insists on their inclusion, even when this complicates existing under-
standings.
Critical regionalism is a useful tool for scholars and regulators to build concep-
tual bridges across the spatial/social duality, and to identify those instances within
regulatory discourse where such bridges already exist and can be reintroduced. This

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Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place C. Ali

latter task is vital because it demonstrates that there are “moments of critical region-
alism,” policy windows where the definition of the local is up for interpretation, and
where the local is understood not as a static, homogenous, market-based site, but
rather as a process constructed through negotiation. Such an understanding can assist
media policy scholars and regulators to craft more robust local media policy frame-
works.
I begin this article by defining localism generally, and then specifically in the con-
texts of the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. Drawing from critical geog-
raphy, I then discuss the tensions of what I call “communities of place” and “commu-
nities of interest” (i.e., spatial and social localism). I turn next to illustrative instances
to demonstrate how critical regionalism helps us think about localism and develop
meaningful interventions.

Localism defined
Until recently, “localism” was a term employed exclusively in the American policy
milieu. In the past few years, however, the term has gravitated to the United King-
dom, where regulators now speak of localism and “localness.” In Canada, however,
it has yet to gain purchase. Semantics aside, the U.S. Federal Communications Com-
mission (FCC), the British Office of Communications (Ofcom), and the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) have each vocalized
support for the ideals engendered by the concept of localism and the normative role
of local media. While there is no official definition of localism, it can be understood
as a commitment by broadcasters to “local operations, local research, local manage-
ment, locally originated programming, local artists and local news and events” (Local
Community Radio Act of 2005, in Dunbar-Hestor, 2014, p. 142). Conversationally,
Commissioners from the FCC have said that localism requires:
responsiveness of a broadcast station to the needs and interests of the
communities of license … Every community has local news, local elections,
local talent, and local culture … Localism doesn’t just mean just giving
promotional air time or fundraising opportunities to local charitable
organizations. It means providing opportunities for local self-expression. It
means reaching out, developing and promoting local talent, local artists, local
musicians. (Adelstein, in FCC, 2004, p. 7)
In sum, localism can be defined as the belief that broadcasters should be responsive
to the local geographic communities to which they are licensed (“the community of
license”). This generally includes the airing of community-responsive programming,
particularly local news and information programming, and being engaged with the
local community (Napoli, 2001).
Localism is framed as the “bedrock,” “cornerstone,” and “building block” of West-
ern broadcasting, particularly in the United States and Canada (Cole & Murck, 2007;
CRTC, 2008a). In the United Kingdom, where local television has been limited, its

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C. Ali Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place

absence has been called “the biggest gap in British broadcasting … because, ironi-
cally, in an age of globalism, people feel the need for stronger not weaker connections
to the communities in which they live” (Hunt, 2010, np). Underscored by this quote
from the United Kingdom’s former Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt, localism rests on
a belief in the salience of place-based communities, predicated on an understanding
that, “local communities and nations continue to define their selves and their aspi-
rations within territorial parameters” (Cowling, 2005, p. 354). Localism brings with
it persuasive assumptions of democracy and civic participation where local media
facilitate dialogue and deliberation, what Friedland (2001) calls a “communicatively
integrated community.” Local television stations have been thought of as essential in
fostering these goals, particularly through the provision of local news. It is not for
naught that the CRTC should contend: “Local media help to shape Canadian’s views
and to equip them to be active participants in the democratic life of the country”
(2008a, para. 57).
Over time, the belief in the relevance and resonance of place-based localities (or
“communities of place”) manifested in specific regulations such as local ownership,3
the location of the studio,4 local programming quotas,5 and community dialogue.6
Despite these repeated attempts at regulation, however, localism has generally had a
“disappointing career” in American, British, and Canadian broadcasting policy and
practice (Kirkpatrick, 2006, p. 11). One shared point of frustration has been the inabil-
ity to identify what constitutes local programming.
Local programming, particularly local news, has proven particularly difficult for
regulators. Like localism itself, local programming can be characterized as either
“place-based” (“point-of-origin”) or “content-based”/“content-oriented” (Napoli,
2001; Smallwood & Moon, 2011). As Smallwood and Moon (2011) describe, the
former is geographically based, whereby programming is expected to be “produced
and presented within the local community” (p. 39). Alternatively, content-based local
programming “shifts the emphasis from the production source to the nature of the
program’s content” (p. 39). Indeed, a lot of nonlocally produced content can be as rel-
evant to a community as locally produced content, something the FCC recognized in
1986. Commercial broadcasters in the United States argue this point repeatedly (NAB,
2008). Nonetheless, regulators typically default to geographical alignment. In Canada,
a local program is defined as “Programming produced by local stations with local
personnel or programming produced by locally-based independent producers that
reflects the particular needs and interests of the market’s residents” (CRTC, 2009, para.
43). While in the United Kingdom, local television stations are required to document
how much programming is produced within the community of license (Ofcom, 2012).
The difficulties of defining a local program illustrate the larger division between
what Braman (2007) calls the “real” and the “ideal” conceptualizations of media local-
ism, wherein regulators invoke ideas of democracy and participation facilitated by
media localism, but fail to enact operational policies to support these normative val-
ues. As Braman argues, without better understanding of these issues, we cannot hope
to address the specific operational issues of localism, particularly those of technology,

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Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place C. Ali

infrastructure, funding, programming, and news. To delve deeper in to these issues

and to probe this seam between the ideal and the real, I turn next to how localism has
been operationalized both in media policy and in the wider political economy of the
United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. 7

American localism
Localism has a special place within American media policy, tied as it is not only to
broadcast regulation but aslo to a distinctly American ethos of decentralized govern-
ment and individual responsibility (Napoli, 2001). Localism also has strong ties to
the idea of the community as a geographic entity and as the incubator for local val-
ues, culture, and tradition (Napoli, 2001). Localism is therefore a “value … deeply
embedded in the American legal and political culture” dating back to Jefferson’s little
republics (Briffault, 1990a, p. 1; Briffault, 1990b). The U.S. census—the first systematic
census among modern nation states—for example, is fundamentally a local exercise
for national benefit as everything from the appropriation of seats in the House of Rep-
resentatives, to taxation is based on the census of local populations (Anderson, 1988).
With these beliefs cemented in American political consciousness, the introduction of
radio and the 1927 Radio Act saw broadcast licenses awarded on a local, rather than
national or centralized basis. When television was introduced in the late 1940s, this
local tradition continued.
Many have noted the difficulties the FCC has faced when attempting to enact
localism policies (Braman, 2007; Cole & Murck, 2007; Napoli, 2001). Cole and
Murck (2007) have even gone so far as to call it the “myth of the localism mandate.”
The Commission is forbidden, for instance, from mandating local program quotas
because it would violate the First Amendment rights of broadcasters. Silverman and
Tobenkin (2001), moreover, critique the FCC’s “Main Station Rule” for its assumption
that simply having a station located within the political boundaries of the community
of license would foster greater local production and reflection.
Two additional challenges plagued the history of localism. First is the difficulty of
enforcing geographic parameters on a natural resource (spectrum) and a technology
(broadcasting), neither of which is beholden to geography. As Anderson and Curtin
(1999) contend:
Because of its internal contradictions … localism has been virtually impossible
to enforce in actual cases; it simply cannot account for the diversity of modern
societies or for the external forces that integrate local communities into much
larger economic and communications networks. In particular, the principle of
localism doesn’t adequately account for the media’s own role in blurring the
boundaries of social space. (p. 294)
Communities are too complex, and media too porous to fulfill the ideal promise
of localism. Second, the ideal of localism never accounted for the market, particularly
networking, and rested only on “a vague, progressive, almost Jeffersonian vision of a

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C. Ali Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place

democratically communicating local community” (Horwitz, 1989, p. 186). Illustrat-

ing this point, the FCC has recently changed the way it defines a local community.
Rather than use the signal reach of television stations (“Grade B contours”), local
communities are defined using the Nielsen Company’s “Designated Market Area”
(DMA). DMAs have larger geographic footprints than Grade B contours, tend to favor
major markets, and subsume neighboring communities into a single advertising mar-
ket (Goldfarb, 2005). Despite decades of deregulation and market fundamentalism,
however, vestiges of localism do still exist. Cable operators, for instance, are required
to carry local stations, or to negotiate with them for compensation in order to dis-
tribute their signal. They also must provide public access channels upon request of
individual municipalities.

Canadian localism
The association between broadcast localism and political localism is less apparent in
Canada, where concerns for nationalism and to a lesser extent regionalism have long
taken precedence (Brodie, 1990; Friesen, 2001). Localism has often been eclipsed by
the nation-building agenda of Canadian governments, particularly in the domains
of culture and communication (Tinic, 2005). In broadcasting, Canadian communi-
cation policy has been marked by protectionism and nationalism based largely on
the threat of American cultural imperialism (Raboy, 1990). This encouraged a policy
doctrine of what Charland (1986) calls “technological nationalism”—the use of com-
munication and transportation technologies to foster national identity. This has been
clear since the first comprehensive assessment of broadcasting—the Aird Report of
1929—which recommend that Canadian broadcasting mimic the nationally oriented
public system of the United Kingdom, rather than the localized and commercial sys-
tem of the United States (Raboy, 1990). While today the broadcast system is made
up of American-style national networks and locally licensed affiliates, it was then
agreed that Canadian broadcasting would serve the purpose of creating, maintain-
ing, and reifying a Canadian national identity (Raboy, 1990). Even now broadcasters
are required to adhere to Canadian Content regulations (60% from 6 am-midnight,
50% from midnight-6 am) (Armstrong, 2010). Like the United States, cable providers
are also subject to “must carry” regulations, requiring them to carry the signals of all
stations in a local market. Cable companies also provide for community programming
through community television channels (Armstrong, 2010). Broadcasters must also
adhere to minimum requirements for local news (Canada, 2009). Despite these com-
mitments, however, the introduction of the 1991 Broadcasting Act kicked off decades
of deregulation, particularly regarding corporate consolidation. Today, four of the
largest telecommunication operators (Bell, Shaw, Rogers, and Quebecor) own four
of the largest broadcasters (CTV, Global, Citytv, TVA).

British Localism
The United Kingdom has historically possessed a highly centralized system of gov-
ernance, and mirroring this, a highly centralized broadcasting system (Crisell, 1997;

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Hewson, 2005). It is only in the past decade that localism has come to the fore. An
impetus for this has been the “Big Society” project—the cornerstone of the Conser-
vative Party’s 2010 election campaign (Pattie & Johnston, 2011; Westwood, 2011). The
“Big Society” refers to the decentralization of federal programs and a plan for greater
citizen responsibility (Pattie & Johnston, 2011). One outcome of this movement was
the 2011 Localism Act, which transferred certain federal powers to municipal govern-
ments. While some have rightly critiqued the Big Society as a veiled attempt toward
further abandonment of the welfare state (Tam, 2011), an interesting consequence
was a renewed focus on media localism through the systematic establishment of local
television throughout the country.
Despite the launch of the local television system in 2013, however, the history
of British broadcasting is synonymous with the history of the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) and media policy scholars seldom recall the history of local broad-
casting. Like the United States and Canada, broadcasting began with a handful of local
radio stations (Crisell, 1997). During the 1920s, these were quickly consolidated first
into the British Broadcasting Company and then in 1927 into the BBC. John Reith,
founder of the BBC, pushed hard for the network to articulate a single national voice
and agenda, which had the effect of eviscerating local radio (Crisell, 1997). Television
was introduced in the 1930s, but only gained traction after the Second World War
under the purview of the BBC and funded through a yearly tax on receiver ownership.
In 1955, the advertising-supported ITV network came about by an act of parliament
the previous year, and was to consist of a federation of regional stations (Johnson &
Turnock, 2005). Despite its regional composition, however, little was actually regional
about ITV. “The regional structure of the ITV franchises,” write Johnson and Turnock
(2005), “was largely based on the location of transmitters, rather than on the assess-
ment of cultural regions” (p. 20). This would be the closest the United Kingdom would
come to a system of local television in the 20th century. Today, ITV is petitioning to
have its regional programming commitments paired down, citing economic hard-
ship. It also merged several of its regional newscasts in England in 2009 to maximize
efficiency. In the process, however, ITV expanded the geographic footprints of many
regions, suggesting that certain regions may now be receiving less localized news than
before (Ofcom, 2009b).
An important commonality across these jurisdictions is the lack of a coherent local
media policy framework. This is certainly true when we consider the overall failure to
integrate community television within larger frameworks of localism—a shortcoming
that will be returned to later. Localism as a distinctly place-based concept, moreover,
is withering, replaced by market designations, nondescript regional zones, and online
distribution. Because of the historical developments described above, coupled with
the recent trends of market fundamentalism and deregulation, regulators have been
unable to come to a conclusion or even enter into debate regarding what I call “the
epistemological question of the local”: how we define localism from both a spatial and
social perspective. This absence has only exacerbated the gap between the real and the
ideal versions of localism.

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The epistemological question of the local

The point-of-origin and content-based iterations of local programming can also be
labeled as the “spatial” and “social” dimensions of localism, respectively (Napoli,
2001; Stavitsky, 1994). Drawing on Hewson’s (2005) differentiation between “com-
munities of interest” and “communities of practice,” these can also be mapped on
to what I call “communities of interest” and “communities of place.” Communities
of place—the spatial iteration of localism—have been privileged in regulatory
discourse, albeit in ways that rely on taken-for-granted assumptions rather than
critical interrogation. While all three communities of regulators continue to rely
on a geographically based definition, primary identification with one’s territorial
community is disrupted by increased mobility, the proliferation of digital media,
and global flows of text and capital, which have long violated our taken-for-granted
assumptions about geographic places (Dirlik, 1996; Harvey, 1989; Massey, 1992).
Drawing on Rheingold (1993), for instance, Wilken (2011) writes of the growth of
“virtual communities” that have mobilized around social media and digital networks,
and which have garnered increased attention as communities of interest and taste.
Some insist that these communities are more closely aligned with our social existence,
than the physical ones (Stavitsky, 1994).8
Advanced capitalism, as David Harvey (1989) reminds us, further intensifies the
disassociation from places. According to Harvey, capitalism has fundamentally altered
our relationship to the local and to geography. By accelerating and intensifying the
speed at which business is conducted, messages are sent, and distances overcome,
advanced capitalism, and more recently, neoliberalism (defined as a belief in dereg-
ulation, corporate rights, capital accumulation, and individualism) has resulted in a
“time-space compression” of our everyday lives. In later work, Harvey (2005, 2013)
argues that neoliberalism has unevenly reshaped modern geography by concentrating
wealth in geographic enclaves, and exploiting other localities. The local has become
an empty signifier to be filled by revolutionary ideals or neoliberal ideologies (see
Harvey, 2013).
Such arguments compel many to ask whether localism-as-media-policy was ever
a feasible concept (Anderson & Curtin, 1999; Cole & Murck, 2007), to revisit its his-
torical underpinnings (Cole & Murck, 2007; Kirkpatrick, 2006), to argue that medi-
ated communication inherently transcend and extend place and space (Anderson &
Curtin, 1999), to question whether it should be parsed between social and spatial
(Napoli, 2001), and to ask if it is time to do away with the spatial concept altogether
(Crisell & Starkey, 2006; Napoli, 2001; Stavitsky, 1994). Stavitsky (1994), for instance,
contends that “communities … mobilize in terms of commonality of taste rather than
commonality of place of residence” (p. 8). He argues for a purposive shift away from
spatial localism and toward “a social conception” (p. 8). Stavitsky and others who
advocate for “social localism,” however, fail to define this term adequately, thus falling
prey to another layer of regulatory ambiguity. For instance, would ethnic, indigenous,
minority, or diasporic media be part of this paradigm? Specifically, would channels

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that address ethnolinguistic groups such as Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples Television

Network (APTN), America’s Univision, or the United Kingdom’s S4C, be included in
social localism?
In contrast, others argue that “place still matters” both in theory and practice
(Escobar, 2003; Kirkpatrick, 2006; Tinic, 2005). Westwood (2011) articulates these
changes succinctly: “it is clear that the concept of community is changing” given the
increased attention to “communities of practice,” and increased mobility for jobs and
residences (p. 693). “Nonetheless,” he contends, “the geographic, indeed local, ele-
ment cannot be overlooked” (p. 693). Casey (1998) is more forceful:
Place is as requisite as the air we breathe, the ground on which we stand, the
bodies we have. We are surrounded by places. We walk over and through them.
We live in places, relate to others in them, die in them. Nothing we do is
unplaced. How could it be otherwise? How could we fail to recognize this primal
fact? (p. ix)
Howley (2005, 2010) points to community media to undergird the importance of
places to the human condition. It can be argued that community broadcasting is the
epitome of localism; the most local of any local media. He demonstrates how com-
munity media are vehicles to disrupt the hegemony of mainstream media, to foster
place-based relationships and identities, and are “a dynamic response to forces of glob-
alization” (2005, p. 33). Community media are what connect the local to the global,
without sacrificing local identity. In sum, Howley sees community media as the solu-
tion to the trichotomy of place, space, and media. The problem is that media policy
often neglects community media or, more recently, has actively worked against these
practices, particularly in Canada and the United States (Ali, 2012).
Like Howley, Braman (2007) looks for solutions to navigate the tensions between
the ideal and the real in localism. She argues that more sociological research is
needed to understand the way communities actually function and interact with local
media. Incorporating these dual conceptualizations of the social and spatial, Napoli
(2001) argues for hybrid localism policies, recognizing that the spatial dimension will
continue because our social, political, and cultural institutions are tied to geographic
localities but acknowledging as well that “social conceptualizations” need to be
included (p. 223). Like Stavitsky, however, Napoli’s social conceptualizations remain
undertheorized. Nevertheless, it suggests that this is not a zero-sum game of spatial
versus social but rather highlights the need for workable solutions.
We are left, therefore, with definitional, conceptual, and operational challenges
with respect to local media policy in the 21st century. Taken in isolation, both
perspectives—spatial and social—are inherently incomplete as they seek to reduce
the local to something impossibly fundamental and homogenous—an essential cul-
ture, language, place, or market. To begin to think productively across this dichotomy,
we need to distance ourselves from the nostalgic impressions we hold of the local as
an idyllic and homogenous community, and “overcome the deep skepticism that sees
the electronic media as inherently destructive of local identities” (Anderson & Curtin,

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C. Ali Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place

1999, p. 302). Freedman (2014) calls the absence of such critical contemplation a
“policy silence,” indicating the road not taken by regulators. Policies need to be
crafted that recognize the importance of spatial localism, social localism, and their
intersections. This may lead to more robust frameworks for local media in the public
interest. One way to think productively across this artificial separation is through
theory of critical regionalism (Frampton, 1983, 1985).

Critical regionalism
Critical regionalism is most frequently associated with an influential 1983 article
written by Neo-Marxist architectural theorist Kenneth Frampton. Frampton was in
search of a theory that would focus on the creation of places, rather than the place-
lessness engendered within advanced capitalism. At the heart of Frampton’s thesis lies
a critique of capitalism and globalization centered on geographic places. He critiques
advanced capitalism for its propensity toward uneven geographic development, stan-
dardization (“universalization”), and for pulling us away from particular places. The
growth of capitalism, for instance, is paralleled in the growth of the Megalopolis and
the “victory of universal civilization over locally inflected culture” (1985, p. 17). His
response, however, is not to isolate the local, as some local enthusiasts might propose
(e.g., Shuman, 1998), but rather to engage in a critical rebuilding of place—a critical
regionalism. His theory is dialectic, as Frampton understands well the relationship
between the global and the local—one cannot exist without the other, and yet, one
is in conflict with the other. For Frampton, critical regionalism is necessary “to
mediate the impact of universal civisilisation with elements derived indirectly from
the peculiarities of a particular place” (1985, p. 21). The local and the global must be
understood as mutually constitutive (Morley & Robins, 1995).
Tinic (2005) suggests that critical regionalism is well suited “for the study of Cana-
dian culture and communication” (p. 15). Powell (2007), moreover, extends Framp-
ton’s work to critical cultural studies and uses it to undergird his research on the
discursive construction of the Appalachian region. Powell concentrates on the con-
struction of places and regions, but argues that, “Simply talking about place – or, more
specifically, ‘the local’ – is not enough” (p. 18). Instead, the complexities of a “sense
of place” emerge “by looking at those features of a place that seem, at least superfi-
cially, to be the permanent stable markers of its identity” (p. 14). There is recognition
of the importance of place, but one that does not cater to reductionism. Places are
constructed through history, actions, viewpoints, contexts, and discourses. In doing
so, Powell also tempers Frampton’s original framing of critical regionalism as dialec-
tical. Instead, he positions critical regionalism as a dialogue between the local and the
global, and between geography and social relationships. As Powell (2007) continues:
Places are not things to be found out there in the world; they are ideas about
spaces that are constructed by people, in acts of observation and interpretation,
and more durably in writing, in visual arts, in the built environment. Places
come to seem like things because over time multiple interpretations and

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representations begin to coalesce around specific spaces, building on each other

in ways both convivial and agonistic. (p. 67)
Broadening these perspectives, I argue that critical regionalism is useful for critical
scholarship on media localism as it addresses the artificial duality between place and
space, the spatial and the social, or the local and the global, and suggests that local
identities are constructed from multiple discourses.
Two adjacent theoretical tracts—both called translocalism—help elucidate this
proposal for media studies, as they take the local as a starting point for media analysis.
Carpentier (2008) argues for a translocal approach to community media, contending,
“The translocal allows us to think [sic] the ways the local moves beyond locality, with-
out reducing the weight of the local in its definition” (p. 22). This is accomplished by
using the local as a point of departure to understand how local media enter into dia-
logue with other localities. Carpentier’s translocalism is particularly apt for studying
community media, which sits at many of the seams in the relationships between local
and global, practice and consumption, mainstream and alternative. Calabrese’s (2001)
translocalism similarly stresses the communication and mobility between localities.
His version argues that translocalism is germane to the evaluation of localism in com-
munications policy as it distances localism from its parochial past and enters it into
a dialogue within and outside specific geographic locales. These theoretical models
attest to the ongoing importance of media localism in communications policy and
practice, and to the ongoing relevance of localities, places, and geographically based
communities. They also caution that to base regulation solely on these parameters is
insufficient, and a more holistic approach is warranted because communities are not
hermetically sealed entities, but are instead constantly engaged in a dialogic relation-
ship with other localities and global flows of media and capital. Localities and places
are as much about the social relationships within them as they are spatial proximities
that confine them (Entrikin, 1991; Massey, 1992).
Critical regionalism is best thought of as a mindset or an approach rather
than an empirically testable theory. Powell (2007) calls it the “practice of critical
regionalism,” which is an apt description for it reminds the reader of its utilitarian
etymology—from architecture—and suggests that critical regionalism is a tool to
help us achieve a goal. In this regard, critical regionalism carries with it normative
implications, understanding that “it matters not only how the map is drawn, but
also who is drawing it and why” (Powell, 2007, p. 7, emphasis added). In other
words, critical regionalism exposes the taken-for-granted assumptions and power
dynamics engendered within the discursive construction of the local. In doing so,
it encourages us to locate and propose regulatory interventions that do not equate
the local with a commercial market (as regulators in the United States, United
Kingdom, and Canada currently do), but rather to situate the local within a broader
social totality.
A conceptual approach based on critical regionalism also helps identify and
examine alternatives to the status quo. By status quo, I refer to the entrenchment

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C. Ali Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place

of neoliberalism, market fundamentalism, deregulation, light-touch regulatory

oversight, the evacuation of the public interest, and a refusal by regulators to critically
and systematically examine what local media are and mean (Harvey, 2005; McCh-
esney, 1995) As Herr (1996) notes, one of critical regionalism’s primary interests
is locating and “celebrating alternative narratives, disseminate alternative modes of
jouissance [and] perform alternative organizations of socioeconomic life” (p. 24).
Alternatives to the status quo, such as recognizing the existence of communities of
interest within communities of place, are necessary because the local is a complex
and mercurial target and cannot be harnessed by static definitions or reductive
assumptions. The usefulness of critical regionalism for media policy analysis, then,
is to help better understand the relationship between local media, community, and
places, and to argue that the local need not come down to an either/or question of
communities of interest or communities of place.
Critical regionalism in media policy analysis encourages a holistic approach to
the local, rather than reducing it to a homogeneous site of consumption (e.g., a tele-
vision market). It encourages us to seek out alternatives to the status quo of market
fundamentalism and deregulation. Using it as a conceptual foundation, we can ask
of policy and regulatory documents: Where are those situations in which alternative
definitions of the local are being proposed? What are examples of when the spatial
and social dichotomy is being bridged? Who is proposing these solutions? And how
are they reflective of a critical regionalist approach?
As theorists of media policy and regulation, critical regionalism can help us
(a) better understand the supposed antagonism between communities of place and
communities of interest; (b) offer a bridge between these two discursive positions
by recognizing the role that communities of interest play within communities of
place, and; (c) identify those moments within the discourse of media regulation
where such solutions have already been proposed, but have been pushed to the
periphery. Moments of critical regionalism occur when regulators are presented with
alternatives, question taken-for-granted assumptions, consider a move away from
static definitions, and seek nuance and complexity rather than status quo simplicity.
These moments help us to understand that there have been periodic moments when
regulators have had the opportunity to rethink their concepts and thereby engage in
a more complex way with the substance of the local, but that they have failed to do so
because it might entail challenging a preferred understanding of our contemporary
media systems.
Drawn from recent policy initiatives in the United States, United Kingdom, and
Canada (see Ali, 2013), three sets of examples demonstrate how critical regionalism is
an appropriate approach to seek out workable alternatives that may not have been fully
considered by regulators during their initial proposal. These examples not only illus-
trate that alternatives exist, but also highlight the multistakeholder approach deemed
essential to contemporary policymaking (Lunt & Livingstone, 2011). Unfortunately,
these moments tend to exist only on the periphery of regulatory discourse and
conversations.

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Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place C. Ali

The moments of critical regionalism

Thinking about critical regionalism as moments is important for two reasons. First
it demonstrates that the application of an alternative theoretical lens is not merely
an academic exercise but rather a pragmatic approach that emphasizes alternatives
to the static and reductive definitions of the local. Second, it reminds us that media
policymaking is an imperfect process. Critical policy research should not be about
determining if policy decisions are critical regionalist or not, but rather should place
them on a continuum, and look for moments of alternative imaginings. Learning
from Lowrey, Brozana, and Mackay’s (2008) assessment of community journalism and
mainstream news, critical regionalism should be thought of as a “continuing effort
rather than a static goal” when it comes to identifying its appearance within media
policy (p. 288).
Three instances may be regarded as templates for identifying critical regional
moments. The first is when regulators push the discursive boundaries of the local.
The second is when they think about communities of interest within communities
of geography. The third is when regulators consider more inclusive definitions of the
local, such as the alignment of localism and language. These do not necessarily have
to lead to concrete policy actions, but rather underscore more inclusive, complex,
nuanced, and even more progressive ways to understand the local in communications
policy.

Discursive alternatives
The strongest alternative readings of the local come when definitional boundaries
are challenged. Ofcom has been a prolific actor in this regard, with several notable
attempts to understand the local in regulation, the media system, and UK society more
broadly. The 2006 Digital Local report represents the hallmark of localist thought at
Ofcom, as it interrogated the local from multiple vantage points. At one point, Ofcom
even questioned whether the place-based definition of the local was the appropri-
ate target for regulatory intervention, or if communities of interest would be better
suited:
It has been argued … that information and communication technologies have
weakened people’s ties to shared localities, by providing access to global
information and media, enabling larger and more dispersed groups to
communicate and facilitating the development of services to niche communities
that are not bound by geographical location or proximity to the service provider
… We may have as much in common with somebody at the end of a telephone
line in a different continent, as we do with our nextdoor neighbour, if not more.
(2006, p. 10)
While acknowledging the rise of this social localism, Ofcom was not content to
rely on taken-for-granted assumptions of either communities of interest or commu-
nities of place. Instead the regulator engaged in an epistemological debate. While
eventually settling on the belief that “‘[geographically] local’ still does matter,” Ofcom

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C. Ali Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place

(2006) acknowledged the complexity of defining the local for regulatory purposes: “In
practice, ‘locality’ is a multilayered concept, which means different things in different
places, and to the same person at different times” (p. 22).
Despite this important acknowledgement of the contextual nature of the local, it
must still be narrowed to avoid regulatory ambiguity and be operationalized in policy.
While raising the issue for different ideological reasons (deregulation), this was the
position of commercial broadcasters in the United States, who, through various filings
to the FCC argued that ambiguity in terms like “local” and “local news” only serve to
weaken and confuse the regulatory landscape. Argued the National Association of
Broadcasters (NAB) (2008):
The lack of a workable and consistent definition for ‘local’ … undermines the
entire regulatory regime that the Commission is attempting to implement. The
uncertainty created by this failure will leave the agency, the public and
broadcasters mired in regulatory uncertainty for years. (pp. 9–10)
While it was in the NAB’s economic interests for the FCC to refrain from propos-
ing more stringent definitions (and therefore more stringent regulation), the organi-
zation is correct to argue that regulators cannot employ these terms without a more
concrete discussion about their meaning and impact.
A Canadian example echoes the importance of reducing ambiguity. The 2003 “Lin-
coln Report” recognized the complexities of defining community, local, and regional
for Canadians and the CRTC. At one point in its voluminous 900-pages, this report
poignantly observed, “one’s person’s regional can be someone else’s local, regional
or provincial; and, depending on one’s location, it can be all three” (Canada, 2003,
p. 356). This subjectivity has significant implications for the regulation of local broad-
casting, and the CRTC was chastised for failing to take this into account when drafting
what the Lincoln Report considered poorly considered and overly complex regulation.
Part of the solution to the impasse of localism, therefore, lies in the acknowl-
edgement that previous taken-for-granted assumptions of the local are insufficient.
The FCC, CRTC, and Ofcom, have each been confronted with questions, either from
within, or by outside commentators about the definition of the local, particularly local
news. The very act of asking these questions is exemplary of alternatives to the status
quo. The FCC, for instance, has asked on a handful occasions if its approach to local-
ism requires revisiting in light of changes in technology and social behavior (see FCC,
2008). Ofcom early on contemplated “what geographical units would make most sense
… if we were starting to develop regional programming from scratch?” (Ofcom, 2004,
p. 48). In asking these questions, regulators implicitly invite responses from numerous
stakeholders, rather than just those who have commercial or regulatory interests in a
given proceeding. They make available the possibility of alternatives to long-standing
and outmoded assumptions of the local. The challenge for scholars is to get regulators
to follow up on these questions, pay more attention to the peripheral conversations,
and integrate them into regulation.

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Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place C. Ali

Community media
While situated on the periphery of regulatory discourse, community media advocates
frequently attest that place still matters in the production of media content (Howley,
2010). The “community media center” has become a focal point in these arguments,
as a physical place for gathering, community building, and skill development. Bring-
ing community media into conversations about localism adds complexity to these
positions, and serves to illustrate “the definitional ambiguities and inconsistencies
inherent in the existing uses of the terms community, local and regional” (Canada,
2003, p. 362). The United Kingdom has again been the leader in these discussions,
passing legislation that directly acknowledges the complex and heterogeneous nature
of the local. As the 2004 Community Radio Order noted, a community can consist of:

1 the persons who live or work or undergo education or training in a particular area
or locality, or
2 persons who (whether or not they fall within paragraph (a)) have one or more inter-
est or characteristics in common. (UK, 2004, §2(1))

This definition recognizes both communities of interest and communities of place,

and communities of interest within communities of place. With this succinct defi-
nition, it bridges the spatial/social divide that has stymied other regulators. It also
recognizes the mobility inherent in these communities and allows for the inescapable
truism that human beings continue to live their lives around and within places (Casey,
1998; Entrikin, 1991). Outside policymakers and regulators would do well to study
the applicability of the Community Radio Order because it recognizes that the local is
both geographically determined in terms of scope and socially determined in terms
of depth; a critical regional moment of localism.
Canada and the United States have at times demonstrated a willingness to engage
such considerations. In the United States, the Congressional Research Service dis-
cussed the difficulties of defining local communities based on commercial markets
(Designated Market Areas), rather than political or cultural conurbations (Goldfarb,
2005). Similarly, the Brennan Center (Brennan Center for Justice, 2004) proposed a
definition of localism that took into account both the salience of place and the need
to understand that communities of place are not homogeneous markets, but rather
heterogeneous social ecosystems. It noted, “The [FCC] has long equated localism
with broadcast markets. But as these markets expand through increased power
levels and other technological advances, the needs of local communities get lost”
(pp. 9–10). To address this liberalization, it suggested, “Assign[ing] more broadcast
licenses to nonprofit, independent media that serve the needs and interests of diverse
social, economic, ethnic, and racial groups within local communities” (p. v). This
recognizes the salience of place-based communities (predicated upon political or
cultural, not market parameters) and that diversity exists below the surface of the
local. Paralleling the Brennan Center, Canada’s Lincoln Report recommended the

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C. Ali Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place

creation of a unified local media policy that would take into account such ele-
ments as ethnic media, community media, and minority-language media (Canada,
2003).

Localism and language

The Canadian example anticipates the third template for critical regionalism—the
inclusion of ethnolinguistic groups. While by no means integrated into media policy,
the Canadian case demonstrates how ethnolinguistic groups have mobilized the dis-
course of the local to argue that they too should be included in its definition. Franco-
phone and Aboriginal producers have been particularly vocal in wanting to be labeled
“local broadcasters.” As Jean LaRose, CEO of APTN explained to the Canadian House
of Commons:
Our northern service is the most differentiated of our regional feeds. We
currently schedule 40.5 hours each week of distinctive northern programming
on this feed. Usually this programming is in Inuktitut or other aboriginal
languages spoken in northern communities. This is a different way of looking at
local programming. Programming that reflects Nunavut and Nunavik is local,
from our point of view, even though the communities it serves are spread out
over a region that represents a large percentage of Canada’s land mass. (Canada,
2009, p. 20)
Such discursive tactics invite regulators to think beyond taken-for-granted def-
initions, and contemplate whether these groups belong in the category of the local.
As the Lincoln Report noted, such contemplation, particularly regarding the role of
indigenous media, “is further evidence of how the boundaries between community,
local and regional programming can blur” (Canada, 2003, p. 378). These are impor-
tant elements that need to be considered, but heretofore have not been debated in
Canada, or elsewhere.

Conclusion
The primary goal of this article has been to interrogate the dichotomy between spatial
and social localism, and argue that a more dynamic approach is needed to reimagine
localism for the 21st century. Escobar (2003) asks, “Is it possible to envision a defense
of place without naturalizing, feminizing, or essentializing it, one in which place does
not become the source of trivial processes or regressive forces?” (p. 40). Through the
moments of critical regionalism outlined above, my research responds in the affirma-
tive. Unfortunately, these moments remain confined to the peripheries of regulatory
discourse in the form of forgotten proposals, neglected reports, or buried recommen-
dations.
If the local is to flourish as a normative ideal in media regulation—a goal articu-
lated by the FCC, CRTC, and Ofcom—than these moments need to enter the realm
of mainstream regulatory discourse. In particular, a regulatory system is required that

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Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place C. Ali

recognizes the heterogeneous composition of local communities, rather than one that
flattens nuances of place, community, and localism. Critical regionalism is a useful
approach by which to analyze localism in media policy for it circumvents the arti-
ficial dichotomy between spatial and social conceptualizations. It demonstrates that
this is not a zero-sum game, but rather that both contribute to the construction of
the local. This could lead to a more progressive theory of localism policy, and at the
very least, expand the conversation that informs regulatory discourse by highlighting
alternatives to the status quo.
Given the precarious nature of local broadcasting, it is more important than ever
for regulators to critically assess the relationship between local media and places, and
to open up the conversation to multiple stakeholders about what it means to be local
in the digital age. Value lies in these open conversations. “‘Senses’ of place and region
are not so much essential qualities … ” Powell (2007) writes, “as they are ongoing
debates and discourses that coalesce around particular geographical spaces” (p. 14).
At this moment, the need for debate trumps the need for a short-term fix. In sum,
a spirited discussion is required if localism is to survive as a governing principal of
media regulation, particularly when it comes to local news.
Inspired by critical regionalism’s focus on holistic approaches to the local and
the celebration of alternatives, one regulatory proposal offered here is the creation
of a local media policy framework for the United States, United Kingdom, and
Canada, respectively. These frameworks should move away from the technology
silo’d approach to media policy currently employed (Barr & Sandvig, 2008), and
think instead in terms of ecosystems and “communicatively integrated communities”
(Friedland, 2001). This would of course include community media, but also those
platforms not under the regulators’ immediate jurisdiction, but which contribute
to the ecosystem: blogs, citizen journalism, hyperlocal sites, and mobile platforms.
Of existing policies, the United Kingdom’s Community Radio Order, which directs
Ofcom to consider communities of place and communities of interest within geo-
graphic localities, is an example of the type of holistic policy that we could expect if a
critical regionalist approach is adopted.
The ultimate goal is simply put, but herculean in practice: to develop media poli-
cies that embrace the local as a site of dynamism and heterogeneity and that recognizes
the ongoing role of geographicallydefined places. Critical regionalism is a framework
to encourage such conversations. Powell (2007) continues,
the path that the practice of critical regionalism draws across this intellectual
landscape is designed to lead toward a view of the best possible version of the
region from among all the versions that are out there (whether or not it actually
gets there). (p. 7)
This should be the goal of regulators and scholars of localism—to locate and
theorize the “best possible version” of the local within Western media policy
systems.

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C. Ali Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place

Acknowledgments
Earlier drafts of this paper were presented to the IAMCR conference in Dublin (2013)
and the ICA conference in Seattle (2014). The author wishes to thank Dr. Hector
Amaya, Dr. Aynne Kokas, Dr. Nora Draper, the lunch series of the Department of
Science and Technology Studies at the University of Virginia, and the editors and
anonymous reviewers for their feedback and critique.

Notes

1 While “broadcasting” encompasses both radio and television, I focus primarily on

television. For radio localism, see Dunbar-Hestor (2014); Hilliard and Keith (2005).
2 As a Canadian regulator asked:
Is a person on the street interview with local people conducted by a local reporter still
considered local news if the topic under discussion is the subprime crisis in the United
States or an earthquake in China? (Menzies, in CRTC, 2008b, p. ix)
3 The FCC used to privileged local ownership over distant ownership (see FCC, 2008). In
Canada, one company can own up to two stations in a market (Armstrong, 2010).
4 The United States used to have the “Main Studio Rule” (Silvermann & Tobenkin, 2001). In
Britain, local stations must fulfill a “localness requirement” (Ofcom, 2012). In Canada,
stations are required to have a “local presence” (CRTC, 2009)
5 Of these three countries, only Canada has a local programming requirement, consisting
of 14 hours per week of local news for stations serving the largest markets (CRTC, 2009).
6 The United States once had “ascertainment requirement” which mandated local stations
communicate with a community board (see FCC, 2008).
7 This brief discussion cannot give justice to the intricacies of localism within these political
economic and regulatory systems. Nonetheless, aligning localism in broadcast policy with
political development illustrates that the local is not only a concern for communication
regulators but also is an ongoing political and epistemological debate as to the nature of
democratic governance.
8 While an in-depth discussion of the many ways that digital media transform our
experience of the local is beyond the scope of this article, one notable example is how
diasporic and immigrant communities use digital media to imagine their lives in a
different locality (Appadurai, 1996).

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