Open AccessENTANGLED AUTONOMY ON AUTOMATED AIRWAVES: THE CASE OF RIVENDELL
Author(s) -
Andy Kelleher Stuhl
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12052
Subject(s) - negotiation , compromise , politics , autonomy , context (archaeology) , ethos , sociology , the internet , rhetoric , public relations , media studies , political science , law , computer science , world wide web , history , archaeology , linguistics , philosophy
Rivendell, a free and open source software suite for automated radiobroadcasting, has brought several groups with clashing stances on technology, communication,and cultural politics into cooperation. This paper treats Rivendell as an opening onto thepolitics at play when the liberal ethos propelling free and open source software (Coleman,2013) meets the autonomy-prizing traditions of independent broadcasting within an automationsystem. Complicating this already tense juncture, Rivendell has drawn users and codecontributors from drastically opposed political groups within Americanbroadcastings—right-wing Christian talk radio networks and progressive communitystations—and has sustained a difficult terrain of working compromise that the activist pushfor low-power FM broadcasting inaugurated (Dunbar-Hester, 2014). In this paper, analysis ofRivendell's open source code base sheds light on its development and helps connect it tolonger histories of media automation and its attendant social frictions. Interviews withlead Rivendell developers complete the picture of the project's trajectory, of its relationto the religious right context where the project began, and of the negotiations that haveplayed out among its developers and its community of users in terrestrial and internetradio. The ongoing compromises and tensions threaded through Rivendell can offer insightinto an issue that becomes larger and more pressing as media become increasingly complex andnetworked: how artists, activists, and media technologists who prioritize independence havereckoned with their reliance on socio-technical infrastructures whose connections may strikethem as far less than savory.