Community-building with Community Radio (w/ Adam Kamis of CJSW)

Unsprawling Podcast

Hazen "Biz" Ellwood is joined by Adam Kamis, Station Manager at CJSW. CJSW is Calgary’s only campus and community radio station, and a cultural institution, fostering and empowering a diversity of alternative voices across Calgary.

Biz and Adam speak on the resilience of CJSW in the digital media landscape, its role in empowering alternative perspectives of Calgary, uplifting voices through volunteerism and community media, as well as the inspiration behind “The Sounds of Radiotown”.

Music, journalism, and other forms of media are the engine of cultural change, with the institutions producing them their vehicles. Using these institutions as incubators for uplifting diverse perspectives isn’t inevitable.

These are generous choices that community members make, creating spaces for each other to engage, uphold healthy discourse as members of our democracy, and encourage each other to communicate our perspectives to the public.

The episode will broadcast on 90.9 FM within the next week as part of the station’s funding drive promotional programming. We hope that Unsprawling and our podcast will integrate as part of “Radiotown” more in the future, so stay tuned!

I’m transitioning the podcast to monthly due to balancing the workload of school, but I’d be happy to accommodate more uploads if anyone is interested in researching, writing, and/or hosting alongside me.

Thanks so much to the staff at CJSW for helping with the production of this video podcast, and for incubating and uplifting local talent across Calgary for decades.