Who Holds the Mic? Radio Biz at MediaWise YOUth in Vienna
In April 2025, Radio Biz took the stage at MediaWise YOUth, an Erasmus+ youth exchange in Vienna focused on media literacy and combating disinformation. Hosted by IKIGAI and co-funded by the European Union, the week-long programme brought together 25 participants from Austria, Georgia, Hungary, and Türkiye to explore how fake news spreads, how media shapes perception, and what young people can do about it.
We were invited to present our work as a case study in community media — and to answer a question that turned out to be more relevant than ever: Who holds the mic?
Community Radio in a Disinformation Age
The presentation opened with a simple provocation: when you hear the word "radio," what comes to mind? Music? News? Entertainment? For most people, radio is background noise. But at Orange 94.0, Vienna's only free community radio station, broadcasting since 1998, radio is something else entirely: a platform where 200+ producers create 170+ shows in over 25 languages, with no ads and no commercial pressure.
Radio Biz is one of those shows. We broadcast twice monthly in Turkish and German, telling stories about integration, identity, youth, music, sports, and art. Not success stories — real stories. Real people, real contradictions. Our slogan says it all: Söz sende / Du bist dran / The mic is yours.
What made this presentation different from a typical intro to community radio was the context. In a room full of people actively learning how to spot fake news and verify online content, we were showing the other side of the coin: what happens when media is built on trust, transparency, and editorial responsibility rather than clicks and algorithms.
Between Two Worlds
One section of the presentation that sparked the most discussion was about the lived reality of young people navigating between cultures. We shared a simple split: on one side, home — "Finish your food," "What will the neighbours say?", "This is how we were raised." On the other, school and the outside world — "Quit if you want," "Nobody's even watching," "Decide for yourself."
This isn't abstract sociology. It's the daily experience of second and third-generation youth in Vienna, and it's the reason Radio Biz exists. We also shared findings from our fieldwork at "24 Vienna," a closed youth institution, where the pattern was clear: young people caught between two cultures, struggling with family expectations versus individual freedom, searching for identity, lacking communication channels, and feeling like they don't fully belong anywhere.
The participants from Georgia and Hungary immediately connected this to their own contexts — different specifics, but the same underlying tension between tradition and autonomy that shapes how young people consume and trust media.
Why This Matters
Presenting Radio Biz at MediaWise YOUth wasn't just about introducing a radio show. It was about demonstrating that community media is a living, working answer to the disinformation problem, not a technological fix, but a human one. In a world where algorithms decide what you see and AI generates what you read, a community radio station where real people tell real stories in their own languages is almost radical.
The MediaWise participants came from four different media landscapes, four different political realities, and four different relationships with press freedom and public trust. But the response to our presentation was remarkably consistent: people want media they can trust, and trust is built through transparency, proximity, and giving the mic to those who are usually spoken about rather than spoken to.
That's what Radio Biz does. That's what community radio does. And in 2025, it matters more than ever.
Söz sende. Du bist dran. The mic is yours.
Listen to Radio Biz on Orange 94.0 FM in Vienna or stream at o94.at.
MediaWise YOUth — Skilled & Engaged: Stand Up to Disinformation! was an Erasmus+ project (2025-3-AT01-KA153-YOU-000371698) co-funded by the European Union, hosted by IKIGAI Verein zur Förderung von Kunst, Kultur und Bildung in Vienna, Austria.
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