In a recent speech, the UK Prime Minister warned that Britain risks becoming an “island of strangers,” raising a sharp challenge to those working in fields of public engagement, social cohesion, and cultural inclusion. The phrase evokes a society marked by isolation, fragmentation, and mutual suspicion—where people live side by side, but not together.
This concern is not new.
Over two decades ago, Professor Ted Cantle introduced the idea of communities living “parallel lives” in his report on social unrest in northern towns. He called for meaningful interaction across communities, warning that policies fostering group separation under the banner of multiculturalism risked creating deep social divides. More recently, Dr. Rakib Ehsan has argued that Britain’s cohesion depends on recognising shared values such as family, faith, and national belonging. Ehsan cautions against a narrow focus on grievance and identity politics, suggesting these can entrench division rather than foster solidarity.
So where does this leave community media?
Often held up as a tool for inclusion and empowerment, community media must now grapple with whether its practices are reinforcing the very separations it seeks to challenge. In this context, a deeper and more critical self-reflection is needed.
Identity or Solidarity?
Community media has understandably prioritised identity-based storytelling, offering a vital counterweight to mainstream exclusion. But identity has increasingly become the dominant currency of engagement, often prioritised above shared purpose or mutual understanding. This trend reflects wider cultural dynamics—the therapeutic turn in politics, the rise of digital self-branding, and the elevation of lived experience over common reason.
When identity becomes the fixed lens through which all experience is mediated, it narrows the possibility for empathy and shared deliberation. Rather than recognising the fluid and relational nature of identity, it is too often presented as immutable and morally incontestable. The risk is the erosion of a shared civic imagination, in which solidarity across difference becomes impossible.
Uncritically embracing identity-based frameworks may lead community media into echo chambers of affirmation, where narratives of oppression are reproduced without question, and accountability to the broader public is sidelined. This doesn’t empower communities—it isolates them.
Belonging or Bonding?
The language of belonging has become central in community development. Yet it too carries risks. Sociologists distinguish between bonding social capital (within-group ties) and bridging social capital (between-group ties). Community media projects often excel at the former but struggle with the latter.
This is partly because funding models and institutional frameworks reward demonstrable engagement within defined groups. But a surfeit of bonding capital can foster parochialism, suspicion of outsiders, and even inter-group competition for recognition and resources. When belonging becomes a retreat into the familiar rather than a commitment to the shared, it reinforces the fragmentation the Prime Minister warned about.
We need to ask: are we building enclaves or connections? Are our media platforms helping people encounter unfamiliar perspectives, or are they reinforcing comfort zones and group identity boundaries?
Empowered Citizens or Expressive Individuals?
The rhetoric of giving people a ‘voice’ is now ubiquitous. Yet too often, voice is reduced to expression without responsibility, and participation is framed as therapeutic release rather than civic engagement. The result is a proliferation of stories, opinions, and grievances—but little dialogue, mutual recognition, or collective reasoning.
This reflects broader cultural patterns, where individual authenticity is prized above shared norms, and where platforms encourage visibility over deliberation. Community media risks mirroring this shift unless it re-centres civic purpose.
Media that serves the public good must do more than amplify stories. It must cultivate habits of listening, compromise, and shared inquiry. This means training citizens not only to speak, but to engage, reflect, and negotiate.
The Risk of Parochialism in Localism
The place-based focus of community media rightly challenges the abstraction and centralisation of mainstream media. However, localism can easily tip into parochialism if not carefully navigated. In emphasising “local voices” and “community authenticity,” projects can slide into narrow representations that fail to engage with wider societal debates.
In a multicultural democracy, local identities must be porous, not sealed. Community media must ensure that it is not simply reflecting back the dominant values of its locale, but challenging, expanding, and connecting them to broader civic questions.
This requires a commitment to plurality within communities as much as between them—and a willingness to disrupt the assumption that “local” automatically means inclusive or progressive.
Uncritical Alignment with Progressive Consensus?
Community media often aligns itself with progressive values—inclusion, diversity, anti-racism. While these are essential aims, their institutionalisation can foster a culture of moral certainty that inhibits critical reflection. Certain narratives become orthodoxies, and dissenting voices are discouraged.
This is especially problematic in polarised times, when trust in public institutions is low. If community media is to serve as a space for democratic renewal, it must allow genuine debate—including from those who feel cultural change has bypassed or marginalised them.
Practitioners must ask: are we fostering dialogue or policing orthodoxy? Are we accountable to all members of the public, or only to those who share our worldview?
Demonstrating Impact and Accountability
Too often, community media projects make claims about empowerment and inclusion without robust evidence. Impact is assumed rather than measured. Communications Impact Analysis offers one model for assessing whether media interventions result in increased trust, participation, and social understanding.
Without such evaluation, there is a risk of complacency. We must ask: who is benefiting? Whose voices are amplified? What changes are occurring in civic life as a result?
If we are to make the case for community media as a form of civic infrastructure, we must demonstrate that it delivers social value—not only symbolic recognition.
Leadership for Complexity
Finally, community media needs leaders who can navigate complexity, ambiguity, and moral pluralism. This means more than technical skill or ideological alignment. It means fostering the capacity for reflective judgment, ethical storytelling, and civic responsibility.
Leadership development in the sector should emphasise dialogic reasoning, emotional intelligence, and the ability to hold diverse perspectives in tension. Without this, the sector risks becoming reactive, insular, and strategically incoherent.
Towards Civic Renewal
If we take the Prime Minister’s warning seriously, then community media must become more than a platform for fragmented expression. It must become a force for civic renewal. This requires confronting the limits of the identity paradigm, resisting the retreat into bonding-only models of belonging, and embracing the challenge of inter-group dialogue and shared citizenship.
The real test is whether community media can help rebuild a shared public realm—one in which difference is recognised but not absolutised; where voices are heard but also challenged; and where local experience is connected to national purpose. The opportunity is great. But so is the responsibility.