At Decentered Media, we approach media production not as a platform for broadcasting at people, but as a process of listening, co-creating, and responding with people. Our work is rooted in the belief that community media is most powerful when it is participatory, when it brings together people not just to be represented, but to represent themselves. This is the heart of what makes our content production process distinct: it is community-shaped, inclusive, and transformative.
Unlike professionally produced or corporately commissioned media—which often aims to streamline content for maximum reach, brand consistency, or advertising impact—community media begins with the lived experiences of people and builds outward from there. Rather than asking “What’s the message?” we ask “Whose voices are being heard, and who gets to shape the conversation?”
Participation Over Performance
In mainstream and corporate media, production is typically top-down. The ideas are devised in editorial meetings. The interviews are planned for narrative impact. The contributors are selected to illustrate a pre-conceived theme. Often, the audience is positioned passively—expected to consume, but rarely to engage.
Community media turns this model on its head. It is horizontal, not vertical; emergent, not prescriptive. In community-produced programmes, participants are not subjects, but co-producers. We use Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approaches to start with the strengths, relationships, and capacities already present in a neighbourhood or group. We look for stories already being lived, conversations already happening, and voices that are too often ignored.
DIY Media, Real Voices
Our production process champions DIY media tools and open-access platforms—not because they’re cheap or easy, but because they align with the democratic and relational values at the heart of our approach. Community reporting, podcasting, local radio—these aren’t just technologies, they are tools of expression and empowerment. They give people the chance to speak with their own voice, in their own words, to their own communities.
Crucially, this method recognises that technical polish is not the same as authenticity. A community report recorded on a smartphone, capturing an honest conversation at a kitchen table, can carry more truth and resonance than a perfectly mixed broadcast studio segment.
Communications for Change (C4C): Not Just Talking, But Doing
At Decentered Media, we integrate the principles of Communications for Change (C4C), a model that understands communication not as a one-way street of persuasion, but as a catalyst for social learning and transformation. Our aim is not just to tell people what’s going on, but to open space for reflection, dialogue and action. This is especially powerful when participants are supported to explore what they care about—and even more, what they care for.
The philosopher and educator Nell Noddings makes a helpful distinction here. In corporate media, there is a tendency to focus on what we are told to care about: a trending crisis, a scandal, a set of talking points. In contrast, community media allows us to share what we care for—our communities, our relationships, our wellbeing, our places. This subtle shift transforms communication from a commodity into a practice of care and connection.
Social Benefit and Social Value
When people are supported to produce media about their own lives, challenges, and hopes, the process itself is empowering. It builds skills in storytelling, listening, production and collaboration. It nurtures confidence and identity. And for listeners, it offers something often missing from mainstream media: representation, recognition, and relevance.
The social value of community media lies not just in its output, but in its process. It builds social capital, both bonding (within communities) and bridging (between communities). It fosters deliberation, not division. It supports people in navigating change, rather than being overwhelmed by it. Above all, it respects people as meaning-makers, not just content consumers.
This raises further questions that guide our approach:
- What does it mean to have a voice in the stories that shape public understanding? How often do we get to speak for ourselves, rather than being spoken about or spoken for?
- Whose experience is considered important enough to be heard publicly? Is there space in mainstream platforms for stories that are ordinary but deeply meaningful? Do they allow time for reflection, context, or care?
- What changes when the act of making media is not a performance, but a shared encounter? What does participation offer that consumption alone cannot?
A Shared Conversation for a Shared Future
Is community media less about reach and more about relevance? And if so, how do we measure value? Should it be in numbers, or in recognition, trust, and connection?
What happens when we stop directing attention and start holding space? What does it look like when storytelling becomes an act of co-presence rather than persuasion?
Can media help us become more capable of living together—not by telling us what to think, but by helping us listen?
At Decentered Media, we believe that media making can be a process of shared meaning-making. A practice that supports people not only to share stories, but to ask questions—together.
Because the best stories don’t just inform us. They connect us. And they remind us that public conversation is not something done to us, but something we shape—together, and on our own terms.
Community media is not a replacement for all other media. But it offers something vital that corporate models cannot: a means for people to speak from their lives, not just about them. It recognises that real change starts not with a headline, but with a conversation. And it holds that storytelling—when it is rooted in care, participation, and shared experience—can be a form of collective action.
At Decentered Media, we are proud to support people to tell their own stories, in their own ways, and on their own terms. Because we believe that how we communicate shapes how we live together—and that better conversations lead to better communities.
Interested in getting involved? Want to learn more about community reporting or how we support local storytelling?
Contact us at robwatson@decentered.co.uk or subscribe as a supporter at https://patreon.com/decenteredmedia