The main goal of this paper is to further our understanding of the processes of instrumentalization or exercise of citizenship in community radio stations during the 1998-2000 electoral campaigns. We look at radio stations linked to local political bosses in the cities of Fortaleza, Sobral and Juazeiro, in the state of Ceará. In a similar vein, the article seeks further understanding of the way in which politics become a spectacle, and the different journalistic and publicity techniques employed for the projection of political radio professionals, as well as of the way in which community experiences are appropriated as local political bosses capture and re-elaborate the various strategies deployed by popular organizations. Initially, we present an overview of the evolution of community radio stations in Brazil and throughout the world, relating this to the development of social movements. We then show how the exercise of citizenship has been broadened by media-related experience gained by members of social movements, giving particular salience to involvement in community radio. In the third section of the article, we identify a process of instrumentalization of community radio during electoral campaigns.
community radio stations; elections; citizenship; media