Copyright © 2003 PAPAZISSIS S.A. Publications Vol. 3 (6): 29 - 34 [No ISSN 1109 - 2149 (2003-15-12)] Pledge Drives at a Rural Western United States Radio Station: Interacting with the Audience ❚ John W. Campbell Eastern New Mexico University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences ∞ µSTRACT In the United States, public radio and television stations are not owned and operated by the gov- ernment, but are actually private nonprofit organizations which receive some governmental finan- cial support. Because of these limited governmental financial sources, public broadcasting in the U.S. has utilized pledge drives in which members of the public are asked on the air to pledge their finan- cial support. This method of fund raising also helps U.S. public broadcasting further differentiate it- self from commercial broadcasting which relies on commercials as a primary means of financial sup- port. This paper examines pledge drives at a small public radio station in a rural area in the western part of the U.S., KENW in Portales, New Mexico. Pledge drives are held at this station twice a year, in the Fall and Spring. During the pledge drives, large portions of programming time are devoted to ex- plaining the value of public radio and the need for donations from listeners to support the station. This practice engages audiences beyond their traditional roles as listeners and consumers of the prod- ucts that are advertised. As listeners pledge, they actually become part of an American tradition of voluntarism and individualism that is addressed by their participation with a pledge to public radio. Keywords: Pledge drive, public broadcasting, voluntarism. Characterizing a broadcasting system as “Public” implies public ownership and control. (McCourt, 1999, p. 50). But in the United States, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Public Broadcast- ing Service and National Public radio are private nonprofit organizations. For public radio station KENW-FM in Portales, New Mexico the concept of “public” means providing programming for the public not found elsewhere in commercial radio. The station also engages in one method in which public broadcasting has tried to defuse the issue of private ownership and differentiate itself from commercial radio. This is through the use of “volunteers” who not only donate their time but in many cases “volunteer:” their money in the support of public radio. As McCourt says, in this regard, public broadcasting invokes the “traditions of voluntarism, self-sufficiency, and individualism in American political and cultural life that Alexis de Tocqueville found in the early 19 th century” (McCourt, 1995, p. 65). This paper looks at a form of this voluntarism and participatory communication at a public radio