John Anderson

John Anderson is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois Institute of Communications Research.

John began research into microradio in 1997 as part of a dot-com experiment to have real human beings construct information archives to compete with search engines on a wide variety of subjects. John's site was on pirate radio.

During the first Internet stock bubble the company paid for an advertising campaign of radio spots on stations in the top 10 U.S. markets. One of them was about John's site, an ironic display of tech-stock largesse. Once the bubble burst corporate greed kicked in and John resigned from the dot-com in 2002, taking his content with him.

In a previous life, John was a commercial radio journalist in Indiana and Wisconsin; a few of his stories even got carried nationally and internationally. He ended his corporate media career in 2000 at the Wisconsin Radio Network in disgust over what industry consolidation did to radio newsrooms nationwide. The industry's rabid opposition to legalizing low power FM radio provided the moral impetus.

John originally got into radio during high school through show stints on the local college radio station and then ran his university's station for two years as an undergrad.

John received his master's degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004; his thesis explored the legal history of unlicensed broadcasting in the United States. During his studies in Madison he co-founded the first nationwide labor-centric radio news service to be launched in more than 50 years.

To finance current research, John produces Media Minutes, a weekly radio news program on the world of media policy reform and activism sponsored by the Illinois Initiative for Media Policy Research and Free Press.

In his spare time he works on DIYmedia, volunteers with radio station WEFT, makes errant noises, is the adopted father of Zuzu and Patience, and goofs off.