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It is just past four on a Tuesday afternoon. At the KUCI radio broadcasting room, a debate between a program guest and a caller is taking shape. The topic is homosexuality. In the course of an hour, the discussion moves on to religion, self-confidence and building respect for differences in communities.
"The first and most important thing in combatting the problem of closed-mindedness is education, because there are a lot of myths about people who are homosexual-such as that they are bad or evil or that something is wrong with them and a great deal of other stereotypes," says the in-studio guest, brainstorming with a caller.
"And if these misconceptions hopefully can be addressed and proven to be false or unfounded myths more than anything, then people will be able to get past their fear of homosexuals and learn to accept them also as people."
Once again the airwaves have become a conduit of opinion and education, this time on 88.9 FM, the college radio station at UC Irvine.
This difference this time-and every Tuesday from 4 to 5 p.m.-is that the studio is being run by high school students, and the callers are teens from throughout Orange County.
Host of the "Irvine Goes Local" radio program is Neil Seghal, a junior at University High School in Irvine. Every week he is at the studio switchboard, speaking to callers, debating with in-studio guests, playing music during downtime and repeatedly urging students to call in.
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