My primary working experience is in the construction industry, and in the trades, radio is a constant presence. DeWalt and Makita make radios specifically designed for use on site, and they become fascinating sonic objects. Thrashed around, dropped and caked in mud, they aren’t treated with the reverence the stolid kitchen or car radio are. They are mobile and very loud, the practice of listening far less selective and far more repetitive. BBC Radio 1 for 8 hours per day, 5 days a week brings madness and dark moods. With a building company manager I talked of radio’s importance in “temperature control”; subliminally for some, constant beats amplified the stress of each long day’s unique, high-pressure challenges. For many who labour, the listening experience of radio equates to a passive coping mechanism, an amphetamine to escape the working mind.
Do I agree with Bonnie M. Miller’s statement, “the pictures are better on radio”? Maybe? Radio encompasses a broad spectrum of programming. My gut reaction is no. The phrase, ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’ comes to mind. The naked expository commentary and heightened emoting of actors in much conventional radio drama often breaks my immersion and pulls me out of the story, despite their unique necessity in describing unseen events and surroundings. Purely subjective, self-sufficient sound also creates distinct listening challenges; as Rudolf Arnheim (1936, pp. 139) observes, ‘the acoustic void, the silence in which sound is embedded, has less the effect of a background free of content than of a stage agitated with important events which, however, are withdrawn beyond the listener’s power of comprehension.’ How to balance these two aural spheres? Suggesting a sonic concept without losing the listener due to obscurity, or to too-strict linearity, is something I want to study more.
Bibliography:
Arnheim, R. (1936) Radio. Translated from the original German by M. Ludwig and H. Read. Glasgow: R. MacLehose and Company Limited and The University Press Glasgow