Radio Journal:International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media - Volume 17, Issue 2, 2019

This study focuses on user-generated content (UGC) via Facebook and mobile texting selection and allocation for broadcast. Based on the premises of Gatekeeping theory in traditional mass media content selection, this study asks how social media messages, solicited by the radio station, are filtered out for the programmes. Based on semi-structured interviews with the Italian commercial radio station’s staff, participant observation and a content analysis of the UGC messages, the study scrutinizes institutional decision-making processes. The radio station’s selection of UGC exhibits efforts to maintain control over the streams of incoming UGC content. As expected, UGC manual content selection or automated content matching is geared towards efficiency. Also, in this study only 33 per cent of messages have been selected for broadcast. UGC gatekeeping has also presented evidence of displacement of control within the radio station. Rather than shifting control to audiences, radio stations displaced control to technology-assisted gatekeeping. While the study showed a ‘widening’ of the gates in terms of content (there was no differentiation in selecting messages directed to the radio station or to the overall audience members), shift of control to the audiences remains an ideal rather than reality.

This study examines true crime podcasts with a critical/cultural lens to explore how podcasts are impacting the true crime genre, public opinion and the criminal justice system. Four in-depth qualitative interviews with true crime podcast producers offer insight into both the political economy of podcasts and effective audience engagement. Ultimately, this study argues that true crime podcasts are impacting the criminal justice system in unprecedented ways and that the future of this emerging media could challenge both criminal justice and media reform. Practical implications for genre-specific media are also discussed.

This article considers the radio programme for kindergarten-aged children that the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) launched during the Second World War and continued to broadcast until 1985. Kindergarten of the Air, thought to be the ‘first of its kind in the world’, was to inspire interest from, and similar programmes throughout, the British empire and beyond. The article examines the imperial and international broadcasting networks that enabled the exchange of ideas and initiatives within the field of educational broadcasting, and the export of one of Australia’s most successful radio initiatives, while also considering the willingness of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to be influenced by a dominion broadcaster.

In 1899 radio pioneer Nikola Tesla claimed to have received a wireless transmission from the planet Mars, which not only confirmed the existence of intelligent life but also invited a response. The public was immediately captivated by the idea that Mars was attempting to communicate with the Earth, and this widespread fascination reflected not only a belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life but also a notion of radio as a transnational medium that could potentially unite the world by making terrestrial borders obsolete. It may seem strange, therefore, that this fascination culminated in Orson Welles’ famous radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds, in which radio was represented not as a medium of interplanetary communication but rather as an emergency broadcast system that warned Americans of an extraterrestrial invasion. Through a closer examination of the history of the idea of interplanetary communication, this article explores how radio was initially conceived as a medium that transgressed social, political and linguistic boundaries and how this utopian promise was later displaced by the idea of radio as a medium that served to construct and reinforce national borders and identities.

In this article, we assert and demonstrate a particular and enduring adaptability of radio in tandem with observable temporal shifts in development communication theory and practice in Africa. Specifically, we use the historical research method to explore and explain the ideological discourses, polity contours and social forces that have overlain the role of radio as both an index and an instrument of development in Ghana. The evidence reveals that radio has transitioned through three key milestones in how the technology has been appropriated and applied to national development efforts: from transplantation, through transmission, to transaction. Each of these phases coincides, incidentally, with paradigm shifts in development communication theorizing: from modernization through diffusion to participation. They also coincide, broadly, with three distinctive epochs of ideological shifts in the historical accounting on radio for development in Ghana: from British imperial hegemony, through post-independence command-and-control, to contemporary liberal pluralism.

This study examines news production and newsroom culture in radio stations in Ghana’s Northern Region. It explores the dynamics of news production and delivery in indigenous language newsrooms. Through in-depth interviews with eight indigenous language news presenters and journalists, the study critically explores the intricacies of news production, drawing attention to how news production is contextualized within this society. Through an oral epistemological approach, I argue that news journalists and presenters draw on orature and oral epistemologies to build their news-presenting personas and personalities in a way that positions them as frame sponsors who intentionally set the agenda for news content by unilaterally selecting specific stories to air. This study presents novel ways to conceptualize framing and agenda-setting while demonstrating the usefulness of customizing theory for specific sociocultural contexts. The study presents theoretical and practical implications to bridge the gap between theory and praxis while rethinking news production in Global South contexts such as Ghana.

Community radio represents an opportunity for audiences to play a lead role in the production, dissemination and ownership of media channels and content. The active participation of audiences is one of the primary differences between community radio stations and their commercial and state-run counterparts. The role of participation though is complicated in environments where community radio acts as an instrument for development, as is the case in India where community radio licenses are held by either educational establishments or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Discussions around defining, encouraging and evaluating participation are extensive, yet little has been written about what defines meaningful participation from the perspective of community members. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in India, this article explores what makes participation meaningful and who is able to engage in this meaningful participation with community radio stations. Applying this perspective to community radio, encourages a more qualitative, holistic view of the benefits and outcomes of those who participate. Considering meaningful rather than maximalist or minimalist allows space to explore the impacts of participation in environments where it may be limited or restricted by structural factors. Engaged, invested audiences who regularly and meaningfully participate in their stations can help ensure that community radio remains a collaborative and powerful force within the global media landscape.

Is Australian radio art practice qualitatively different from international practice? Has there been an Australian approach to radio art that was internationally perceived? Drawing on interviews of national and international radio art practitioners and art theory to analyse important contributions to the field, this article contextualizes Australian radio art against international practice to arrive at nuanced answers to these questions.

The Cultural Work of Community Radio, Katie Moylan (2019) Rowman and Littlefield, 180 pp., ISBN: 978-1-78348-932-9, h/bk, £97.05, e-book, £41.52

A Companion to the History of American Broadcasting, Aniko Bodroghkozy (ed.) (2018) Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 512 pp., ISBN: 978-1-11864-615-1, h/bk, $215; e-book $172.99

Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media, Dario Llinares, Neil Fox and Richard Berry (eds) (2018) Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 332 pp., ISBN: 978-3-31990-055-1, p/bk, £22.49, e-book, £21.37

Podcasting: The Audio Media Revolution, Martin Spinelli and Lance Dann (eds) (2019) London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 272 pp., ISBN: 978-1-50132-868-8, p/bk, £19.99, e-book, £14.03