Radio Journal:International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media - Volume 7, Issue 2, 2009

Radio listeners in the United Kingdom are increasingly using new digital platforms internet, mobile phone and podcasts to tune into their favourite and new radio stations. Digitisation has allowed radio to emerge from its box on the counter or in the dashboard and take flight across national borders and boundaries, across time and history, beyond streaming broadcasts, out of the house or car and into our pockets and headsets (Hilmes 2007). Changing technology has also meant that journalists have had to become multi-skilled and work across the spectrum of print, radio, TV and online. This article reports on a set of 27 interviews with current and former journalists of the national BBC radio newsroom and Radio 1, carried out in the summer of 2008. Despite the increased workload and the worries expressed by some about falling standards of language and content, the majority of those interviewed are overwhelmingly positive about the future of radio news.

Offshore radio came to Europe in 1958, when Radio Mercur began its transmissions from a ship anchored in international waters off Copenhagen. The Baltic Pirates first broadcast to Denmark, then also to Sweden. Radio Nord could also be heard in southwest Finland. The programming format was that of an American top 40 station, with pop music, jingles, news, commercials and radio personalities. It was a round-the-clock transmission, from an on-air studio aboard a radio ship. The timing was optimal. The emerging youth culture and the rise of pop music, together with the breakthrough in transistor technology which made it possible to listen to radio while on the move, all made pirate radio a big success, especially amongst young audiences. At this time, public service radio companies still operated under the Reithian ethos: inform-educate-entertain, the emphasis being on the first two, with entertainment emphatically bringing up the rear. In all the Nordic countries, a law to stop pirate radio was enacted and came into effect in August 1962. At the same time, public service broadcasters in Denmark, Sweden and Finland re-organized their radio programming, considerably increasing light and pop music in their schedules. This can be seen as the first big paradigm shift in Nordic public service radio. At the Finnish Broadcasting Company, Svelradio or Melody Radio began broadcasting on 2 May 1963.

This article examines the transition from a public service radio monopoly to a more liberal and diverse radio culture in Finland. In addition, the Zeitgeist of local radio culture and a theoretical framework for three separate stages of Finnish radio between 1980 and 2005 is presented. We argue that considerable changes can be discerned in the radio content, which had a distinct impact on the use of music and the way of speaking on radio programmes. The changes are studied mainly from the perspective of broadcasting rock music, its reception among young audiences and the ensuing public discussion. Two key commercial radio stations are discussed, likewise the change in their content towards a streamlined, American-style format radio. The current radioscape is assessed from the perspectives of commercial and public service radio.

This article is about the role played by Brazilian community radio stations as public spaces, including different action rationales and places where there are political, social and cultural discourses from various genres such as informative and opinionative, especially the latter. Such spaces are embedded by communicative and instrumental actions as Habermas notes, manifest in the tensions and approximations between public and common spaces. Based upon a cross-case study from these media, the action rationales and the dynamics of the spaces are analysed. Stemming from the way such radio stations work, it is possible to assess whether they are a locus for public debates, involving the community and favouring communication which addresses the common interest, or, to a large extent, social arenas for welfare appeals and criticisms and fulfilling immediate needs from members of a particular locality. Data collection included unstructured and episodic interviews, radio programmes and analysis of documents from fifteen community radio stations in the Federal District and surroundings. After that, for more in-depth information, five case studies were carried out in Brazil.

This article explores the role of radio sound in establishing what I term affective rhythms in everyday life. Through exploring the affective qualities of radio sound and its capacity for mood generation in the home, this article explores personal affective states and personal organization. The term affective rhythm relates both to mood and to routine. It is the combination of both that allows the possibility of thinking about sound and affect, and how they relate to, and integrate with, routine everyday life. The notion of affective rhythm forces us to consider the idea of mood in the light of the routine nature of everyday domestic life.