Radio, Sprache, Klang – Einführung in diesen Band

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the interdisciplinary research project ,Radio Aesthetics – Radio Identity’. The project focuses on the so called, Anmutung‘, the overall appearance, the unique ,sound‘ of a radio station, which gives listeners a spontaneous impression and leads them to affectively evaluate the station. The objective is to discover format specific, historical and cultural characteristics of sound concepts applied by radio practitioners, and to gain insights on the relations between Anmutung and how radio is used by its listeners. At first, some of the project’s basic theoretical concepts will be introduced – Anmutung, sound, rethoric, aesthetics and identity. After that, the empirical studies on speech in radio broadcasts will be characterized – phonetic and linguistic analyses, employing quantitative and ethnomethodological, qualitative methods on selected radio products, reconstructions of production and reception processes, quantitative and qualitative research on radio’s effects on listeners. These studies identify stylistic characteristics of radio speech, which radio practitioners design to make the format or program more recognizable and to invite listeners to identify with it. Common to all these inquiries is that they not only analyze linguistic criteria in the strict sense, which has been usual for most radio research, but also the sounding aspects of speech. In this research project several perspectives are being combined, from communication and media studies, speech science, linguistics and cultural studies. This interdisciplinary approach enables us to develop a thorough analytical toolkit with which essential qualities of the Anmutung of radio stations or formats can be described and evaluated in a sophisticated and precise way.