Young radio listeners’ creative mental interaction and co-production

Abstract

Abstract The Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company (UR)1 25 years ago was in the process of ceasing production of radio programmes for children. There were two main reasons expressed: first, their broadcasting role model, the BBC, had recently given up their educational radio programming for children; and second, the use of radio programmes (or tapes) in schools in Sweden had decreased in favour of television or video use. Surveys of teachers’ attitudes towards radio usage in education revealed that teachers expected a lack of listening abilities in children, unless audio was accompanied by pictures. A case study of children’s listening experiences, however, illustrates the abilities among 8–9-year-old children to create mental images through radio programme listening. Children were pleased about their experiences and advocated an increased usage of radio programmes in school. The benefits of radio or audio and its absence of any pre-produced pictures are rarely acknowledged. Radio is often neglected among the various media mentioned in media theory literature of university Journalism and Media production programmes. Special affordances of radio/audio narratives, with or without sound effects, are seldom expressed. In this article I will elaborate these affordances in relation to children’s listening experiences and to interviews with teachers.