Radio Drama Research Articles

“I have learned that nothing is given for free”: an exploratory qualitative evaluation of a social norms edutainment intervention broadcast on local radio to prevent age-disparate transactional sex in Kigoma, Tanzania

BackgroundPromising evidence supports the effectiveness of edutainment interventions in shifting norms to prevent violence against women and girls and other harmful practices, yet further research into mechanisms and pathways of impact is needed to inform intervention development, delivery and scale-up. This exploratory qualitative evaluation examined the feasibility and indications of change in attitudes, beliefs, norms and behaviours following the broadcast of a radio drama aired to prevent age-disparate transactional sex in Kigoma, Tanzania.MethodsOver seven weeks, six episodes were broadcast on local radio weekly, between November and December 2021 in Kigoma, targeting adolescent girls (aged 13–15 years) and their caregivers. Reflection sessions were conducted twice a week with 70 girls across seven schools, supplemented by after-school Girls’ Club listening sessions for a subgroup of 30 girls. We conducted seven before and after focus group discussions, five with girls (n = 50), one with men caregivers (n = 9) and one with women caregivers (n = 9) and analysed them using thematic and framework analysis approaches.ResultsOverall, we found that while girls exhibited significant engagement with the drama, caregiver participation, particularly among men, was low. Thus, no clear changes were detected in men. We did not find any differences in impact based on listening sessions’ attendance vs. home listening. We detected positive changes among girls and women in four thematic areas after listening to the drama: (1) participant’s increasingly challenged perceptions about what kinds of girls and men take part in age-disparate transactional sex, what can be exchanged, and men’s motivations for engaging; (2) there was a shift from attributing blame for age-disparate transactional sex relationships from girls to men; (3) girl’s reported increased agency and confidence to avoid age-disparate transactional sex relationships; and (4) we found a heightened sense of responsibility and recognition for the role of parents, peers and community members in preventing age-disparate transactional sex.ConclusionsThese findings highlight the need for further implementation research to explore ways to effectively engage men. They also underscore the potential of engaging, evidence-based edutainment interventions in fostering spontaneous critical reflection about complex behaviours such as age-disparate transactional sex, and diffusing key messages among target populations without the use of organised diffusion activities.

Подкасты в информационном пространстве московских студентов-журналистов: материалы эмпирического исследования

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in interest in podcasting. Young people are becoming not only media consumers of this type of media, but also active producers of it. This is especially true for journalism students who are involved in the process of mass communication both as an audience and as media professionals. Their life-world turns out to be closely connected with the process of media socialization, which is typical for other groups of “digital youth”. The article presents the materials of a representative survey of students of the Faculty of Journalism at Lomonosov Moscow State University. The study was conducted at the stage of modeling an artistic and educational podcast about science and considers students as media consumers and active participants in the process of mass communication. Based on the data obtained, the authors reflect on the possibilities of using elements of expressive techniques and elements of radio drama in the creation of popular science podcasts, the use of non-verbal components of media content to convey more information and meanings, taking into account the preferences of students. The results show that journalism students “care” about their own lifeworlds, but have an extramural respect for others' lifeworlds and the bigger picture of the world. The characteristics of the scientific and educational podcast for representatives of the “digital youth” presented in the article, compiled on the basis of the opinions of this socio-demographic group, can be used in the implementation of projects related to youth policy to promote youth education and career guidance. The local nature of the study does not allow us to draw conclusions about the opinions and moods of the student body as a whole, but gives grounds to formulate assumptions about the situation in the community of holders of special knowledge in the field of journalism and mass communications.

ANALYZING THE CONCEPTS OF JUSTICE AND CONSCIENCE IN THE PLAY REİS BEY WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Justice is the concept that ensures the existing order and aims to maintain it. Conscience and compassion are the sense of distinguishing right from wrong within oneself. In this study, the concepts of justice, conscience and compassion are analyzed through the life of Reis Bey, the main character of the radio play. While analyzing the radio play Reis Bey, critical discourse analysis method was preferred. Discourse involves uncovering the true meaning of any group of words, finding the impact of words on the individual or society, understanding the real conversations in relationships between people, explaining the political system, what its ideology is and how it is. Critical discourse analysis, on the other hand, systematically analyzes a dialogue or a single spoken word by turning it into a text. Critical discourse analysis does not have a sharp line as it enables the emergence of abstract concepts underlying the dialogues. In this context, the aim of the study is as follows. While analyzing the radio play Reis Bey, it is to reveal the meanings underlying the dialogues within the framework of meaning, context, interpretation and periodic social structure. The importance of the study is to examine the relationship between the concepts of justice, conscience and compassion in the radio play Reis Bey through the individual and to interpret the evaluations between conscience and justice in the decision-making process of justice providers. The character of Reis Bey in the radio theater play has changed his thoughts towards the concepts of justice, conscience and compassion throughout the narrative. As a result, it was concluded that the main character of the radio play, Mr. Reis Bey, completely changed his attitude towards the events in his life.

Writing Script and Audio Production: Movement to Strengthen Javanese Radio Drama in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

This study aims to gain a deep understanding of the subjective experiences of participants who are directly involved in the strengthening movement to uncover the development of Javanese radio dramas in Yogyakarta. Due to the abstract nature of the data, including people's experiences in drama radio and radio broadcast fields, this study employs the interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) to explore and understand these experiences. We used IPA to process qualitative data from interviews with nine participants who were actively involved in strengthening Javanese radio dramas. The study's findings indicate that participants' subjective experiences in the reinforcement movement provide an overview of the positive development of Javanese radio dramas. Several actions, such as raising awareness, writing scripts (through workshops and competitions), nurturing talent, producing audio, evaluating, and enhancing the community's role, sparked this development. These actions encourage the manager's optimism about restoring Javanese dramas as an important part of the Javanese people's identity. This research not only helps policymakers re-evaluate local cultural preservation and development programs, but it also opens up space for cultural movers in general to find alternative ways to prevent the degradation of Javanese culture in the digital era.

Narration across time and media: Narrative framing in radio adaptations of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine

Radio drama presents unique challenges for narrative construction, particularly with regard to the incorporation of a narrator. The illusion of immediacy in radio drama often makes it difficult to identify a narrator, disrupting the traditional narrative structure found in novels. This article explores two American radio adaptations of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, with a particular focus on the use of narrative techniques that move beyond the possibilities of the original novel’s textual medium. This comparison emphasizes the unique narrative structures present in the radio adaptations and deepens our understanding of the distinct affordances as well as limitations of the audio medium in realizing Wells’s visionary tale. The analysis considers the concepts of narrator, focalizer and mediator and their application in radio drama. By exploring the distinctive characteristics of auditory signification and multimodal strategies utilized in audio drama, a deeper comprehension of narrative theory can be achieved.

Radio drama and adaptation studies

The introduction to this Special Issue discusses some of the key issues in radio drama adaptation and its place within the wider field of adaptation studies. These are primarily focused on the textual and the visual, rather than the aural. Little has been published on radio adaptation and that which is available mainly consists of scattered journal articles and chapters in edited collections. The critical work that does exist often discusses radio in relation to other media, rather than as a form in its own right. Radio drama has also frequently been analysed as something literary, words on a page, rather than as sound: only a few rare exceptions engage with radio adaptation on a deeper level, offering theoretical and methodological reflections. It is also regularly described as a ‘blind medium’, negating our cognitive and sensory capacity to create the images for ourselves as listeners. This collection brings together a wide range of work considering techniques of adaptation and their transformative effects on their source texts. In doing so, it hopes to lay the foundation for future research.

Visualizing the unseen: Stage and screen adaptations of Samuel Beckett’s radio play All That Fall

Samuel Beckett’s radio play All That Fall (1957) has been adapted for different media. In order to understand the challenges it poses for any form of visual representation, this article will first show how the radio play exploits the acousmatic nature of the medium and its so-called ‘blindness’. In a next step, it will discuss how the various stage performances of All That Fall have dealt with these difficulties, in light of the author’s reservations about the matter and the restrictions imposed by his estate. However, Beckett did allow French film and television versions to be made during his lifetime – respectively by Alain Resnais and Michel Mitrani, the latter for Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF). This raises questions not only about how authors and cultural contexts impact the adaptation process, but also about the aesthetic differences and historical relations between theatre and technological media, which the article will additionally probe.

The unnatural acoustic space of Das Haus: A ‘three-dimensional’ radio play adaptation of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves

Despite its status as a cult novel, adaptations of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves (2000) have been rare. This is not surprising, considering that the book’s unusual form is intrinsically connected to its equally unusual content. The novel’s story concerns a film about a house whose dimensions defy the laws of physics. The novel continually highlights the impossibility of its own filmic adaptation. Many of the main characters underline that the film medium inherently falls short of representing the unnatural space that is at the heart of the story. One successful adaptation is Das Haus (2010), a German radio play version of the novel that presents the story of House of Leaves in three different productions that were broadcast on three stations simultaneously. Listeners were invited to switch between the channels to find their own way through the story. This article focuses on the topic of space as it relates to sound in both the novel and the radio play adaptation, demonstrating how Das Haus relies on medium-specific elements to represent the unnatural narrative space of the story.

Adaptation as cultural and medial transfer: George Tabori’s short story and radio play Weissmann und Rotgesicht

George Tabori (1914–2007), a Hungarian-born British playwright of Jewish decent, is closely associated with German Holocaust theatre. Less well-known is his prolific career in German radio drama. This contribution traces the trajectory of Tabori’s short story ‘Weissmann und Rotgesicht’ and its adaptation for German radio in 1978. The overall theme of its narrative can be identified as the issue of competing minoritized groups (Jews and Indigenous Americans), their respective identity politics and mechanisms of ‘othering’. My analysis first asks how the short story presents these questions, as it was written in a North American context primarily shaped by the popular cultural format of the western movie. Secondly, I ask how the topic is culturally and medially transferred to the radio play form, considering the production’s West German context of the late 1970s. My interest is guided by the question whether and how we can read this 1978 radio play as an intervention in the debate on the representation of the ‘Indian’ in popular German culture and its simultaneous erasure, several decades after the Holocaust, of the Jew.

Peter Quill : Multimedia, Anti-Communism, and Science Superhero

ABSTRACT This article assesses Peter Quill, a radio thriller drama that aired on WGN (1938–1940) and evinces the early multimedia interaction of newspaper-owned radio stations through a tie-up with the Chicago Tribune, its owner. The paper condensed each week’s program with a visual summary, while the program dramatically echoed and amplified the paper’s anticommunist stance and rightist ideology through another mode and medium. Peter Quill aided US authorities in stymieing the Red Circle, a fifth-column communist group that typically overwhelmed the capabilities of law enforcement and the military. Quill also provides a scientific genius superhero that anticipates the Cold War.

Implementation of Nigeria’s surgical plan: leveraging media engagement for cleft lip and palate to drive advocacy for access to surgical healthcare

Background Global health advocacy plays a crucial role in addressing emerging health challenges, including the provision of surgical healthcare care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Nigeria launched its national surgical, obstetrics, anaesthesia, and nursing plan (NSOANP) in 2019 to improve access to surgical services, including cleft lip and palate. This report examines the potential of media engagement as a catalyst for advocacy initiatives to strengthen surgical systems. # Methods The study conducted media and advocacy workshops targeting journalists from various media outlets across Nigeria. Workshops included didactic lectures, presentations, role plays, and group discussions. Participants were evaluated through pre- and post-tests. Follow-up activities tracked participants’ reporting and awarded prizes for outstanding reporting on cleft and surgical care. # Results One hundred and three journalists, including 61 (59.2%) males and 42 (39.8%) females participated, showing significant improvement in knowledge about cleft lip and palate anomalies and access to surgical care (p = 0.03). Post-workshop outputs included public enlightenment programmes, radio dramas, and published reports. The initiative awarded prizes to 9 journalists for quality reporting. # Conclusions Media engagement is a potent tool for advocating for surgical care access. The success of this initiative underscores the importance of collaboration between stakeholders and the need for sustained efforts to support advocacy for access to surgical healthcare.

Aural Interruptions: The Politics of Sound in Teresa Deevy's Radio Plays

Despite becoming deaf at a young age from Ménière’s disease, Teresa Deevy uses sound in radio dramas to critique how conceptions of the past were materially constraining the possible futures for women in mid-century Ireland. While Deevy remains an understudied playwright, scholars like Caoilfhionn Ní Bheacháin have shown how Deevy’s stage plays challenge gender hierarchies during the Cumann na nGaedhael government and rework forms of naturalism. Few scholars offer sustained analyses of Deevy’s later plays or work on radio, though Emily Bloom’s foundational work on Irish radio modernisms and theorisation of Deevy’s unique forms of engagement with radio and radio dramas inform my examinations of four plays Deevy wrote specifically for radio. Building on current scholarship, this article examines how Deevy drew on the aurality of radio and the in medias res feel of the one-act radio play to reimagine gendered relationships to narrative, place, history and material and built environments amid shifting media and cultural landscapes in mid-century Ireland. In heeding Deevy’s contributions to radio modernism through feminist, ecofeminist and media studies lenses, my analyses demonstrate methods for reading sounds in scripts that reframe how scholars approach Deevy’s later work as they expand studies of Irish radio modernism. Reading sound elements in Dignity (1939) and Within a Marble City (1949) shows how Deevy reworks realist and naturalist forms limiting women’s agency. The auralities in Going Beyond Alma’s Glory (1951) and One Look and What It Led To (1964) meta-critically reflect on the medium of radio to point to a more modernist multiplicity for women’s self-determination. Sounds and silences in and across Deevy’s four radio dramas revise and expand understandings of mid-century Irish naturalisms, realisms and modernisms as they establish an overlooked feminist Irish radio modernism that points to multiple narrative possibilities for women’s self-determination literally hanging in the air.

Beyond Words

Beyond Words

Qualitative evaluation of an edutainment intervention to prevent age-disparate transactional sex in Tanzania: Changes in educational aspirations and gender equitable attitudes towards work.

Age-disparate transactional sex is a major contributor to the disproportionate rates of HIV experienced by adolescent girls in sub-Saharan Africa, and a key driver of unintended adolescent pregnancy. This paper comprises one element of the impact evaluation of the Learning Initiative on Norms, Exploitation and Abuse (LINEA) radio drama intervention to prevent age-disparate transactional sex. It provides new insights into the radio drama's influence on distal drivers of age-disparate transactional sex identified in formative research: girls' own educational aspirations, and gendered attitudes towards work. The intervention, which targeted adolescent girls and their caregivers in the Shinyanga Region of Tanzania, uses an edutainment approach to prevent transactional sex between girls aged 12-16 years and men at least 5-10 years older. We distributed the 39-episode radio drama on USB flash drives to 331 households and conducted longitudinal in-depth interviews with 59 participants. We conducted a thematic analysis of endline (December 2021) transcripts from 23 girls, 18 women caregivers, and 18 men caregivers of girls (n = 59), and midline (November 2021) transcripts from a sub-sample of these participants: 16 girls, 16 women and 13 men (n = 45). Findings suggest the radio drama created an enabling environment for preventing age-disparate transactional sex by increasing girls' motivation to focus on their studies and remain in school. There was also strong evidence of increased gender-equitable attitudes about work among girls and women and men caregivers. These supported women joining the workforce in positions traditionally reserved for men and challenging the male provider role. Our findings suggest that the LINEA radio drama can supplement interventions that address structural drivers of age-disparate transactional sex. The radio drama may also have impacts beyond preventing age-disparate transactional sex, such as reducing girls' HIV morbidity and mortality, and challenging attitudes that promote sexual and gender-based violence to foster more gender-equitable communities across Tanzania.

Hörspiel in the lab: The politics of interdisciplinary radio research in Germany (1928–45)

This article focuses on the establishment of new laboratories for radio research in Germany between 1928 and 1945, whereby the new discipline of radio studies and the collective work of artists, engineers and humanities scholars crucially advanced the development of the German Hörspiel (radio play). In turn, the embedding of the Hörspiel in these new ‘radio labs’ serves as an instructive prism for understanding the interdisciplinary and simultaneously highly political nature of these endeavours. Examining three case studies for radio research in this period, in Berlin, Leipzig and Freiburg, the article demonstrates how each adapted the laboratory culture of the engineering sciences to the needs of research in the humanities and their relationship to changing political conditions during the Weimar and National Socialist periods. It highlights a forgotten chapter in radio history and humanities research, particularly amidst the current enthusiasm for ‘humanities labs’ in the era of digital humanities.

Introduction

The six research articles in this issue range from an exploration of early German radio research labs and drama, to perception of politicians in audio vs. video, Indigenous participatory podcasting in Canada, Turkey’s music streaming app continuing cultural policies, and Japan’s first hospital radio initiative. Also included are book reviews of key texts, on the radio love affair described in Radiophilia and student/campus radio cultures. The editors’ introduction concludes by welcoming the new international editorial board members joining from twelve countries across five continents.

An Art of the Radio: Musique concrète and mass culture, 1941–1952

This article attends to the emergence of musique concrète as a theoretical object in Pierre Schaeffer’s writing between 1941 and 1952, seeing it as the logical endpoint of Schaeffer’s quest for an art proper to the radio. In this strong sense of the word, art is here positioned in opposition to entertainment, and as such Schaeffer seeks to separate the properly radiophonic from the impure, mercenary forms that radio had hitherto adopted. Schaeffer’s account of musique concrète follows this logic, seeking to cast off the vestiges of radio drama that remain audible in such works as Symphonie pour un homme seul. By way of conclusion, I suggest that grasping the entanglement of musique concrète with mass-cultural forms such as radio requires a mode of reading oriented not towards formalism or sonic ontology but towards the figure of the text.

Enrich Competencies for Sustainability through Radio Drama Competitions- A Multiyear Cross-sectional Study in Hong Kong

This study investigates the use of radio drama competitions to enhance competencies for sustainability among students. It focuses on how radio drama competitions can provide students with opportunities to develop collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving competencies within the sustainable development framework proposed by UNESCO. The study utilized a mixed-method approach, including online surveys and in-person interviews, to evaluate the effects of Hong Kong students’ participation in radio drama competitions on the development of their competencies for sustainability over a period of four years. Both the quantitative and qualitative data suggested radio drama competitions had a positive impact on enriching students’ collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving competencies. Students and teachers believe these critical competencies for sustainability can be acquired and enriched from the radio drama competition. These competencies help develop global citizens who can nurture more sustainable societies (UNESCO, 2017). This research also aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge by incorporating insights on how radio drama competitions can empower primary and secondary school students from Hong Kong to develop these sustainable competencies through experience and reflection. The radio drama competition offers a platform for students to explore complex sustainability issues, express their creativity, collaborate with other students, as well as engage with a broader audience. In addition, this study provides suggestions on how radio drama competitions can be used as an educational tool for sustainability, integrated into primary or secondary schools’ curriculum, nurture students’ transferrable skills and achieve the goals of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) at very young age.

The BBC and Soft Power at Home: Promoting Democracy Through The Archers

ABSTRACT Nations export cultural and political values through news and entertainment in attempts to wield “soft power” abroad. The BBC, long viewed as a source of the United Kingdom’s soft power internationally, also promotes democracy at home through its domestic programming. One overlooked source of soft power is the long-running radio drama The Archers. A content analysis of episodes that aired on or near 18 general elections and three referenda across seven decades reveals consistent themes about the importance of civic participation. Although political discourse today may have a cynical edge, voting remains a sacred act in the fictional village of Ambridge.

Research on the Development Strategy of Online Radio Drama under the Background of "Ear Economy"--Taking Himalaya FM as an Example

Research on the Development Strategy of Online Radio Drama under the Background of "Ear Economy"--Taking Himalaya FM as an Example