Radio Drama Research Articles

Research on the Development Strategy of Maoer FM Radio Drama in the Era of “Ear Economy”

Research on the Development Strategy of Maoer FM Radio Drama in the Era of “Ear Economy”

Between Genre and Medium: Hilda Tablet , Henry Reed's Fictional Metabiography for Radio

Abstract: In the 1950s, Henry Reed wrote the seven-part series Hilda Tablet , a humorous radio play for the Third Programme, the BBC's cultural channel. The series deals with the fictional biographer Herbert Reeve—Henry Reed's alter ego—who writes a biography of the also fictional author Richard Shewin and later the composer Hilda Tablet. This article analyzes Hilda Tablet in the light of biography studies. It argues that the series "remediates" the genre of biography on radio, and uses techniques associated with fictional metabiography and mockbiography to highlight, question, and satirize genre and media conventions. Through a contextual and audionarratological analysis, it recovers Hilda Tablet for critical analysis, and reflects on the use of audio techniques for biographical construction and interpretation. It contributes to the study of biography in two ways: by focusing on the little-explored hybrid genre of the radio biography, and by paying close attention to aspects of the fictional metabiography and mockbiography.

Gauging the accuracy of automatic speech data harvesting in five under-resourced languages

Recent research on deep-learning architectures has resulted in substantial improvements in automatic speech recognition accuracy. The leaps of progress made in well-resourced languages can be attributed to the fact that these architectures are able to effectively represent spoken language in all its diversity and complexity. However, developing advanced models of a language without appropriate corpora of speech and text data remains a challenge. For many under-resourced languages, including those spoken in South Africa, such resources simply do not exist. The aim of the work reported on in this paper is to address this situation by investigating the possibility to create diverse speech resources from unannotated broadcast data. The paper describes how existing speech and text resources were used to develop a semi-automatic data harvesting procedure for two genres of broadcast data, namely news bulletins and radio dramas. It was found that adapting acoustic models with less than 10 hours of manually annotated data from the same domain significantly reduced transcription error rates for speaking styles and acoustic conditions that are not represented in any of the existing speech corpora. Results also indicated that much more automatically transcribed adaptation data is required to achieve similar results.

Addressing the Works of World Literature with Radio Play Application

In the study, within the scope of World Literature course, radio play adaptations of works from French and Russian literatures were vocalized by pre-service teachers and tried to be presented in radio play format. In this regard, the aim of the research is to address the attitudes of pre-service teachers who experience preparing radio plays towards collaborative studies and their perception of information communication technologies competence levels. In addition, the thoughts of pre-service teachers about whether they enjoy the work of preparing radio plays, vocalizing, getting to know the work closely, and getting to know the author closely were also discussed. It is thought that the research will contribute to getting to know the literary work, the author and the characteristics of the period in which it emerged through radio plays, learning by doing and experiencing, learning permanently and with pleasure, increasing motivation and contributing to speaking skills. Because in today's education and training environments, rather than transferring knowledge, students are expected to be involved in the education and training process in which they are active, access information in creative ways, construct knowledge, learn collaboratively and interactively. In the study, qualitative and quantitative data were collected and mixed method was used. The study group of the research consists of pre-service teachers taking the World Literature course. "Cooperative Learning Scale" and "Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Competence Perception Scale" were used as data collection tools. The findings obtained as a result of the research indicate that pre-service teachers' perceptions of collaborative studies for preparing radio plays are at a "high" level; their mean scores of ICT competence perception are at a "sufficient" level; there is no significant difference in their attitudes towards collaborative learning and their perceptions of competence in using ICT according to gender. Most of the pre-service teachers stated that it was their first time doing such an application. Regarding the qualitative findings, the students stated that they enjoyed the radio play very much, that this application contributed to them to get to know the work closely, that they had the opportunity to get to know the work more closely, and that they were curious about the other works and life of the author. More students stated that going beyond just knowing the work as a name and giving life to a character in the work ensured the permanence of the work and what was learned. They also stated that they learned about new applications related to technology through the radio play they experienced and that they saw their deficiencies related to technology.

Evocations of the eerie: the acousmatic voice in Canadian radio drama

ABSTRACT Radio is a medium that traffics first and foremost in disembodied voices. English Canadian radio drama has historically drawn upon the eeriness of the disembodied voice as an aesthetic object, and it has done so in an outsized fashion when compared with other national contexts. This trope of the disembodied or acousmatic voice draws upon a relationship to place defined by an experience of alienation and the conceits of settler colonialism. In radio, it expresses Canada’s unique relationship to technological mediation, given the central role of technology in major nation-building projects and the anxieties that stem from technologically-mediated economic and cultural imperialism from south of the border. The themes of excess, dislocation, and alienation associated with technological mediation and conveyed in the disembodied voice recur throughout nearly a century of CBC radio dramas. This paper attempts to make sense of this trope through Mark Fisher’s conception of “the eerie” as a distinct aesthetic form. It is a form that is shaped by the larger socio-cultural context within which it operates, but which also inheres with the potential to both reproduce and challenge those socio-cultural underpinnings.

Spotify Application Training in Making Radio Dramas as Extracurricular Activities for Literary Studios at Schools

The extracurricular presence of literature has a role as part of literature learning in schools. Its existence provides extra space for students to deepen their insights into theory, appreciation and production of literary works as they can in the classroom. The purpose of this community service activity that is integrated with the Real Work Lecture is to provide solutions offered to overcome a problem. The solution carried out is by Training the Spotify Application in Making Radio Dramas as Extracurricular Activities for Literary Studios in Schools. The results of the activities of this community service activity program are: 1) Profiles of target groups that are able to self-help products as activities that encourage discipline, independence and knowledge; 2) Knowledge of the steps of making a radio drama which includes dubbing, script surgery, sound editing process, and uploading to the Spotify application; 3) Increase cooperation between the university and the school; 4) The creation of student discipline in spotify application training.

A Radio Drama’s Effects on Attitudes Toward Early and Forced Marriage: Results From a Field Experiment in Rural Tanzania

Early and forced marriage (EFM) is an increasing focus of international organizations and local non-government organizations. This study assesses the extent to which attitudes and norms related to EFM can be changed by locally tailored media campaigns. A two-hour radio drama set in rural Tanzania was presented to Tanzanian villagers as part of a placebo-controlled experiment randomized at the village level. A random sample of 1200 villagers was interviewed at baseline and invited to a presentation of the radio drama, 83% of whom attended. 95% of baseline respondents were re-interviewed two weeks later, and 97% 15 months after that. The radio drama produced sizable and statistically significant effects on attitudes and perceived norms concerning forced marriage, which was the focus of the radio drama, as well as more general attitudes about gender equality. Fifteen months later, treatment effects diminished, but we continue to see evidence of EFM-related attitude change.

Effect of Radio Drama Intervention on Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice-Intention of Hypertension Prevention among the Working Class

ABSTRACT Background Knowledge, attitude, and practice of healthy lifestyles are crucial for the prevention of hypertension. While the use of the mass media as health information sources persists, their use for hypertension prevention interventions among high-risk individuals is arguably low. Purpose To examine the effect of radio drama intervention on knowledge, attitude, and practice-intention of hypertension prevention among the working class. Methods A quasi-experiment (pretest-posttest design) among the working class aged 18–64 years who received the radio drama intervention. The paired samples t-test and Cohen’s d statistics were adopted to test the hypotheses. Results There were significant differences in the knowledge (t(38) = −3.852, p < .05), attitude (t(38) = −2.719, p < .05) and practice-intention of hypertension prevention (t(38) = −4.958, p < .05) among participants exposed to the radio drama intervention. The effect size of the intervention was large for knowledge (d = 0.961) and practice-intention (d = 1.129) but medium (d = 0.584) for attitude toward hypertension prevention. Discussion The radio drama effectively delivered hypertension education messages and improved the knowledge, attitude, and practice-intention of participants toward hypertension prevention.Translation to Health Education Practice: The study recommends the adoption of radio drama to educate the working class and prevent non-communicable diseases such as hypertension by health educators.

A mixed-methods, exploratory, quasi-experimental evaluation of a radio drama intervention to prevent age-disparate transactional sex in Tanzania.

Age-disparate transactional sex (ADTS) is associated with HIV, unintended pregnancy, school dropout and violence, yet few interventions have successfully prevented it, and none have set ADTS prevention as their primary outcome. This exploratory evaluation aimed to assess indications of change after exposure to the Learning Initiative on Norms, Exploitation and Abuse (LINEA) intervention, a mass-media, gender-transformative social norms intervention aimed at preventing ADTS in Tanzania. In a condensed implementation 331 participants were instructed to listen to the LINEA radio drama over seven weeks, and 60 were randomly allocated to household discussion sessions about content. In-depth interviews (n = 81) from girls aged 12-16 years, and women and men caregivers were collected at baseline (September 2021), midline (November) and endline (December 2021). Surveys were conducted (n = 120) at baseline and endline using the Norms and Attitudes on ADTS Scale (NAATSS) and the Gender Roles and Male Provision Expectations (GRMPE) scale. Interviews were thematically analyzed using a framework approach. Age-stratified linear regression models adjusted for baseline scores were used to measure association between the intervention and endline scale scores. Longitudinal data were available from 59 qualitative (73%) and 95 quantitative participants (79%). Qualitative evidence revealed the drama facilitated family conversations about adolescent challenges, allowing caregivers to advise daughters. Some girls gained confidence to refuse men's gifts, learning that accepting them could necessitate sexual reciprocation. Some caregivers felt increased responsibility for supporting girls in the community to avoid ADTS. Blame for ADTS shifted for some from girls to men, suggesting increased understanding of inequitable power dynamics and reductions in victim blaming. Marginal quantitative evidence revealed that highly exposed girls had improved gender equitable beliefs on the GRMPE (β = -6.26; 95% CI: -12.94, 0.42). Moderately exposed men had increased gender inequitable norms on the NAATSS subscale (β = 0.42 95% CI: 0.05, 0.79), but there was no effect in highly exposed men. Given the small sample results should be interpreted cautiously. Our initial findings indicate high engagement with the LINEA intervention shows promise in shifting knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes, beliefs and social norms driving ADTS in Shinyanga, Tanzania, supporting a robust impact evaluation.

In Memoriam—Gerhard Roth (June 24, 1942–February 8, 2022)

In Memoriam—Gerhard Roth (June 24, 1942–February 8, 2022) Anita McChesney, Co-Editor On February 8, 2022, Austria lost one of its most significant cultural voices with the death of Gerhard Roth. The preeminent contemporary Austrian author earned widespread acclaim with his masterful use of unique perspectives to unflinchingly investigate the forgotten, silenced, and overlooked realms of history, of society, and of human consciousness. Austria was often at the center of those revelations, which earned Roth a reputation as a "Nestbeschmutzer." Gerhard Roth was born in Graz, Austria, on June 24, 1942. He enrolled in medical school at the University of Graz but broke off his studies in 1967 to work at the Graz computer center, where he later became manager. These experiences trained his eye for observing details and honed his skill in identifying minutiae in nature as well as in the human psyche. Roth entered the literary scene in the 1970s as an active member of the Forum Stadtpark literary circle in Graz and he published his first novel, the autobiography of albert einstein, in 1972. He subsequently became a contributor to the circle's magazine manuskripte and was a leading member of the Graz Autorenversammlung. After 1977 he devoted his time exclusively to his craft and, after 1986, spent his time writing in alternating residences in Vienna and Southern Styria. The "Augenmensch," as Roth would come to be known, was a prolific writer, amassing over forty publications that include novels, short stories, essays, plays, radio dramas, screenplays, and photo features. Roth secured literary acclaim with his seven-volume cycle Archive des Schweigens (1980–1991). This magnum opus combines photographs and a variety of narrative perspectives and styles to unearth silenced stories in twentieth-century Austrian history, particularly those relating to the country's monarchical and National-Socialist past. The subsequent eight-volume cycle Orkus (1995–2011) complements the previous series in its exploration into hidden realms of human experience. For Roth, the two series, which together encompass [End Page 55] over 5,500 pages and to which he devoted over thirty-one years of his life, are intertwined. Indeed, he describes the two series as a double helix: elements, themes, and characters recur throughout the works, and both cycles are devoted to exploring the origins of National Socialism in Austria as well as literary possibilities and forms. Gerhard Roth's work was recognized by numerous awards, including the Literaturpreis des Landes Steiermark, the Alfred-Döblin Prize, the Peter Rosegger-Prize, the Preis des Österreichischen Buchhandels, the Bruno Kreisky Prize, the Großes Goldenes Ehrenzeichen from the city of Vienna, the Jean Paul Preis, and, in 2016, the Großer Österreichischer Staatspreis. Austria's federal president Alexander Van der Bellen acknowledged the author's importance to Austria: "Klar und konsequent setzte er sich mit österreichischer Geschichte, mit den hellen, oft auch dunklen Seiten unseres Landes auseinander." For Roth writing was very personal, indeed central to existence. In an interview I conducted with him in 2010 for a literary event at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York, he explained, "Ich schreibe über das, was mich bewegt, was mich betrifft. Ich bin süchtig nach dem Schreiben. Mein Schreiben ist sehr persönlich." I had the pleasure of hearing some of these personal stories when I visited him at his country home in southern Styria in June 2011. Over the course of two days, Roth selflessly gave of his time, relaying stories of his upbringing, his experiences in the aftermath of World War II, and the significance of writing and photography in his quest to reveal the hidden strengths and foibles of humanity. Gerhard Roth was prolific like few others, and he dedicated himself unremittingly to unearthing the silenced realms of Austrian history and society and of human consciousness. When he passed away on February 8, Roth had already completed several hundred pages of a text fittingly entitled Die Jenseitsreise. [End Page 56] Copyright © 2023 Austrian Studies Association

Olanda

Olanda

Gravity

We are pleased to share with you our very first radio play: Gravity by Katie Caden. Caden is an alumnus of Soho Writers Lab and has had her work performed at Vault festival, the Bunker Theatre, Southwark Playhouse, Theatre 503, Camden People's Theatre and Battersea Arts Centre. Her last show 'Paper Straws', produced by her theatre company PearShaped, won the Vault Origins award and her first play 'Are You Happy Now' was shortlisted for Lyric Hammersmith's Original Theatre Voices competition. Caden's writing explores contemporary issues, and interrogates the way we live our lives today, experimenting with form and often using humour as a way to communicate serious issues. She writes to understand other people, and herself, exploring why we behave in the way we do? Why do we make poor decisions and repeat our mistakes? And what drives us to hurt each other or conversely express our love? Writing 'Gravity' in response to Unfeeling, the theme for this year's issue, allowed Caden to consider these things and, in particular, how people can express their love through their actions whilst saying they don't care, and conversely how we can tell people we love them and then behave like we don't. All the characters battle with these impulses and the push and pull between feeling too much and feeling nothing at all. Alongside this, Caden has included technology almost as an extra character, interfering with these dynamics, pulling attention away from the situation at hand, and impacting the characters' ability to feel to the fullest extent.

“Jonah’s Whale,” a Radio Play by Claude Aveline (1952)

Translated from French.

A 10+10+30 radio campaign is associated with increased infant vaccination and decreased morbidity in Jimma Zone, Ethiopia: A prospective, quasi-experimental trial.

Mass media interventions have the potential to reach large audiences and influence health behaviours and outcomes. To date, no study has evaluated the effect of a radio-only campaign on infant vaccination coverage, timeliness, and related morbidity in a low-income country. We implemented the "10+10+30" radio campaign involving broadcasting a weekly 10-minute radio drama series on vaccination, followed by a 10-minute discussion by community health workers, and then a 30-minute listener phone-in segment in Jimma Zone, Ethiopia for three months. To assess the impact of 10+10+30, which was aired on a community radio station, we recruited mothers of infants up to 5 weeks old in intervention district clusters that were inside the radio station's reception range (n = 328 dyads) and control district clusters that were outside of the range (n = 332 dyads). Intention-to-treat and per-protocol analyses, adjusted for pre-intervention differences between the districts, were conducted to examine the co-primary outcome of Penta-3 vaccination coverage and timeliness as well as those of other vaccines and outcomes related to infant morbidity. Both intention-to-treat and per-protocol analyses revealed higher vaccine coverage (p<0.001) and more timely vaccine administration (p<0.001) in the intervention district relative to the control district, with infants in the intervention district being 39% more likely to receive a Penta 3 vaccination (adjusted RR: 1.39, p<0.001). In addition, adjusted regression analyses of maternal retrospective reports over a two-week period revealed 80% less infant diarrhoea (RR: 0.20, p<0.001), 40% less fever (RR: 0.60, p<0.001) and 58% less cough (RR: 0.42, p<0.001) in the intervention district relative to the control district. This study provides compelling initial evidence that a radio drama integrated with discussion and phone-in components may improve infant vaccination coverage and timeliness, and may reduce infant morbidity. Randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm and extend these findings with other samples.

Wagner's Furious Host

Wagner's Furious Host

Our Town, South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, California

<i>Our Town</i>, South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, California

Nizami Ganjavi In Azize Jafarzade's Works

Hikâye, povest ve tarihi roman yazarı, akademisyen Ezize Ceferzade, aynı zamanda klasik edebiyat uzmanıdır. Klasik Azerbaycan edebiyatının derlenip toplanmasında, önemli temsilcilerinin hayat ve sanatının, eserlerinin genç nesillere tanıtılmasında onun önemli hizmetleri olmuştur. 2021 yılında, Azerbaycan’da Nizâmî Gencevî’nin doğumunun 880, Ezize Ceferzade’nin ise 100. yıl kutlamaları dolayısıyla çeşitli etkinlikler yapıldı. Yazarın bütün külliyatı incelendiğinde onun Nizâmî Gencevî sanatına hayranlığı ve birçok eserinde şairin mesnevilerinden alıntılara yer verdiği görülmektedir. O, Celaliyye povestinde, Nizâmî’nin çağını, biyografisini ve görsel tasvirini başarıyla canlandırmıştır. Müellif, 1991 yılında Azerbaycan’da Nizâmî’nin 850. doğum yıl dönümü dolayısıyla gerçekleştirilen bir yarışmaya, büyük şairden bahseden “Bir Görüş Efsanesi” adlı radyo piyesi ile katılmış ve bu eser jüri tarafından üçüncülük ödülü ve 600 manat para ile taltif edilmiştir. Ezize Ceferzade Qaratel, Qoşqar, Celaliyye povestlerinde ve daha birçok eserinde de Nizâmî Gencevî’den hayranlıkla bahsetmiş ve şairin mesnevilerinden alıntılara yer vermiştir. Çalışmada, yazarın bütün hikâye ve povestlerindeki Nizâmî Gencevî etkisi incelenecektir.

Information and communications technology use to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence in low- and middle-income countries: An evidence and gap map.

Information and communications technology use to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence in low- and middle-income countries: An evidence and gap map.

Analysis of the Problems and Influencing Factors in Dubbing Actors’ Role Shaping

In recent years, with the rapid development of the Internet, dubbing has gradually gone out of the loop, and dubbing industry is being known by more and more people. Dubbing products such as radio dramas are also favored by more and more listeners. However, the understanding of dubbing by many dubbing enthusiasts and dubbing actors is only superficial, and the mechanical streamline of character creation does not show the real charm of dubbing performance. According to the basic skills of actors, this paper will discuss the basic skills of dubbing performance, voice makeup, how to shape roles, dubbing mentality and dubbing problems.

Samuel Beckett and Technology ed. by Galina Kiryushina, Einat Adar, and Mark Nixon

Reviewed by: Samuel Beckett and Technology ed. by Galina Kiryushina, Einat Adar, and Mark Nixon Lois Oppenheim (bio) Samuel Beckett and Technology Edited by Galina Kiryushina, Einat Adar, and Mark Nixon. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. Pp. 269. Samuel Beckett … and technology? A surprising topic for an academic conference, an even more surprising subject of a book to follow. Or so it would seem. Samuel Beckett: Minimalism. Avant-garde. Theatre of the Absurd. Such is the terminology on which Beckett's devoted were raised. But "habit is a great deadener," as Vladimir tells us in Waiting for Godot, and, while many moved on to speak of the work of this greatest of twentieth century playwrights/novelists from other aesthetic perspectives and from intradisciplinary points of view as well—the philosophic and psychoanalytic foremost among them—it was not until relatively recently that a predominant but inauspicious dimension of Beckett's work was recognized. It was not until some scholars, Mark Nixon and Dirk Van Hulle the leaders among them, began to investigate the significance of genetic criticism for what it offers Beckett studies that attention was paid to an entirely different facet of what makes Beckett's work Beckettian. Critic Enoch Brater, in his book Beyond Minimalism (Oxford University Press, 1987), raised our awareness of the need to dig deeper, to see how, for example, the mechanical recording of a voice (as in Beckett's plays Krapp's Last Tape and Rockaby) interacted with the image viewed on the stage, or how electronically transformed recorded sounds (as in the radio play All That Fall) allowed for the listener's perception of the actor's internal consciousness. But it was then up to others to take yet another step, and in a somewhat different direction, for the significance of technology to be understood in the creation of the experience that is ours as we read, watch, or listen to Beckett's work. Several have now done so, and it is this that has culminated in the fine collection of studies that comprise this book. "Film is … a movie about the experience of our eyes watching other eyes watching us, the overexposure neatly accomplished by the superhuman eye of the camera," wrote Brater (p. 79). With a focus on Beckett's preoccupation with technologies of various sorts, some of the contributors to this volume [End Page 1225] demonstrate just how vision, actual or metaphorical, becomes superhuman and why. Several are interested in how this and other perceptual modalities are impacted—enforced or diminished—by modes of communication (radio, television), theatrical equipment (lighting, sound), voice recorders, and other kinds of machines. Other contributors are more attuned to the mechanization of human behavior itself or to representations of the interrelation between states of being and the technology of screen and stage. Or even transit: Feargal Whelan considers motion and inertia, with the latter more consistently depicted than the former by Beckett, in relation to train travel and railways. Adding "a temporal dimension" to poetics and hermeneutics, to the making and the interpretation of Beckett's work, Van Hulle offers a clear and concise exposition of the value of genetic criticism—an "enhanced appreciation of the production process" that includes how literary works (in this case Samuel Beckett's) come into being with all the "dead ends" and "forms of undoing that are often necessary to be able to move on" (p. 251)—as opposed to the single focus on a product such as it is, once it is. Each of the chapters contributes in important ways to our understanding of the subject–object dichotomy with which humankind has long grappled, and to Beckett's own heretofore insufficiently recognized preoccupation with the abstraction of subjective experience. Each offers a highly intelligent and exceedingly well-written analysis of the relation between technology, craft, and Beckett's work and, in so doing, aids in our understanding, at once, of the modernist and postmodernist elements of Beckett's writings and what might oddly be thought of as their simultaneity. Each chapter aids in our understanding (in itself increasingly mechanistic) of the "unmaking of the Western humanist tradition" (p. 1). Whether through an emphasis on the "non-narrative almost...