The Sound of Radio

I had this great idea to present a Lecture 5 reflection to you through sound, and while this would have been really cool, I did some soul searching and realised I can’t actually stand to listen to myself speak, so.

Dragging my bleary-eyed self from bed this morning after a long night/morning of watching: http://www.youtube.com/user/thefashioncitizen, I realised I had yet to listen to the sound lecture.  As my coffee and I grudgingly sat down in front of the laptop, I knew we were both going to have a terrible time. I could not, for the life of me, concentrate. Without any visuals to keep my eyes occupied, I was desperate to rest my eyes on something, but there was nothing that ‘matched’ what Carmel, Richard and Steve were discussing. Quite irritated and frustrated that I couldn’t focus, I felt the need to substitute the lack of visual with content I sourced myself. In the end I found myself scrolling through Wikipedia profiles of the speakers, just so I could match the voice with a face and create some sort of connection.  This was a matter of concern.

Although concerning, it was not surprising, my media use diary already indicated my zero tolerance for radio.  However, I imagined that if I ever started to listen to radio again, it would be super easy. I was wrong.

Coincidently, the sound interviews were actually about how to communicate effectively cross-sound. Despite the intriguing points made by both Richard Fidler and Steve Austin, the only thing that struck me was there belief that radio is the more intimate media. I am extremely undecided on this notion, part of me couldn’t disagree more, based on my inability to focus, but the other part can certainly see why. I indeed agree with Richard that radio is a very different medium to television. While this is the case, I found a point of his very interesting. When mentioning how both television and radio draw an audience in, he said that when we decide on what to watch, it is very much a process of, “nah, nah, nah, oh yeah” (in regard to channel surfing), meaning the images on the screen need to be powerful enough for us to drop the remote.  In my opinion, radio seems harder, getting inside the listeners head calls for cunning and extremely interesting content (handpicking ‘interesting’ interviewees and pre-interviewing them to assure they are valuable etc.) However, to be honest, I don’t have time to be persuaded by radio, in the words of Steve Austin, “we are time poor,” and I’d say this is why I am out of touch.

I digress. To get back on the topic of telling stories via radio, Richard provided some useful information for us young journalists:

- You won’t get anything useful if you relentlessly prosecute.
- Use humour to lighten the mood.

Steve on the other hand seemed to be in favour of the prosecution method, finding it more pertinent to expose the fakes by twisting questions until you get what you want.  This is how his program intrigues people to pick up the phone, by posing open questions regarding things that frustrate people, and in turn, get a quick response. Essentially, he believes this response comes about by human-orientated stories, and striving to find that human experience. 

It’s also worth noting that both men stressed that listening implies respect and that being able to witness a story unfold, as though the interviewee has entirely forgotten they are on air, is something of magic.

Despite my troubles concentrating, I believe the content of the lecture has embedded in me a set of invaluable life skills, everything from not “doing anything on radio that you wouldn't do in life” and avoiding the treacherous “ideological ghetto.” Essentially, it’s all about what the audience needs.

-Shannen