Radio exchanges and encounters: the creation of a global audience and popular culture (UK and Italy, 1945 – 80s)
Ester Lo Biundo, University of Padua
The aim of this proposed paper is to present the objectives, methodologies and themes of a recently started post-doc on Anglo-Italian radio (University of Padua, August 2023 – July 2024) entitled: Radio Waves: Network Building and the Making of Modern Europe (1945 – 80s).
Working alongside the principal investigator, Dr Edward Allen (University of Cambridge), I will be working on both the programmes and audience reception through archive visits in the UK and Italy; the broader project also aims at running oral history interviews with people involved in the production and former listeners. The archives to consult will include the collections of the BBC Written Archives Centre (Caversham, Reading), the BBC sound archive collection (British Library, London) and RAI archives held in Turin and Rome as well as online BBC and RAI audio-visual material.
My specific project aims at researching the relationship between the UK and Italy as a case study to find out how transnational radio broadcasts contributed to the creation of a European and global shared popular culture in which ordinary people recognised themselves in the decades that followed the Second World War. The specific outcomes of my projects will depend on what I will find in the archives but my aim – collections’ content permitting - is to focus specifically on music, lifestyle and youth subcultures.
The opportunity to present the initial results of this ongoing research in front of a community of radio experts and creatives will allow me get feedback on this brand new project and develop new ideas.
Biography
Ester Lo Biundo (PhD in History, University of Reading, 2017) is a Modern Transnational historian specialized in media and popular culture. The industries she has worked at include universities, schools, museums, archives, film and documentary production companies. She has extensively published on the BBC Italian Service for Edizioni Unicopli, the Journal of War and Cultures Studies, Modern Italy, Meridiana, Peter Lang. Her second monograph, entitled London Calling Italy. BBC broadcasts during the Second World War, was published in August 2022 for Manchester University Press. Currently (August 2023 – July 2024), Ester has a post-doc position at the University of Padua.
Leave a Reply