Pushing the boundaries of radio studies: what we can learn from history, sound studies and musicology.
Over the last 25-years radio studies has been established as a vital discipline in academia. Both radio and its academic study have pushed forward, adapted and been reimagined. As we reflect on what has been achieved, we must also critically determine the frames we will need to tackle radio scholarship in the next twenty-five years. Drawing on some of my own work in synthesising a media and cultural study of radio with insights and approaches from history, sound studies and musicology, I suggest some of the ways these disciplines can enrich the study of radio.
I propose that we have often been limited in the way we understand the past of radio, its place in the wider sphere of listening media and in the role that music has both in defining radio and understanding how this institutional form is changing. Using some worked examples, I offer up concrete and grounded approaches that could build on the strengths that are already apparent in published work in the area.
Biography:
Tim Wall is Professor of Radio and Popular Music Studies at Birmingham City University. He researches into the production and consumption cultures around popular music and radio. He was formerly an AHRC Knowledge Exchange Fellow and the Principal Investigator of the BBC Listeners Online project.
His publications have included the second edition of his book Studying Popular Music Culture (Sage), and the second edition of the jointly authored Media Studies: Texts, Production and Context (Longman). He has also published articles on music radio online, the transistor radio, personal music listening, jazz and Duke Ellington on the radio, and radio sound. He is currently writing the history of Jazz on BBC Radio from 1922 to 1972 (Equinox)
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