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Acousmatic sound: A sound which you hear without
seeing its source. Examples are: seagull cries (often), traffic
outside the window, a bomb in the distance.
Apparatus Theory: The use of
the radio apparatus related to user, space, 'listening zone'.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
4.3
Audile technique, or techniques of listening:
'a set of practices of listening that were articulated to science,
reason, and instrumentality and that encouraged the coding and
rationalization of what was heard'. Sterne, Julian, The Audible
Past. Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction, 2003, London: Duke
University Press, p 23
Aural paradise (term coined by Alan Beck):
Each radio programme, and especially radio drama, constructs
an aural paradise for the listener where each element totally
signifies, with complete aural 'focus'. This is a central theoretical
concept in Beck's medium-theory approach. Beck, Alan, 2002, The
Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy for the digital
age, electronic book published by Sound Journal, 3.6.
Beck, Alan, 1998, 'Point-of-listening
in radio drama', Sound Journal
Aurality (term coined by Alan Beck):
Part of core theory for radio. 'Aurality', matches film's
'specularity'. It has three aspects: the 'listening-to-ness'
of radio reception, the 'heard-of-ness' of the broadcast speaker
and other sound events on radio, and listening in itself. See
Aurality as central to radio theory
Extra-radio world (term coined by Alan Beck):
The world to which listeners have access through production
and broadcast. This is the equivalent of film's 'pro-filmic event'
and the 'extra-cinematic world'. It is the world out there at
which the microphone points
'Mise en scène' (adapted from film and stage scenography):
Locations, spaces and perspectives for all genres of radio, but
also including style and mode (as realism, non-realism, etc.).
For radio drama, this involves representation of the play scene,
its composition, 'set dressing' and perspective, and the characters'
behaviour in that environment and style.
Paraproxemics (media studies): Study of the way the media,
especially film and TV, simulate the way people handle the space
between themselves in real-life dialogue and hence induce a sense
of belonging in the viewer/listener. In radio's case, this reproduces
the apparent interpersonal distance between radio's performers
and the listener.
Standard production (term coined by Alan Beck):
Convention-bound radio drama directing style with
limited use of radio's features. It successfully enables budget-controlled
studio production: linear continuity of plot, dialogue- and protagonist-dominated,
dialogue mostly in positions two and three, and strictly foregrounded
above SFXs. Overall, a much plainer style - neutral acoustic
or near-neutral (living-room) is common.
Suturing techniques (term derived from film): These 'bind
in', 'stitch in' or position the listener as the subject addressed
and facilitate attentiveness. They also seek to establish the
'the reality of the radio station and the broadcasters themselves'
and deny 'absence' (Crisell). Examples: paraproxemic effects,
address, station idents, description, narrator (radio drama),
voice-over commentator (documentary, feature), the dominating
protagonist in plays and phatic communion.
MORE
Algorithm: The complex mathematic formulae that automate
the compression and decompression processes around which streaming
software is created. Gregory, 1987, 19 defines algorithm as 'a
predetermined procedure or ordered sequence of instructions for
carrying out an operation in a finite number of steps …
computing is precisely the automation and execution of algorithms'.
Analogue data: Data represented by a physical quantity
that is con­tinuously variable and proportional to the data.
Aporia: (Philosophy) A moment in a philosophical movement,
especially metaphysics, when there are unconquerable obstacles
in a tradition's understanding of its own intelligibility. (Ross,
1989, 3)
(Textual deconstruction) A moment when the illusion of determinacy
collapses because of some internal contradiction. (Belton citing
Derrida)
Opposite - determinacy
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
see 2.5
Artworld: (Visual arts theory) Arthur Danto's term
for an artefact which can be defined as art providing it meets
three conditions: (1) the historical, (2) an art-category condition,
and (3) it is 'enfranchised by theory'.
Aurality (radio): (author's term) Part of core theory
for radio. 'Aurality', matches film's 'specularity'. It has three
aspects: the 'listening-to-ness' of radio reception, the 'heard-of-ness'
of the broadcast speaker and other sound events on radio, and
listening in itself.
Automated music channels: Automated stations play music
twenty-four hours a day, and if paid for by subscription, are
without idents, DJs and advertisements, and just track after
track. The example of the 50-channel Music Choice is discussed
in Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,7.3.
Bandwidth: The data transmission capacity of a medium.
Broadband - (1) A high-capacity communication link, wired
or wireless, capable of transmitting the equivalent of multiple
TV signals. Opposite - Narrowband. (2) Any communication channel
or medium capable of data rates in excess of what can be achieved
with a telephone line and an analogue modem.
Clarification: Defining a medium as against the other
media.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
see 5.2
Constructionism (constructivism): (Philosophy, especially
metaphysics, politics) That an element of culture - a phenomenon
- is historically and culturally defined and constructed. Opposite
- essentialism.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
see 8.4
Convergence: The hypothesis that a single digital medium
such as the Internet will replace analogue telephone and tele­vision
media in the coming together of previously separate communications
like telecommunications, internet, broadcasting, written media
and so on.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
see 1.10-11
Culturalism: Another term for the tasks of cultural
/ media studies. These tasks are broadly deconstructing media
institutions, considering the differences of race, ethnic heritage,
class and gender/sexual preferences, mass culture and reception,
and also the search for possible resistance (Gramsci). Culturalism
is under attack from, among others, David Bordwell and Noël
Carroll:
Doubtless culturalism instilled in media academics a sense
of empowerment. By studying movies and TV shows one could purportedly
contribute to political struggles on behalf of the disadvantaged.
(Bordwell in Bordwell & Carroll, 1996, 11). Beck, Alan, 2002,
The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy for the digital
age, electronic book published by Sound Journal, 8.15
'Death of radio?': (author's term) Phrase to express the radical
way radio and audio are changing in the digital age and to emphasise
the rebirth of digital radio-audio in new forms along with the
traditional, with new ways of broadcasting and new apparatuses
(Internet radio, MP3 Players). See un-radio-like.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
Introduction 1
Disappearing or phantasmagoric apparatus: Technology
which 'hides' its apparatus. Opposite - 'disciplining' apparatus.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
see 4.8
Disciplining apparatus: Technology which positions and 'disciplines'
the user. Opposite - phantasmagoric or disappearing apparatus.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
see 4.5
Domain (radio): (author's term) Term for each of the
different categories which are key organisers of both form and
content: the vocal, sound effects, atmoses or different conditions
of ambience, music, noises from nonsentient objects, silences.
'Economy rule': (author's term) Radio filters out or
excludes many sound events by comparison with the Lifeworld and
with the sight/sound media. One of the specificities of radio.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
see 6.13
Essentialism: (Philosophy, especially metaphysics,
politics) Some objects, no matter what their definition or description,
have properties that are timeless and immutable, and these properties
not only are requisite to their existence but are expressed in
their definitions or descriptions. Under attack from poststructuralists.
(Film and media studies) The essence of a medium, such as
film, determines what style should prevail in that medium. (E.g.
André Bazin)
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
see 8.2 onwards
Extra-radio world: (author's term) The world to which
listeners have access through production and broadcast. This
is the equivalent of film's 'pro-filmic event' and the 'extra-cinematic
world'. It is the world out there at which the microphone points.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
see 6.3
Features (radio): (author's term) Editing and production
features of radio such as montage, cuts, balancing, fading, segue,
mixing in a music bed, digital treatment, etc. Features are the
formal strategies of radio and they are part of radio's articulation.
Figure-and-ground: The visual perspective composition
of Renaissance painting where the human figures stand out from
the background. Radio perspective is organised around a sound
centre in terms of the sound picture, with voices predominating.
Point-of-listening
in radio plays - Beck, Alan, 1998, Sound Journal, 1.12, Beck,
Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal
Section 6 note to 6.12.
Genre (radio): (author's term) In radio, genres differentiate
strands and formats such as music, radio drama, commercials,
documentaries and sports commentaries. Usual radio term is formats.
'Hard' and 'soft' radio studies: Following on Gledhill
2000, a division into 'hard' radio studies, the core we know
- media/cultural studies focused on issues of mass communications,
political economy, public policy, representation, gender, ethnic
issues, media imperialism, reception studies (ethnographic and
so on), etc.; and 'soft' - widened reception theory, aesthetics,
fantasy, desire, the body, performance theory, phenomenology,
radio-philosophy, cross-overs to the film sound track and sound
in performance.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
Introduction 10-12
'Hear-view': Radio stations on the web with web cams
in the studio or to be viewed on television. Beck, Alan, 2002,
The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy for the digital
age, electronic book published by Sound Journal, Introduction
5 and 3.5
Hierarchy of sound: One of the specificities of radio.
A strict layering of sound in broadcast based on filtering out
and balancing.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
6.11
Hybridity: Where radio draws on the forms of other
media, oversteps its boundaries and challenges its identities.
Opposite - radiogenic.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
Introduction 14
Lifeworld: Sociology term for reality. Beck, Alan,
2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy for the
digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal, 6.3
'Mise en scène': (Adapted from film and stage
scenography) Locations, spaces and perspectives for all formats
(genres) of radio, but also including style and mode (as realism,
non-realism, etc.). For radio drama, this involves representation
of the play scene, its composition, 'set dressing' and perspective,
and the characters' behaviour in that environment and style.
MP3 files: For downloading and storage of sound files,
a way of compressing into one twelfth the size of a WAV file.
Object-study: As an initial approach, it is possible
to divide radio studies into two - object-study (what programmes
are broadcast and how broadcast - approaches through cultural
materialism, for example) and subject-study (who is listening
- reception theory / studies).
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
Introduction 7
Paraproxemics: (Media studies) Study of the way the
media, especially film and TV, simulate the way people handle
the space between themselves in real-life dialogue and hence
induce a sense of belonging in the viewer/listener. In radio's
case, this reproduces the apparent interpersonal distance between
radio's performers and the listener. Proxemics are the study
of body-to-body relationships.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
5.5
Phantasmagoric or disappearing apparatus - see disappearing
apparatus: Opposite - disciplining apparatus
Phenomenology: The set of theoretical strategies associated
with the philosophical tradition founded by Edmund Husserl and
including Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gaston Bachelard,
and Paul Ricoeur. Its aim is summarised by Garner, 1994, 2:
… to redirect attention from the world as it is conceived
by the abstracting, "scientific" gaze (the objective
world) to the world as it appears or discloses itself to the
perceiving subject (the phenomenal world); to pursue the thing
as it is given to consciousness in direct experience; to return
perception to the fullness of its encounter with its environment.
Phenomenologists make the point about the essentially embodied
character of perception and the tacit, background awareness of
one's body, the presence-to-the-world. Beck, Alan, 1999b, 'Is
radio blind or invisible? A call for a wider debate on listening-in',
World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), electronic publication,
http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/WFAE/library/articles/beck_blindness.pdf,
1.4.c.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
4.3
See Phenomenology (philosophy)
Pro-filmic event: (Film) Term used for all that the
camera shoots. Also pro-filmic reality and the extra-cinematic
event.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
extra-radio world and 6.3
Prosthesis: The radio apparatus as an extension of
the human body. Other examples are the wheel as the extension
of the foot, the book of the eye. (Merleau-Ponty and Marshall
McLuhan)
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
4.3 and phenomenology
Public good: A good or service, such as a TV program,
whose quantity or value is not reduced by consumption.
Radiobility: (Coinage by Jo Tacchi) 'Recent technological
developments have been designed to achieve usability, mobility,
accessibility and radiobility. By radiobility I mean the technical
ability to be radio, or to be radio-like or 'radiogenic'. (Tacchi,
2000, 292) Compare radioworld.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
2.4, 7.1
Radioworld: (author's term) A portmanteau word to include
all instances of radio and the radio-like across history and
to come. See radiobility. (Radio lacks an essence though there
is an interdependency upon one another of a set of practices
- repeated-use instances - in the network of radio or what could
be called the radioworld.)
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
7.1
Reality: See Lifeworld
Referentiality: The ways the fiction work points outside
of itself to the Lifeworld. Beck, 2000a, Introduction, Beck,
Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
6.5
Scruton question: Is listening to a CD music track
and that on broadcast the same?
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
5.8
See Scruton question - Listening
to a CD and broadcast - the same?
Sonic continuity: (author's term) Radio's constant
need to fill the sonic space of broadcast. One of the specificities
of radio.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
6.17
'Soft' radio studies - see 'Hard' radio studies
Specificities of radio: The 'inherent features of radio'
(Shingler & Wieringa) or repeated-use instances across radio
suggesting universal practices. Examples are - hierarchy of sound,
the 'economy rule', sonic continuity and the verbocentric.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
6.8
Standard production: (author's term) Convention-bound
radio drama directing style with limited use of radio's features.
It successfully enables budget-controlled studio production:
linear continuity of plot, dialogue- and protagonist-dominated,
dialogue mostly in positions two and three, and strictly foregrounded
above SFXs. Overall, a much plainer style - neutral acoustic
or near-neutral (living-room) is common.
Streaming: A real-time bitstream conveying audio or
video information.
Subject-positioning: How each media text (film, radio
programme etc.) constructs its reader (viewer, listener) in relation
to the apparatus and the question of the implied audience. Beck,
Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy
for the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
suturing techniques and 4.11
Subject-study - see object-study
Suturing techniques: (Term derived from film) These
'bind in', 'stitch in' or position the listener as the subject
addressed and facilitate attentiveness. They also seek to establish
the 'the reality of the radio station and the broadcasters themselves'
and deny 'absence' (Crisell). Examples: paraproxemic effects,
address, station idents, description, narrator (radio drama),
voice-over commentator (documentary, feature), the dominating
protagonist in plays and phatic communion. Beck, Alan, 2002,
The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy for the digital
age, electronic book published by Sound Journal, 4.10
Transparency: The claim that a medium 'mirrors' the
Lifeworld. Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in
radio-philosophy for the digital age, electronic book published
by Sound Journal, 5.6-7
Un-radio-like: (Tacchi's term) Examples of broadcasting
that may be reckoned no longer similar to radio or radio-like.
They do not fit with our present understanding of radio. Examples
are automated music stations on satellite and cable, MP3 files,
and 'hear-view'. Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay
in radio-philosophy for the digital age, electronic book published
by Sound Journal, Introduction
3
Verbocentric: Radio's focus mostly on words. One of
the specificities of radio. Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio?
An essay in radio-philosophy for the digital age, electronic
book published by Sound Journal, 6.25
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