Radio listening in a life-historical perspective: A socio-material and narrative analysis

TY - ABST

T1 - Radio listening in a life-historical perspective

T2 - Aging in Relations – Patterns , Practices, Materiality

AU - Blaakilde, Anne Leonora

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - Radiobroadcasting and the radio apparatus have travelled in time and technological maturing since the beginning of the 20th century, which means that radio as a media and radio-listening as a human activity incorporate several aspects relevant to the study of ageing and experiences of ageing. The pivot of my exploration of radio-listening in a life-historical perspective is a fieldwork among Danish people above 70 years. These people are interviewed, followed in their daily practices while listening to radio, and we also listen to and discuss selected radioprogrammes from the archive. The aim of the study is bifurcated: -A cultural mediahistory focused on radio and radio´s impact on its listeners in historical time - A cultural gerontology focused on radio´s impact on current later life for a selected group of radio listeners. Initially, the analysis is of temporal character; applying a life-historical perspective inspired by, but not adapting completely to Tamara Harevens (2000) three analytic "times" : "individual time", "family time” and ”historical time”, and In my digestion, this develops into three formats upon which I build my analysis: -Individual aspects: Taste and practice, identification, emotionality and daily routines, -Social aspects: Sociability, joint experiences of listening, (in real or in imaged communities), feelings of community -Cultural aspects: Historical and generationally specific experiences and memories This analysis includes materiality, time and space, memory and experience, so I apply a mix of socio-material and narrative theoretical inspirations from Miller and Silverstone, Latour and Haraway, and from Riceour, Merleau-Ponty, Pink and Don Ihde. This means that the interaction between the listening bodies and the appatuses, their spatial positions and movements are interpreted as material-semiotic interactions, as well as the embodied and subjective experiences and memories in time and space are interpreted in a postphenomenological perspective. Encompassing these rather different theories is the notion of soundscape (Schafer) which, in a newer reading inspired by John Urry´s notion of ’scapes’ could be seen as flowing networks of machines, technologies, organizations, texts, actors – theories and sounds. References Haraway, Donna 1991. Simans, Cyborgs and Women, the reinvention of nature. Free Association, London. Hareven, Tamara 2000. Families, History, and Social Change: Life-Course & Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Westview Press, Perseus Press Books Group. Ihde, Don 2007. The Auditary Dimension. Pp 49-55 in Listening and Voice. Phenomenologies of Sound. (2nd ed). State University of New York Press, Albany. Kemp, Peter 1999. Tid og fortælling, introduktion til Paul Ricoeur. Århus Universitetsforlag, Århus, Denmark. Latour, Bruno 2004. How to talk about the body? The Normative Dimensions of Science Studies. Body & Society vol. 10:205-229. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 2012. Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge. (Orig. 1945) Miller, Daniel 1998. Material Cultures, Why some things matter. UCL Press, London. Pink, Sarah and Mackley, Kerstin Leder 2013. Saturated and situated: expanding the meaning of media in the routines of everyday life. Media Culture Society, vol. 35, no. 6: 677-691. Schafer, R. Murray 1994. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Destiny Books, Rochester, VT. (Orig. 1977) Silverstone, Roger 1994. Television and everyday life. Routledge. John Urry 2000. Mobile Sociology. British Journal of Sociology 51, 1, 185-203.

AB - Radiobroadcasting and the radio apparatus have travelled in time and technological maturing since the beginning of the 20th century, which means that radio as a media and radio-listening as a human activity incorporate several aspects relevant to the study of ageing and experiences of ageing. The pivot of my exploration of radio-listening in a life-historical perspective is a fieldwork among Danish people above 70 years. These people are interviewed, followed in their daily practices while listening to radio, and we also listen to and discuss selected radioprogrammes from the archive. The aim of the study is bifurcated: -A cultural mediahistory focused on radio and radio´s impact on its listeners in historical time - A cultural gerontology focused on radio´s impact on current later life for a selected group of radio listeners. Initially, the analysis is of temporal character; applying a life-historical perspective inspired by, but not adapting completely to Tamara Harevens (2000) three analytic "times" : "individual time", "family time” and ”historical time”, and In my digestion, this develops into three formats upon which I build my analysis: -Individual aspects: Taste and practice, identification, emotionality and daily routines, -Social aspects: Sociability, joint experiences of listening, (in real or in imaged communities), feelings of community -Cultural aspects: Historical and generationally specific experiences and memories This analysis includes materiality, time and space, memory and experience, so I apply a mix of socio-material and narrative theoretical inspirations from Miller and Silverstone, Latour and Haraway, and from Riceour, Merleau-Ponty, Pink and Don Ihde. This means that the interaction between the listening bodies and the appatuses, their spatial positions and movements are interpreted as material-semiotic interactions, as well as the embodied and subjective experiences and memories in time and space are interpreted in a postphenomenological perspective. Encompassing these rather different theories is the notion of soundscape (Schafer) which, in a newer reading inspired by John Urry´s notion of ’scapes’ could be seen as flowing networks of machines, technologies, organizations, texts, actors – theories and sounds. References Haraway, Donna 1991. Simans, Cyborgs and Women, the reinvention of nature. Free Association, London. Hareven, Tamara 2000. Families, History, and Social Change: Life-Course & Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Westview Press, Perseus Press Books Group. Ihde, Don 2007. The Auditary Dimension. Pp 49-55 in Listening and Voice. Phenomenologies of Sound. (2nd ed). State University of New York Press, Albany. Kemp, Peter 1999. Tid og fortælling, introduktion til Paul Ricoeur. Århus Universitetsforlag, Århus, Denmark. Latour, Bruno 2004. How to talk about the body? The Normative Dimensions of Science Studies. Body & Society vol. 10:205-229. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 2012. Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge. (Orig. 1945) Miller, Daniel 1998. Material Cultures, Why some things matter. UCL Press, London. Pink, Sarah and Mackley, Kerstin Leder 2013. Saturated and situated: expanding the meaning of media in the routines of everyday life. Media Culture Society, vol. 35, no. 6: 677-691. Schafer, R. Murray 1994. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Destiny Books, Rochester, VT. (Orig. 1977) Silverstone, Roger 1994. Television and everyday life. Routledge. John Urry 2000. Mobile Sociology. British Journal of Sociology 51, 1, 185-203.

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

Y2 - 26 February 2014 through 28 February 2015

ER -