Glossary
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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 3.6
Beck, Alan, 1998, 'Point-of-listening in radio drama', Sound Journal,
electronic publication,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/sound-journal/beck981.html
(Beck, 1998, 12.7)
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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
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 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
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)
(Also Beck, 2000b, 2.4) See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
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. See Beck, 1998, 1.12 and Section 6 note to 6.12.
Beck, Alan, 2002, The Death of Radio? An essay in radio-philosophy for
the digital age, electronic book published by Sound Journal,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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. (See Beck, 1999, 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 7.1
Reality
See Lifeworld
Referentiality
The ways the fiction work points outside of itself to the Lifeworld. .
(See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 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,
http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/rp/index.html
See 6.25
