Week Five: Telling Stories, literally

This week I was introduced to the world of storytelling through sound through an interview with two masters of Radio –Richard Fidler and the Steve Austin.

Humans are good at talking; it’s what we do best. Our ability to speak (and consequently to express complex ideas and emotions through language) are genetically programmed into our genome*. Even with our big brains, we wouldn’t have gotten far without the ability to communicate our big fancy thoughts. As such, the most natural way that we tell stories is by literally telling them. 

It took a lot of talking before humans started painting on walls, and then a lot more after that before we started writing down our words. It wasn’t until the age of the Greeks that we started acting out our stories for others’ entertainment. Language (and therefore storytelling) is, at its core, spoken, not written or seen.

Perhaps this is why radio – the oldest electronic media platform – is actually growing, while its brothers shrink under the crippling weight of the new media.  It would seem that the radio star is finally having his sweet revenge.

 Radio has been an important media platform throughout the world for almost a century, and even today it continues to grow. 

One might mistakenly think that television makes radio redundant, it being essentially the same thing with the exception that viewers get to see what is being spoken about. While seeing the subject of a story has its benefits, radio serves its own purpose in journalism and is in no way inferior to television. Richard Fidler explains; “the voice you hear doesn’t really come at you [as it does on TV], it seems to almost come from inside your head.”

The subtle advantage of radio (and podcasts) as a platform for story telling is that it removes unnecessary complexity and allows the listener to absorb what is being said. I would liken this to music videos. I think music videos are great – but simply the sound of the musicians is more captivating when I want to enjoy my favourite music.

Similarly, radio removes the complexity of images, permitting the mind to be engrossed in the story being told and allowing the imagination to wander. “The theatre of the imagination” is a rather corny way to describe radio, but I think it is accurate.

In this way it is a much more poignant platform for human interest pieces. The advantage of news, information and other journalistic stories on radio is that it allows a time-poor audience to multi-task – a quality that Steve Austin attributes to the revival of the platform. 

Radio has survived as a media platform for a long time, and even in the face of the new media it continues to grow. This is a result of its simplicity and effectiveness. Even if traditional radio eventually becomes out-dated, its legacy will undoubtedly live on in newer technology like Podcasts. For now at least, as always, it serves as a powerful and relevant platform for journalism.

*Copp, et al (2005) <http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v6/n2/abs/nrn1605.html>