Radio Analysis

Radio Analysis

1. Introduction

Every day, many people tune in to radio news. In Britain alone, every week over 12 million listen to news bulletins from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on five radio networks.

The language of the news media, especially of radio news, offers a number of areas which are worth researching and investigating. An investigation of the linguistic features of the language in radio news - similar to any other investigation - needs a definition of what is to be studied.

I will start by providing some background information to the topic 'radio', namely by summing up the most important events in the history of radio. After illustrating the most interesting turning points of the development of radio in the past, I will talk about radio news in general, before I will explain specific details about how to write and read a news text for a radio station. The last chapter includes full transcriptions of two radio texts and 'normal' newspaper texts as well as their analyses and comparisons. I will have a look at similarities and differences on radio writing and newspaper language.

2. The History of Radio

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles.

Do you understand this?

And radio operates in the same way: You send signals here; they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat"

- Einstein.

2.1 Samuel Morse

The first visible evidence of the history was the invention of an electromagnetic telegraph by Samuel Morse in 1836.

Morse, born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, was educated at Yale College and later became interested in chemical and electrical experiments. He also invented a code, now known as the Morse code, for use with his telegraph instrument. Samuel Morse tried without success to obtain European patents for his telegraph. (cf. Microsoft Encarta, 1994) (Source: Microsoft Encarta, 1994)

2.2 The following years

In 1873, the British physicist James Clerk-Maxwell announces the theory of electro-magnetic waves.

In 1888, Heinrich Hertz produces the first electro-magnetic waves by supplying an electric charge to a capacitor and then short-ciruiting it. The energy from the resulting spark is radiated in the form of electromagnetic waves and Hetz is able to measure the wavelength and velocity of these so-called Hertzian waves.

In 1894, British physicist Sir Oliver Lodge uses a device called the coherer to detect the presence of radio waves and demonstrates that these waves could be used for signalling.

2.3 Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi (1874 - 1937), an Italian electrical engineer, was born in Bologna and educated at the University of Bologna. As early as 1890, he became interested in wireless telegraphy, and by 1895 he had developed an apparatus with which he succeeded in sending signals to a point a few kilometers away by means of a directional antenna. In 1899 he established communication across the English Channel between England and France, and in 1901 he communicated (Source: Microsoft Encarta, 1994)

signals across the Atlantic Ocean between Poldhu, in Cornwall, England, and Saint John's, in Newfoundland, Canada. His system was soon adopted by the British and Italian navies, and by 1907 had been so much improved that transatlantic wireless telegraph service was established for public use. (cf. Microsoft Encarta, 1994)

In 1914, the thermionic valve could be used as a radio generator which produced a carrier wave capable of being modulated by speech.

(Source: http://www.vwlowen.demon.co.uk/radio/radhist.htm)

Marconi transmitted speech over 50 miles.

This Marconi magnetic detector is a mechanical device with a clockwork.

(Source: http://home.luna.nl/~arjan-muil/radio/history/history-frame.html)

This Marconi 10' induction coil was part of the Marconi emergency transmitter.

(Source: http://home.luna.nl/~arjan-muil/radio/history/history-frame.html)

2.4 Radio for the public

The wireless was no longer the domain of professionals and was also being used for entertainment.

When Idzarda started broadcasting in 1919 his audience was small. Mainly technical enthousiasts tuned in to the regular transmissions.

From 1924, many dutch organisations founded broadcasting organisations, which was an important step to bring radio to the people.

When Philips introduced a simple-to-operate radioset in 1927, radio got booming.

3. News on the radio

"News is not reality, but a supply of sources' potrayals of reality, mediated by news organisations."

Leon V. Sigal, quoted in Manoff and Schudson, Reading the News

3.1 What is news?

Even if limited to just a minute or two at the top of each hour, news act as a punctuation mark between programmes or time periods. According to Barnard (2000: 139), the news is often „a measure of a station's credibility and a major factor in the buying and selling of media on an international scale".

One could say that the news is constituted of an accurate, balanced and timely reportage on the events of the day, or a combination of what will interest and engage the public. But the primary point is that news never just 'happens': what appears in a bulletin is an attempt to a comprehensible interpretation of selected events, and as such is never wholly value-free. (cf. Barnard 2000: 139-149)

3.2