Editor’s Remarks: Diversity, History, Frameworks, and Effects

Radio research has been marked in the last few decades by its expansion to cover different communities, experiences, dig deeper into the past, and use increasingly innovation research methods or techniques. The diverse, original, peer-reviewed research in this issue demonstrates the expansion of the field and the fact that radio touches on so many aspects of society and the media.

This issue features articles that represent communities within communities and many around the world. In “New Arenas or More of the Same? Public and Commercial Radio Stations on Facebook” Nili Steinfeld and Tal Laor explore the tendency for Israeli public radio stations to use social media for informational purposes while Israeli commercial stations more frequently use their social media for promotion (Steinfeld & Laor, 2019). Based on the Facebook pages of Israeli radio stations, this work makes recommendations for radio stations’ use of social media. Thokozani Mhlambi argues that “Zulu took its shape in accordance with the demands of authorities, what they felt that people ought to know about, and what Africans listeners themselves wanted to hear. Between what Europeans designated Africans to be, and what Africans knew they were” (Mhlambi, 2019, p. 226) in “African Pioneer: K. E. Masinga and the Zulu ‘Radio Voice’ in the 1940s.” This thoughtful discussion focuses on the role of voice on Zulu radio. Antenna Dilemmas: The Rise of an Indigenous-Language Low-Power Radio Station in Southern California by Carlos Jimenez conducts an ethnographic study of Radio Indigena, a Low-Power Radio Station, as they applied for an FCC license, setting up an antenna, and launching the station over the internet (Jimenez, 2019). The work is significant because there is a need for more research on low-income, indigenous radio communities.

Radio history continues to be a regular feature of this journal’s offerings. Michelle A. Tabbanor’s “Hold Your Liquor: NBC and Alcohol Advertising after Prohibition” navigates NBC’s development of a position that ultimately rejected alcohol advertisements through a study of primary documents (Tabbanor, 2019). Tabbanor’s study examines discourse in the context of the threat of radio censorship. “‘Government Control of Radio Communication:’ The 1918 Debate” by John Mark Dempsey and Eric Gruver examines the debate House Resolution (H.R.) 13159 in 1918 to explore whether radio stations should be government regulated through the U.S. Navy or private interests (Dempsey & Gruver, 2019). Noah Arceneaux’s article, “The Wireless Press and the Great War: An Intersection of Print and Electronic Media, 1914–1921,” based on the Marconi Archives, held by the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in large part (Arceneaux, 2019). He argues that wireless provides a transitional bridge to radio broadcasting, but the existing industry resisted this change.

Luãn J. V. Chagas hypothesizes that “textual and thematic language, in … live radio, does not follow a pattern such as the inverted pyramid, [but takes] a spiral format changing intensity according to the input of new information” (Chagas, 2019, p. 231). He further argues that it allows for “plurality and diversity of voices” (p. 231) in “The Spiral Model in the Text of Live Radio Journalism.” Austin Davidson and Justin Robert Keene examine the connections between crowd noise, social facilitation, and mental imagery in “Alone in a Crowded Room: The Impact of Crowd Noise in Music Recordings on Social Facilitation, Mental Imagery, and Cognitive Processing (Davidson & Keene, 2019).” Jihyun Kim and Hocheol Yang investigate the impact of radio hosts on the listeners’ experiences in “How Does a Radio Host’s Testimonial Influence Media Experiences? The Indirect Effect of Social Presence” (Kim & Yang, 2019)

The book reviews in this issue provide a glimpse into the newest global research Montse Bonet reviewed Trends in Radio Research. Diversity, Innovation and Policies by Gallego, Fernández-Sande., and Limón (Bonet, 2019); J. Mark Percival reviewed The World’s Din: Listening to Records, Radio and Films in New Zealand, 1880–1940 by Peter Hoar (Percival, 2019); and Gabriele Balbi reviewed Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World by Marc Raboy (Balbi, 2019). A variety of aspects of radio research are explored in the review of Nancy Baym’s Playing to the Crowd: Musicians, Audiences, and the Intimate Work of Connection by Caitlin Dyche (Dyche, 2019); Nina Sun Eidsheim’s, The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre & Vocality in African American Music was reviewed by Jeff Donison (Donison, 2019); and James Buhler’s Theories of the Soundtrack was reviewed by Alexander Carter (Carter, 2019); Wanqiao Chen reviews Change and Modernity of Chinese Radio: A Study in Government-run radio of Kuomintang from 1928 to 1949 by Li Yu; and finally Jennifer Hyland Wang reviews Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control by Mack Hagood.

In the early years of the Journal of Radio Studies, a compilation of new theses and dissertations in radio studies was included at the end of the volume. It marked the growth of radio research in its early stages. In this issue, we are documenting the growing trend in radio research. With a snapshot of research in 2018 “Radio and audio in 2018” compiled by Elizabeth Edwards, Jessica Ireland, Beles Lezina, Shazad Brandon Omarali, Hannah Schallert, Jade Robertson and Micah Zierer-Clyke (Edwards, 2019) starts to track the field to document the growing field. This first compilation may be just a snapshot, but for future issues please send any listings of your publications in radio or audio to https://www.yorku.ca/amaclenn/machform/view.php?id=45 so that “Radio and audio 2019” can more thoroughly document the field.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.