After the advent of broadcast radio with KDKA, the medium proliferated, turning rapidly into a major form of entertainment. Radio networks, like television networks, aired dramas, comedies, sports, news reports, and variety shows. In an era before TV, people were captivated, spending evenings sitting by radios to listen to favorite stars and favorite shows.
Listening requires a different kind of concentration from seeing. No flow of images, save those created in the mind of the listener, accompanies the sounds emanating from a radio. If we could jump into the brains of two listeners while both heard the same radio broadcast, we would likely encounter different images in each. One says, “I like to think of her as being tall and forceful.” The other says, “No, I like to think of her as being rather diminutive and feisty.” That’s as it should be, of course, because every listener takes to the moment of hearing a unique personal history that includes experience, learning, and emotional needs. Visual media reduce the effect of personal history by connecting for all viewers the same image to sound.
Here’s your assignment. In an age of image bombardment, try recreating those days of radio-only. Try listening in the context of your personal history, not in the context projected by someone else. You have a storehouse of imagery from personal experience that is yours and no one else’s. That imagery is your “take on the world,” and it’s the product of your own radio broadcast. Try freeing yourself from the images imposed by others. Try listening to yourself.
Listening requires a different kind of concentration from seeing. No flow of images, save those created in the mind of the listener, accompanies the sounds emanating from a radio. If we could jump into the brains of two listeners while both heard the same radio broadcast, we would likely encounter different images in each. One says, “I like to think of her as being tall and forceful.” The other says, “No, I like to think of her as being rather diminutive and feisty.” That’s as it should be, of course, because every listener takes to the moment of hearing a unique personal history that includes experience, learning, and emotional needs. Visual media reduce the effect of personal history by connecting for all viewers the same image to sound.
Here’s your assignment. In an age of image bombardment, try recreating those days of radio-only. Try listening in the context of your personal history, not in the context projected by someone else. You have a storehouse of imagery from personal experience that is yours and no one else’s. That imagery is your “take on the world,” and it’s the product of your own radio broadcast. Try freeing yourself from the images imposed by others. Try listening to yourself.
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