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/lp/edinburgh-university-press/distant-echoes-evoking-the-soundscapes-of-the-past-in-the-radio-lnQ0MBuJkU
- Publisher
- Edinburgh University Press
- Copyright
- © Edinburgh University Press and the Contributors
- Subject
- Articles; Film, Media and Cultural Studies
- ISSN
- 2042-8855
- eISSN
- 2042-8863
- DOI
- 10.3366/sound.2016.0081
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
This article asks whether radio can ever successfully evoke an accurate sense of the sound of the past. It does so through a reflective critical analysis of the 2013 BBC Radio 4 documentary series, Noise: A Human History, by its own writer and presenter. It explores how the `sound design' of the series met the challenge of ´ providing a longue duree history of sound without having recourse to authentic sound archive recordings for most of the period being covered. Through an analysis of key sequences, and by highlighting the significance of the broader context of production, it argues that it is possible for epistemologically valuable history to emerge, even via a medium that treats sound more as a device for evoking the imagination than as something possessing evidential status in itself. The article does this by invoking the series as a practical example of `historical acoustemology', and by suggesting that in radio notions of subjectivity and perceptual mimesis are key to understanding the medium's success. In doing so, the article calls for a redefinition of the notion of the radiogenic arguing for a The New Soundtrack 6.1 (2016): 2949 DOI: 10.3366/sound.2016.0081 # Edinburgh University Press and
Journal
The New Soundtrack – Edinburgh University Press
Published: Mar 1, 2016