Radio studies

Abstract

[Introdution] Communication studies are almost one hundred years old, which means they are more or less contemporary to the radio age. Encouraged by Lipmann’s arguments on ‘public opinion’, this research field became particularly essential in the century of mass media and more recently of digital new media and social networks. Although developed with significant enthusiasm, especially in the second part of the 1900’s, communication sciences have always been much more focused on the press and on TV than on radio. As a matter of fact, audio media has always been neglected by academics. There is already a long tradition of research on the impact of the press on audiences, and after the 1960s, many studies were initiated on the impact of television on viewers. Radio, in comparison, seems to have always attained less attention from researchers. Eduard Pease and Everette Dennis have mentioned radio as the forgotten medium by choosing this phrase to title a book edited in 1995. As discreet in the research field as in our lives, radio has not been sufficiently considered and valued in terms of its contribution to the current media landscape and contemporary society. Studies on broadcasting often seem to focus on TV only and to ignore that radio is still the medium that reaches more people all over the world. Why? Why is radio such a timid object of analysis and subject of study? Probably due to its lighter economic impact and as a result of its less conspicuous presence in our daily life. Apart from the historic episode with Wells’ War of the Worlds, radio has never been at the forefront of heated debates as other media have.