Radio and Podcast Geopolitics: Exploring sonic and affective geographies of news and current affairs journalism on migration, conflict and diplomacy

这个奖学金的一个主要目的是发表我的博士研究成果。虽然地理学家研究了无线电广播的历史和地缘政治力量，但对当代无线电新闻及其塑造听众地理想象力的能力几乎没有兴趣；也就是说，听众如何描绘他们在电波中听到的空间、地点和人物。考虑到媒体的无处不在和受欢迎，以及最近关于声音在媒体中的框架和地位的研究，这是令人惊讶的。我的论文通过探索BBC广播四台如何描绘2014至2019年间的欧洲移民危机，以及记者如何制作精选的广播，以及听众如何听到、解读和想象，来解决这一研究差距。叙利亚旷日持久的冲突、地中海的溺水和民粹主义的兴起，引发了一些重要的问题，即媒体能否塑造人们对遥远的人和地方的看法，以及如何塑造一种责任感和对弱势群体的关爱。分析广播四台很重要，这不仅是因为该网络是一个广受欢迎的广播空间，覆盖了数百万听众，并声称要制作符合公共利益的新闻，还因为它所阐述的富有想象力的地理位置可以塑造观众如何理解、想象和参与世界。我的论文通过探索移民的口头叙事和音景，并揭示了广播的话语、情感和想象力，为这些辩论做出了贡献。我对观众的研究为这一领域提供了特别令人信服的原创贡献。我发现听众更喜欢被点名的难民所表达的故事，这些故事在地理想象中重新出现为有形和相关的人；证实了政治哲学家汉娜·阿伦特的观点，即声音有助于赋予难民人格和历史性--因此具有被认可的潜力“(Chouliaraki和Zborowski，2017，第16页)。因此，听到人们的声音的行为在制约情感和社会政治反应方面起着至关重要的作用，因为听众被他们听到的人所参与和感动。观众也会对现场、现场、多感官新闻做出反应，这使他们能够在脑海中想象人物和地点，并感觉自己被带到了录制的地方。简而言之，收音机是经验性的、富有情感的和富有想象力的，并从许多听众那里引发了“一种飞跃，使他们意识到‘这本来可以是我们’”(Chouliaraki和Stolic，2019，p.320)。这不是一个普遍的反应；然而，在成功地唤起大多数人的地理想象力方面，我认为电台参与了必要的情感工作，以便在听众和难民之间建立一种关联感，并与其他人建立有意义的联系。这些结论激发了我对声音和情感地理以及多感官故事讲述的进一步有限研究的兴趣，特别是通过播客的镜头。低成本的制作和点播收听导致了最近播客的繁荣，并暗示我们正生活在一个“音频的黄金时代”(Ganesh，2016)。有丰富的潜力参与到这个流行文化的音频档案中，并探索新闻和时事播客如何介入我们这个时代的地缘政治辩论。有力的例子是英国广播公司的《乌克兰广播》，它讨论了俄罗斯入侵乌克兰的最新阴谋，以及世界广播公司的《全球新闻》，它从全球的角度报道政治、国际关系和外交。令人感兴趣的问题是：为什么播客是记者讲述新闻故事的一种有吸引力的媒介？制作和收听这种“无处不在”的新媒体的新兴地域是什么？其中所表达的地缘政治想象如何吸引观众的注意力，塑造他们的地理想象力？

A principal aim of this fellowship is to publish my doctoral research. Whilst geographers have studied the history and geopolitical power of radio broadcasting, there has been little interest in contemporary radio journalism and its capacity to shape listeners' geographical imaginations; that is to say, how audiences picture the spaces, places, and people they hear on the airwaves. This is surprising given the ubiquity and popularity of the medium, and recent work on the framing and status of voices in the media. My thesis addresses this research gap by exploring how BBC Radio 4 portrayed Europe's migration 'crisis' between 2014 and 2019, and by examining how selected broadcasts were produced by journalists and are heard, interpreted and imagined by listeners. The protracted Syrian conflict, drownings in the Mediterranean, and rise of populism raise important questions about the power of media to shape perceptions of distant people and places, and condition a sense of responsibility and care for 'vulnerable' others. Analysing Radio 4 matters, not only because the network is a popular space of broadcasting that reaches millions of listeners and claims to produce journalism in the public interest, but because the imaginative geographies it articulates can shape how audiences understand, imagine and participate in the world. My thesis contributes to these debates by exploring spoken narratives and soundscapes of migration and revealing the discursive, affective and imaginative power of radio. My research with audiences provides a particularly compelling and original contribution to this field. I discovered a preference among listeners for stories articulated by named refugees who re-appear in the geographical imagination as tangible and relatable human beings; confirming the view of political philosopher Hannah Arendt that voice is "instrumental in endowing the refugee with personhood and historicity - and hence with the potential for recognition" (Chouliaraki and Zaborowski, 2017, p.16). The act of hearing people's voices therefore plays a crucial part in conditioning emotional and socio-political responses as listeners are engaged and moved by those they hear from. Audiences also respond to live, in-situ, multi-sensory journalism, which enables them to envision people and places in their mind's eye, and feel like they are transported to where the recording was made. Put simply, radio is experiential, affective and imaginative, and elicits from many listeners "a leap to the realisation that 'this could have been us'" (Chouliaraki and Stolic, 2019, p.320). This is not a universal response; however, in successfully evoking the geographical imaginations of a majority, I argue that radio participates in the affective work necessary to establish a sense of relatability between listeners and refugees, and forge meaningful connections with others. These conclusions inspire my interest in conducting further limited research on sonic and affective geographies, and multi-sensory storytelling, specifically through the lens of podcasts. Low-cost production and on-demand listening has led to a recent boom in podcasts and to suggestions we are living in a "golden age of audio" (Ganesh, 2016). There is rich potential to engage with this audio archive of popular culture and explore how news and current affairs podcasts intervene in the geopolitical debates of our time. Potent examples are the BBC's 'Ukrainecast', which discusses the latest machinations of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the World Service's 'Global News', which reports on politics, international relations and diplomacy from a global perspective. Questions of interest are: why are podcasts an appealing medium for journalists to tell news stories? What are the emerging geographies of producing and listening to this new 'everywhere' medium? And how do the geopolitical imaginaries articulated within them capture audience attention and shape their geographical imaginations?