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

这个奖学金的主要目的是发表我的博士研究。虽然地理学家研究了无线电广播的历史和地缘政治力量，但人们对当代无线电新闻及其塑造听众地理想象力的能力兴趣不大；也就是说，观众如何描绘他们在广播中听到的空间、地点和人物。考虑到媒体的普遍性和受欢迎程度，以及最近关于媒体中声音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4台如何描绘2014年至2019年之间的欧洲移民“危机”，以及研究记者如何制作精选广播节目，听众如何听到、解释和想象，来解决这一研究空白。旷日持久的叙利亚冲突、地中海的溺水事件以及民粹主义的兴起，都引发了一些重要的问题，即媒体是否有能力塑造人们对遥远的人和地方的看法，并塑造人们对“弱势”他人的责任感和关怀。分析Radio 4很重要，不仅因为该网络是一个广受欢迎的广播空间，拥有数百万听众，并声称要为公众利益制作新闻，还因为它所表达的富有想象力的地理位置可以塑造听众理解、想象和参与世界的方式。我的论文通过探索移民的口头叙述和音景，揭示广播的话语、情感和想象力，为这些辩论做出了贡献。我对受众的研究为这一领域提供了特别引人注目的原创贡献。我发现听众中有一种偏好，他们更喜欢由有名字的难民讲述的故事，这些难民在地理想象中以有形和相关的人的身份重新出现；这证实了政治哲学家汉娜·阿伦特（Hannah Arendt）的观点，即声音“有助于赋予难民人格和历史性——因此具有获得认可的潜力”（Chouliaraki和Zaborowski， 2017，第16页）。因此，倾听他人声音的行为在调节情绪和社会政治反应方面起着至关重要的作用，因为听众会被他们听到的人所吸引和感动。观众也会对现场、现场、多感官的新闻做出反应，这使他们能够在他们的脑海中想象人和地方，并感觉他们被运送到录制的地方。简而言之，广播是一种体验、情感和想象力，让许多听众“意识到‘这本来可能是我们’”（Chouliaraki和Stolic， 2019年，第320页）。这并不是普遍的反应；然而，在成功地唤起大多数人对地理的想象的同时，我认为广播电台参与了在听众和难民之间建立一种相关性，并与他人建立有意义的联系所必需的情感工作。这些结论激发了我对声音和情感地理学以及多感官叙事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，并表明我们正生活在一个“音频的黄金时代”（Ganesh, 2016）。有丰富的潜力参与这个流行文化的音频档案，探索新闻和时事播客如何干预我们这个时代的地缘政治辩论。有力的例子是BBC的“乌克兰广播”，讨论俄罗斯入侵乌克兰的最新阴谋，以及世界服务的“全球新闻”，从全球角度报道政治，国际关系和外交。有趣的问题是：为什么播客是记者讲述新闻故事的一种有吸引力的媒介？生产和收听这种“无处不在”的新媒介的新兴地域是什么？书中所表达的地缘政治想象是如何吸引观众的注意力并塑造他们对地理的想象的？

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?