Understanding radio art reception

Abstract

Radio art is understood as radio made by artists. The term is typically applied to sound-based artifacts produced and broadcast by means of the creative use of radio media affordances, infrastructure, and technologies. Radio art is known as any sound work conceived to expand the creative and aesthetic possibilities of the medium through the use of the elements of radiophonic language (voice, words, music, sound effects, and silence) with the intention to produce aesthetic messages and to move radio listeners. This study introduces radio art reception as a subject of scientific scrutiny. It proposes a model of radio art processing that includes involvement, art reception, and positive emotions as predictors of the willingness to listen to such works. After listening to each of two pieces of radio art, 126 Singaporean undergraduate communication students (MAge = 22.7, SD = 1.7) completed a questionnaire measuring involvement, art reception, perceived emotions, and willingness to listen to another radio art feature. The main results confirm our model of radio art reception: involvement predicts the audience’s cognitive stimulation generated by radio art, their artistic evaluation, and the positive attraction experienced by audiences towards them. The positive emotions experienced during consumption have a direct effect on the attraction towards radio art. Moreover, the specific radio art content affects the audiences’ responses. These results allow us to understand psychological responses to sound art. The hope is to attract the attention of communication and art researchers and invite them to deepen the existing knowledge about artistic sound through empirical studies, since debates about radio art and sound works are almost lacking from scientific literature.