Transnational Radio Encounters: Mediations of Nationality, Identity and Community through Radio


Project Summary

This project looked at how radio as a medium that easily crosses national borders has fostered transnational encounters.

Six individual projects examined how radio was shaped in and by transnational arenas. The projects explored how infrastructures, sound aesthetics and archives reflect local identities and influence historical and present attempts to interact transnationally.

TRE aimed to research how radio in history and at present:

  • mediates national identities among and across borders
  • structures cultural encounters beyond the limits of national and social entities

The central research question was ‘How are transnational radio encounters structured by aesthetic, infrastructural and archival factors, and what forms of cultural identity and interaction do they support?’

The TRE project involved six international research teams combined with seven associated partners. The research was conducted using a transnational comparative approach. Building on a range of case studies, the researchers explored key moments of technological, political and institutional transition. They also explored the ways in which transnational radio encounters can be reconstructed and represented in the shifting archival environment. They traced the evolution of vital phenomena of transnational radio encounters to explore:

  • how the arts facilitated transnational radio encounters within and between established broadcasting organisations
  • the changing role of international radio services in constructing concepts such as European-ness
  • the role of community radio for minority ethnic identities

Prof. Golo Föllmer

Project Leader

Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg
Germany


Project Partners

Prof. Golo Föllmer

Project Leader

Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg
Germany

Email

Prof. Sonja De Leeuw

Utrecht University
Netherlands

Email

Assoc Prof. Per Jauert

Aarhus University
Denmark

Email

Dr Jacob Kreutzfeldt

University of Copenhagen
Denmark

Email

Dr Peter Lewis

London Metropolitan University
United Kingdom

Email

Dr Caroline Mitchell

University of Sunderland
United Kingdom

Email

Associate Partners

Bas Agterberg

Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid
Netherlands

Email

Tina Buchtrup Pipa

Danmarks Radio
Denmark

Email

Susanne Hennings

Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv
Germany

Email

Simon Rooks

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
United Kingdom

Email

Michael Mullane

European Broadcasting Union
Switzerland

Email

Marcus Gammel

Deutschlandradio Kultur
Germany

Email

Helen Shaw

Athena Media
Ireland

Email

  • Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg

    Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg

  • Utrecht University

    Utrecht University

  • Aarhus University

    Aarhus University

  • University of Copenhagen

    University of Copenhagen

  • London Metropolitan University

    London Metropolitan University

  • University of Sunderland

    University of Sunderland

Publications

Online Exhibition Radio.Garden

The TRE exhibition Radio.Garden was publicly launched in December 2016. The concept is based on a graphic representation of the globe (see illustration below). Users can navigate to any place on a map of the earth and look for different radio phenomena linked to this place: Section 1: radio live streams harvested from a range of reliable directories; Section 2: recordings of historical events relating to radio’s transnationality; Section 3: comparative descriptions of radio jingles as auditive expressions of individual and national radio identities; Section 4: personal stories/oral history clips on the transnationality of radio. To date, the page has had over 52 million visits.

Screen grab from Radio-Garden

The Radio Conference: Transnational Encounters, Utrecht University, July 2016

This conference explored the way radio shapes transnational public spheres, in support or subversion of existing infrastructures and media ecologies; transnational perspectives on radio aesthetics and identities; and ways in which new forms of digital radio and archives can help to shape or resurrect transnational communities of memory.

Our use of cookies

We use necessary cookies to make our site work. We'd also like to set optional analytics cookies to help us improve it. We won't set these optional cookies unless you enable them. Using this tool will set a cookie on your device to remember your preferences.

For more detailed information about the cookies we use, see our Cookies page


Necessary cookies

Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.


Analytics cookies

We'd like to set Google Analytics cookies to help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone.