The sound of home? Some thoughts on how the radio voice anchors, contains and sometimes pierces

Abstract

This article argues that while psychoanalytic theory has been valuably employed by television, film and cultural studies, there has been no comparable 'psychoanalytic turn' in radio studies. It suggests that the concept of 'containment', as developed variously by Wilfred Bion and Esther Bick, might go some way to explain the powerful role that the voice of the radio presenter can play in the regular listener's internal world, with the capacity both to 'hold' the listener together, and to transform overwhelming fears into more manageable feelings. It argues that the disembodied radio voice does this partly because it recalls the prenatal power of the maternal voice, and partly through the temporal order that regular radio voices impose on the internal and external world. Both Second World War British radio catchphrases and Roosevelt's Fireside Chats are discussed in relation to their containment function. The article also explores the radio as a transitional space, as defined by Donald Winnicott, through which it can constitute listeners into an 'imagined community'. It ends by reflecting on the impact of the angry voice of 2 the 'shock-jock' which, it suggests, amplifies rather than contains overwhelming feelings.

The skins we live in

“…Given the emotional intensity of these experiences and the specificity of the sensation of the music sweeping around the body like an envelope or a flood, there is justification, it seems, to consider a far more embodied experience in which the audio-phonic skin gives a profoundly moving sense of the presence of, and being contained by, the desired but sadly absent other. Karpf (2013), in her piece entitled the Sound of Home, explores how radio voices can contain and anchor listeners at a level that is both visceral and unconscious. Noting how, for example, when Nick Clarke, presenter of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Radio 4's The World at One daily news died in 2006, BBC's message board was overwhelmed by distraught listeners: one described Clarke's voice as 'the voice of home' (p. 60).…”

“…Karpf (2013), in her piece entitled the Sound of Home , explores how radio voices can contain and anchor listeners at a level that is both visceral and unconscious. Noting how, for example, when Nick Clarke, presenter of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Radio 4’s The World at One daily news died in 2006, BBC’s message board was overwhelmed by distraught listeners: one described Clarke’s voice as ‘the voice of home’ (p. 60).…”

"The Fabric of Our Lives": Relationality, Ritual, and Regional Resistance in American Radio Broadcasting

“…The association between object relations and the radio voice primarily deals with the ways in which the voice can be a useful transitional object. This theory is twofold: the radio voice is valuable as a container and as a mechanism for continuity (Karpf, 2013). Containment is the more technical and clinical of these functions.…”

“…Containment is the more technical and clinical of these functions. A prerequisite for a "good object"-a term coined by object relations theorist Melanie Klein-is that the object be a resilient thing onto which an infant may project its feelings of anxiety (Karpf, 2013). Importantly, fetuses are capable of hearing twenty-eight weeks post-conception (Karpf, 2013).…”

“…A prerequisite for a "good object"-a term coined by object relations theorist Melanie Klein-is that the object be a resilient thing onto which an infant may project its feelings of anxiety (Karpf, 2013). Importantly, fetuses are capable of hearing twenty-eight weeks post-conception (Karpf, 2013). Therefore, the disembodied voice of the mother-not her shape or touch-is the first method the unseeing infant has of differentiating presence and absence (Karpf, 2013).…”