11ascript

 Introduction

This is APA FM, I am your host Nasr. Today’s podcast will be discussing contemporary radio fiction, from dramas to comedies and others, along with their codes and conventions.

Fiction Radio Genres:

Fictional radio media usually falls into one of four categories:

Radio Dramas, Radio Sit-Coms, Radio Plays, and Radio Soap Operas.

Radio Dramas, as the name implies, rely on the drama of certain situations to pull in an audience. They centre around more serious topics, and heavier emotions, utilizing sound effects, music, and intense dialogue to evoke a reaction in the audience.

The main target audience for this is usually adult or older adult listeners who enjoy intense media and heavy drama storylines. Radio Dramas often are structured in a serialized manner, allowing for more complex stories and deeper character developments to happen over the course of multiple episodes, letting the audience invest more emotionally into them.

An example of Radio Drama is Alice isn’t Dead:

Alice isn’t Dead audio clips play

Here we see common elements of radio dramas, through the music and sound effect usage, which adds an element of mysticism and adds weight to her words, specifically invoking a dark americana vibe which is what this radio drama is themed around.

Her speech itself is very dramatic tackling heavy existential and serious topics, and adding fear and mystery to the story.

Radio Sit-Coms include a quirky array of recurring characters that are put in comedic situations, or that make comedy out of normal situations as a way to let people see the humor in life. It uses witty and humorous dialogue and sometimes absurd and funny sound effects to invoke laughter from the audience.

The target audience for these shows is people with a sense of humor, usually working class people who need an out from their stressful life. Young and Old people alike can enjoy Radio Sitcoms.

Radio Sitcoms are usually structured as a series, meaning they are episodic with each storyline within an episode coming to a conclusion in it, returning us to the status quo, with the exception of season finales and multi episode storyline specials.

An example of a Radio Sitcom is Cabin Pressure:

Cabin Pressure audio clips play

Here we get witty humor and jokes, laugh tracks, and an introduction to some quite silly characters. All common tropes of the sitcom genre.

Radio Plays feature more large scale storylines. They have an array of characters like a stage play would, each with their own perspectives, and goals. Radio Plays usually use sound effects and music in a more meaningful way, utilizing them to convey action, and to cue in scenes, settings, and characters, building up a sonic atmosphere for the listener to get lost in through aural signposting.

They rely on meaningful dialogue and usually can include narration for certain scenes.

They are usually standalone storylines but run for longer, and they don’t usually have more than one “episode”.

An example of a Radio Play is War of the Worlds, the play that started it all.

War of the Worlds audio clips play

This was a one-off radio play. We can hear background chatter and people freaking out 

War of the Worlds audio clips play

Here we hear police sirens in the background, which builds up the setting for the story and showcases the happenings, as it is supposed to be the end of the world, and the sound effects used showcase hysteria.

War of the Worlds audio clips play

Finally here we hear weird synth pad noises that work to portray the alien object sonically, which builds up the atmosphere for the audience.

Finally, Radio Soap Operas usually focus on domestic, familial, and romantic settings and storylines, finding drama within those settings, and showcasing themes of love, family, and community.

They feature recognizable jingles or theme tunes, and include a large cast of characters that might be a little more basic and baseline in their writing. Most Radio Soaps are serialized and continuous narratives, meaning they’re put out weekly with recurring themes, characters, and sometimes plots that are called back on, and multiple ongoing storylines that are interlinked each episode. They are written to be open-ended, to ensure they can go on for long, and they’re written to have over the top acting and exposition to ensure listeners can tune in whenever they want to and be up to date on the current storyline events. The target audience for this is people (usually women and housewives) who are too busy to put their full focus into a story, but still want part-time entertainment that is easy to consume.

An example of a Radio Soap Opera is The Archers:

The Archers (Will and Emma Wedding) audio clips play

Here we see common tropes and themes with soap operas, including the use of sound effect here for the wedding, and the familial themes present here through them as a now married couple.

The Archers (Ed and Emma Wedding) audio clips play

Here we see the writing structure and trope of soap operas at play, through the over acting and over writing of this scene, but also specifically through the element of open ended and unending story telling, which we experience here by making Emma through previous episodes cheat on Will and now end up marrying Ed, which was just done to keep the radio show going and add a layer of drama that wasn’t initially there, justifying the continuation of the story.

Fictional Radio Codes:

Genre codes are the specific elements that define and categorize different media genres. These codes can be stylistic, like specific editing techniques or visual designs, or thematic, involving recurring characters, settings, and narratives.

Dialogue:

Radio uses the way dialogue is presented and what it presents as a code for the audience.

Over acting and over pronouncing a line can be used as a code for comedic lines and implying humor, usually used either for acting silly or calling out characters that are acting silly.

Cabin Pressure example

Sound Effects:

Sound effects are used in almost all fictional radio shows. Their usage can indicate many things and can be a code for whatever genre the radio show is.

Cabin Pressure Laugh Track

We can hear an audience laughing. This is used for sitcoms mainly, and it conveys the genre the radio show is by directly letting us hear people laughing.

Compare that to this:

War of the Worlds sound effects

Here the sound effects work to scare the audience. Similar to a laugh track it is trying to invoke a reaction within the audience, but unlike it, that reaction isn’t a positive one.

Music:

Music is used in radio shows to set a tone. Whether it’s atmospheric or title music.

Welcome to the Night Vale title music

Welcome to night vale’s title music works to convey what type of tone the radio show is. The usage of the pads and high pitched instruments creates a mysterious venere that works as a code for it being a drama.

This is similar to Alice isn’t Dead’s title music, except that radio drama uses a more americana, country rock tone, through its usage of major pentatonic notes, and the blues scale for that country twang. 

Alice isn’t Dead title music

Both work to set the tone for the radio dramas they belong to, but both have different tones to each other.

Fictional Radio Conventions:

Genre conventions are the recognizable elements, patterns, and characteristics that define a specific genre of storytelling. These conventions can include recurring themes, plot structures, character types, settings, and stylistic techniques that audiences expect to find in a particular genre.

A common convention of contemporary radio dramas is the characters speaking directly to the audience.

This is found in Welcome to the Nightvale and War of the Worlds, as they’re presented as radio broadcasts.

War of the Worlds audio clip plays

Welcome to the Nightvale audio clip plays

But it is also found in Alice isn’t Dead, except here it’s presented as radio or voice recordings coming from our main character, as she records them and addresses them to Alice, not the audience.

Alice isn’t Dead audio clip plays

This is, as stated, not a new approach, but one that is being used more nowadays with the rise of indie fictional radio, having its target audience be teens and young adults.

We find genre specific conventions through settings and situational tropes.

This includes The Archers using weddings and cheating plotlines, commonly found as conventions in Radio Soap Operas.

The Archers audio clips play

But it also includes Cabin Pressure, and its usage of the setting of an airplane to invoke comedic situations, which is a common trope in alot of sitcoms (live action or radio ones).

Cabin Pressure audio clip plays

Here both audio clips work to use conventional settings to appeal to genre and to audience expectations of those genres, but we see how the usage of sound effects, dialogue, and ambience work together to make each setting and convention unique and feel different from one another, allowing them to invoke the tone and vibe of their respective radio shows.

Those same setting could be used within other genres by using the conventional sound and dialogue elements of said genre, changing the tone of it completely.

We also see dialogue topics being used as conventions for fictional radio genres.

As we see Welcome to the Nightvale or Alice isn’t Dead tackle existential or serious subject matter that is a thematic convention for radio dramas.

Welcome to the Nightvale audio clip plays

Alice isn’t Dead audio clip plays

Both invoke deeper emotions and themes that an audience reacts to, while both handle it differently, as Welcome to the Nightvale takes it more lightheartedly with how he speaks about all these unnatural and serious topics and events, while Alice isn’t Dead keeps the tone to be more heavy on the audience.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we learnt today that fictional radio shows need to rely on aural signposting to make up for not having visual representations of the story unfolding, and how sound effects, music, and dialogue can be used to invoke a specific reaction from an audience, also through the usage of genre codes and conventions.

My personal favorite radio show discuss today is Cabin Pressure, which made me laugh a few times, definitely a sign that it used the right codes and conventions for its intended genre purpose.

APA FM signing out.