I could relate this to thoughts of one post-modernizm philosopher Richard Rorty who was an influential modern thinker.
Among other ideas, he was claiming that person creates own identity through language, by telling stories or narratives about self. Or, in the other words, storytelling is the essence of personal identity: we are what we tell about us.
So may be need to listen to the stories told by others is as natural as need to tell stories about self? Then radio, definitely, has future, at least that part of it defined as "talk radio" or radio that tells stories.
Interesting to focus on the storytelling aspect. When I thin about storytelling I think about the now somewhat dead discipline of "radio theater". More can be read about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_drama but it was extremely popular back in the day.
ReplyDeleteWhat was interesting was that it was a way to broadcast readings of books or enactments of plays. Altough it might seem similar to audio-books, I can't really think of another audio-based medium where several actors speak out the written dialogue and actions and let the audience use their imagination to see the actual imagery associated with the drama.
It is worth noting that some fans regard the radio-theater versions of both "Lord of The Rings" and "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" as the superior versions of those stories, due to the combination of adhering to the source material and at the same time delivering stellar acting-performances. It is very possible that radio-theater is the most effective way to achieve this.
I've never listened to radio theatre and have not felt this "superior version" of a drama/story compared to books/audiobooks. I do however believe that radio theatre is perhaps the most expensive content of all to produce for radio. All those actors and sound effects... a lot less expensive that film obviously (as pointed out in the Wikipedia entry), but still, you need a lot of qualified people (actors) etc. to do drama compared to a few sports commentators or "funny" radio hosts.
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