Chapter 4: Radio as Collage Art

Live Broadcast Events

In some ways, the most ephemeral system of knowledge production that contributes to the radio archive is that of the live broadcast event, during which the representation of ideas through sound takes place on a distinct radio frequency or webstream at a distinct time. Though the spatial aspect is often much broader than the temporal, any broadcast event is deeply embedded with and in a specific spatiotemporal context. In my archival research at WFHB, written dates or other markers of airtime contributed to what I understood as the significance of any given recording. Two examples by way of illustration: