A dazzling insight into what gives meaning to our life and to us as a species. What makes us human? From Carlo Rovelli on the particles of dust that make us, to Caitlin Moran on the joy of Friday nights, and A C Grayling on how we express ourselves through culture: this illuminating book shares 130 mind-expanding answers to that question. We all want to understand our place in the universe and find a sense of purpose in the life. This book will help the reader navigate that journey with the help of leading names from the worlds of literature, history, philosophy, politics, sport, comedy and popular culture. Originally broadcast as a popular feature on the Jeremy Vine Show, What Makes Us Human? includes short essays from: Andrew Marr, Carlo Rovelli, Marian Keyes, Alain de Botton, Robert Webb, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry, and many more.

This book reveals the value and significance of pirate radio, with a special focus on local radio stations that broadcast illegally in Poland in the early 90s. It shows that many of them, like in other countries from the region, began as non-commercial, community-oriented initiatives. Several sources of information were used to maximize the potential of the study, especially documents gathered from public institutions, press articles, interviews with radio representatives, and decision-makers who influenced the shape of the broadcasting system. The analysis of these sources supports the conclusion that, although the pirates left a lasting legacy, they lost out in the licensed regime driven by market logic.

When radio broadcasting began in the early 1920s, the radio was a magic box aglow with the future, drawing humanity into a new age. Some thought it would dissolve the distance between time and place, others that human minds would become transparent, one tuned to another. Performers claiming psychic powers turned radio broadcasting into a fabulous money machine. These "mentalists," born from vaudeville, circuses, sideshows, and the Spiritualist and New Thought movements of the mid-late 19th century, used the language of wireless technology to explain their ability to see the past, present, and future. Casting their mystical knowledge as a scientifically honed craft, these mentalists persuaded millions to pay for dubious advice until governmental and public pressures forced them off the air. This book is a history of over 25 performers who practiced their art behind studio microphones during the early years of radio broadcasting, from about 1920 to 1940. Here, laid out for the first time, is the tale of how they made cash rain from the heavens and harnessed the sensation of the radio in search of wealth, health, love, and success.

This book is the first full-length history of the BBC World Service: from its interwar launch as short-wave radio broadcasts for the British Empire, to its twenty-first-century incarnation as the multi-media global platform of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The book provides insights into the BBC's working relationship with the Foreign Office, the early years of the Empire Service, and the role of the BBC during the Second World War. In following the voice of the BBC through the Cold War and the contraction of the British empire, the book argues that debates about the work and purposes of the World Service have always involved deliberations about the future of the UK and its place in the world. In current times, these debates have been shaped by the British government's commitment to leave the European Union and the centrifugal currents in British politics which in the longer term threaten the integrity of the United Kingdom. Through a detailed exploration of its past, the book poses questions about the World Service's possible future and argues that, for the BBC, the question is not only what it means to be a global broadcaster as we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, but what it means to be a national broadcaster in a divided kingdom.

Noel Johnson, Douglas Kelly, Duncan Carse and Gordon Davies star as Dick Barton in this exciting BBC Radio 4 collection set in the world of criminal masterminds, espionage and adventure! Dick Barton and The Secret Weapon In their very first adventure, Dick Barton and his army friend Snowey White join Colonel Gardiner of military intelligence to defeat the villainous Wilhelm Kramer. A new super-weapon has been stolen and Kramer plans to use it to hold the world to ransom. Dick Barton and the Paris Adventure In the second Dick Barton adventure, Barton and his friends join forces with the French police on the trail of an international smuggling operation. Dick Barton and the Cabatolin Diamonds The third adventure in the series sees Dick and Snowey's holiday plans for a Mediterranean cruise curtailed, when they are asked to help Freddy Belfont from the Home Office break a gang of diamond smugglers. Dick Barton and the Smash and Grab Raiders Dick, Snowey and Jock assist Sir Alexander Morton to catch a group of audacious smash and grab raiders. Plus a bonus CD including three previously unreleased isolated episodes; the earliest surviving recording from the series and the final episode ever made. Also included is a documentary featuring interviews with the principle cast and an extract from the now lost Dick Barton and the Bonazio Gang.

Rebecca Front presents this two-part look back at Victoria Wood's stand-up and songs using her own archives and tapes - including never-before-heard material Victoria Wood was a comedian, actress and all-round national treasure. She wrote and starred in countless sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over four decades, winning numerous awards, and her work remains timeless to this day. With her perceptive observational humour, she made the everyday and mundane hilarious - but how did she do it? In this BBC Radio 4 documentary, Rebecca Front uses Victoria Wood's personal rehearsal recordings, rare live performances and behind-the-scenes footage to reveal some of her comedy tricks and techniques. We hear about her instinctive sense of rhythm, amazing rhyming ability and unerring knack for finding the perfect word to make a sentence sing, and learn how she honed her unique talent to become one of Britain's favourite funny women. With unprecedented access to Victoria's own boxes of battered cassette tapes, this programme is a shameless chance to hear some wonderful stand-up comedy, characters and songs, mixed with a look back at what made her so funny and so universally loved. Executive Producer: Geoff Posner Produced by David Tyler A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.

This study provides an in-depth exploration of the dramaturgical practices of radio drama and their underlying philosophical assumptions. By presenting an analytical model drawn from phenomenology, it challenges the current understanding of the medium, instead focusing on the bodily and aural aspects of radio drama, while offering a critique of the conventions of dramaturgical practice for neglecting these affective sonic aspects. Tracing these conventions through the history of the development of radio drama, it proposes that a more bodily, resonant mode of radio dramaturgy is best placed to meet the demands of the current era of digital production and distribution. The book also examines a number of approaches to creating a more embodied experience for the listener. -- .

In the early twentieth century, the magic of radio was new, revolutionary, and poorly understood. A powerful symbol of modernity, radio was a site where individuals wrestled and came to terms with an often frightening wave of new mass technologies. Radio was the object of scientific investigation, but more importantly, it was the domain of tinkerers, "hackers," citizen scientists, and hobbyists. This book shows how this wild and mysterious technology was appropriated by ordinary individuals in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century as a leisure activity. Clubs and hobby organizations became the locus of this process, providing many of the social structures within which individuals could come to grips with radio, apart from any media institution or government framework. In so doing, this book uncovers the vital but often overlooked social context in which technological revolutions unfold.

The Sirens of Wartime Radio and How the American Print Media Presented Them: The Stories, the Intrigue, and the Evolving Coverage of Their Legacies analyzes press coverage from the American print media that helped construct popular images of Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, Seoul City Sue, and Hanoi Hannah. Coverage of these "radio sirens" essentially constructed and defined these women's legacies for an American audience. Scott A. Morton examines newspaper and magazine coverage from the periods of each broadcaster, and in doing so, analyzes four primary research inquires. Morton discusses how American newspapers and magazines portrayed each woman to American readers, how the American mass media's portrayal of them evolved overtime from the mid-1940s through the present, the ways in which the American mass media responded to these five female propagandists-either directly or indirectly-through print, radio, and visual media, and how the legacy of each woman has been kept alive in popular culture in the decades since their last broadcasts. Morton argues that for the most part, coverage of the sirens was borne out of fascination and aversion, fascination stemming from the novelty of women acting as high-profile agents of enemy propaganda organizations and aversion stemming from the potential power they had over U.S. servicemen and the fact that they were viewed as traitors to the U.S. Scholars of media studies, history, and international relations will find this book particularly useful.

This book explores how community radio contributes to social change. Community radio remains a unique communication platform under digital capitalism, arguably capable of expanding the project of media democratisation. Yet there is a lack of in-depth analysis of community radio experience, and a dearth of understanding of its functionality as an actively transformative tool for greater equity in society. This project combines the theoretical positions of the political economy of communication with a citizen's media perspective in order to interrogate community radio's democratic potential. By presenting case studies of two radio stations in Melbourne and Lospalos, and applying multiple research methods, the book reveals community radio's amplification of media participation, communication rights, counter-hegemony and media power - in effect, its distinct regenerative voice.

In the early twentieth century, the magic of radio was new, revolutionary, and poorly understood. A powerful symbol of modernity, radio was a site where individuals wrestled and came to terms with an often frightening wave of new mass technologies. Radio was the object of scientific investigation, but more importantly, it was the domain of tinkerers, "hackers," citizen scientists, and hobbyists. This book shows how this wild and mysterious technology was appropriated by ordinary individuals in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century as a leisure activity. Clubs and hobby organizations became the locus of this process, providing many of the social structures within which individuals could come to grips with radio, apart from any media institution or government framework. In so doing, this book uncovers the vital but often overlooked social context in which technological revolutions unfold.

In this book my father dies. I almost die.*** My showbiz career winds down. And yet everyone keeps telling me it's the funniest book I've ever written. If I'd known that's what the public wanted, I'd have cancelled Pets Win Prizes and just got sick sooner. Along the way this time we encounter, among others, David Bowie, Kanye West (I think), John Cleese, Peter O'Toole, and have several adventures in the Fourth Dimension. Oh, and I can reveal the Man With The Foulest Mouth In All Show Business. Plus assorted high-kicking hoopla and a whole lot of rather stark stuff about what it's like to be told you could be On The Way Out. *** (SPOILER ALERT: I don't actually die.)

This book is the first full-length history of the BBC World Service: from its interwar launch as short-wave radio broadcasts for the British Empire, to its twenty-first-century incarnation as the multi-media global platform of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The book provides insights into the BBC's working relationship with the Foreign Office, the early years of the Empire Service, and the role of the BBC during the Second World War. In following the voice of the BBC through the Cold War and the contraction of the British empire, the book argues that debates about the work and purposes of the World Service have always involved deliberations about the future of the UK and its place in the world. In current times, these debates have been shaped by the British government's commitment to leave the European Union and the centrifugal currents in British politics which in the longer term threaten the integrity of the United Kingdom. Through a detailed exploration of its past, the book poses questions about the World Service's possible future and argues that, for the BBC, the question is not only what it means to be a global broadcaster as we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, but what it means to be a national broadcaster in a divided kingdom.

Radio legend Michael Savage reveals the man behind the microphone, sharing his extraordinary American journey and the adventures that shaped him. **FEATURING EXCLUSIVE, NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED NEW MATERIAL** For twenty-five years, Michael Savage has captivated listeners on his national radio show The Savage Nation, which reaches a loyal audience of more than ten million each week. In A Savage Life, the usually private man tells his own compelling story in forty-six vignettes that span his childhood to today. These tales of Savage's journey from poor immigrant's son in New York City to media star are deeply personal and revealing: he writes of being so poor as a child that he had to wear a dead man's pants; of the various trials that beset his parents and "silent brother," Jerome, who was sent to an institution; of his botanical expeditions to Fiji in the 1970's; and, most of all, of his family, his sustaining force throughout. "A marvelous storyteller." - THE NEW YORKER "Vivid storytelling." - WASHINGTON TIMES

This book explores how community radio contributes to social change. Community radio remains a unique communication platform under digital capitalism, arguably capable of expanding the project of media democratisation. Yet there is a lack of in-depth analysis of community radio experience, and a dearth of understanding of its functionality as an actively transformative tool for greater equity in society. This project combines the theoretical positions of the political economy of communication with a citizen's media perspective in order to interrogate community radio's democratic potential. By presenting case studies of two radio stations in Melbourne and Lospalos, and applying multiple research methods, the book reveals community radio's amplification of media participation, communication rights, counter-hegemony and media power - in effect, its distinct regenerative voice.

Two series of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom about an alien invasion of a small village, starring Hattie Morahan and Julian Rhind-Tutt with Peter Davison and Jan Francis. When the small Buckinghamshire village of Cresdon Green is invaded by an alien race called the Geonin, the local residents come up against Uljabaan, the smooth-talking leader of the aliens.

This book provides a narrative history of the BBC Radio Variety Department exploring, along chronological lines, the workings of, tensions within and the impact of BBC policies on the programme-making department which generated the organisation's largest audiences. It provides an insight into key events, personalities, programmes, internal politics and trends in popular entertainment, censorship and anti-American policy as they individually or collectively affected the Department. Martin Dibbs examines how the Department's programmes became markers in the daily and weekly lives of millions of listeners, and helped shape the nation's listening habits when radio was the dominant source of domestic entertainment. The book explores events and topics which, while not directly forming part of the Variety Department's history, nevertheless intersected with or had an impact on it. Such topics include the BBC's attitude to jazz and rock and roll, the arrival of television with its impact on radio, the pirate radio stations, and the Popular Music and Gramophone Departments, both of whom worked closely with the Variety Department.

Born out of interviews with the producers of some of the most popular and culturally significant podcasts to date (Welcome to Night Vale, Radiolab, Serial, The Black Tapes, We're Alive, The Heart, The Truth, Lore, Love + Radio, My Dad Wrote a Porno, and others) as well as interviews with executives at some of the most important podcasting institutions and entities (the BBC, Radiotopia, Gimlet Media, Audible.com, Edison Research, Libsyn and others), Podcasting documents a moment of revolutionary change in audio media. The fall of 2014 saw a new iOS from Apple with the first built-in "Podcasts" app, the runaway success of Serial, and podcasting moving out of its geeky ghetto into the cultural mainstream. The creative and cultural dynamism of this moment, which reverberates to this day, is the focus of Podcasting. Using case studies, close analytical listening, quantitative and qualitative analysis, production analysis, as well as audience research, it suggests what podcasting has to contribute to a host of larger media-and-society debates in such fields as: fandom, social media and audience construction; new media and journalistic ethics; intimacy, empathy and media relationships; cultural commitments to narrative and storytelling; the future of new media drama; youth media and the charge of narcissism; and more. Beyond describing what is unique about podcasting among other audio media, this book offers an entry into the new and evolving field of podcasting studies.