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THE RIGHT TO COMMUNICATE This is an immense subject. And can be approached from many angles. This Handout will touch briefly on two areas. Firstly, the empowerment aspect of speaking and secondly the semiotics of radio speech. Empowerment. The human voice is our most important instrument of communication; it should be cherished in every person. However, many of us find speaking a miserable experience. We know that the moment we speak, we are being judged, about our intelligence, class, education and abilities. In many critical ways, we are what we speak. Many of us, knowing this, choose to keep quiet. Within the media there is a form of vocal imperialism, in which those with 'classy' voices feel they have the right to speak for themselves and the silent, those excluded from access to the media. Cultivated, well-bred voices, often with very little substance, are quite prominent in the media. Socially acceptable voices dominate and create a climate of the correct way to speak. The right to speak has become the prerogative of certain accents and social circles; they exert media hegemony over the sound of us all. Many times we listen to a cabinet minister or other 'high status' speaker on the radio uttering clichéd nonsense. But we assume, because of the confident, measured tones, that they must be making some profound statement, blaming our own lack of understanding if we can't make sense of what is actually said. … This situation of vocal imperialism is one that community radio seeks to alter. To provide access and communicating opportunities for all, and to see where this leads us. Hopefully, people will find that to speak, to voice an opinion, aware that our neighbours are listening is a liberating experience. And as confidence grows so too do the long suppressed ideas now being formulated as we communicate. No wonder the Right to Communicate is attacked and repressed by those who think that they are more powerful or articulate, or have the right to control how and what others say.
The Semiotics of Radio. Radio is coded and signifies in ways as complex as any visual image. After decades of developed analysis, the visual image is more readily recognisable as 'manufactured', and there exists more detailed terminology with which to discuss it than there does for sound image. Community broadcasters will need to reflect on these deficiencies and begin to construct a perception and a language of radio as 'theatre of the mind'. Semiotics of Radio offers three codes: Performance, Production and Context. What are the particular performance characteristics of 'radio'? For a start the listener can't see the speaker, just hear their voice. What can the listener perceive from this exchange? They can still work the codes, which are at play in this audio process of speaking and listening; The empowering potential of awareness about the many aspects of human speech is immense. The more a community radio service encourages people to speak, to gain experience and confidence in speaking to the surrounding locality, the more it will encourage those broadcasters to think more deeply about what they want to say. Both confidence and competence will grow in such an environment, and a more honest and wide-ranging debate should develop in that locality, returning the human voice to its proper function as a means of widening and deepening human understanding. … These codes are a very important part of radio as a communication tool, and community broadcasters would be wise to reflect on these issues. For example, can community radio utilise the human voice more creatively? Can we present the voice and its 'ideas generating' capacity more effectively? This is just a brief introduction to the 'Semiotics of Radio'; community media people need to ponder long and deep on these issues if they aspire to provide a service that can offer empowering moments to members of their community.
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