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Soundscapes
PP 683
The Spatial Potentialities of Community Radio
P. Sartoretto
1
1
Stockholm University, Institute of Latin American Studies, Stockholm, Sweden
Research on community radio has looked into how this kind of radio broadcasting serves and caters to the interest of marginal and underrepresented com‑
munities. However, the radio station’s importance as a physical place for a given community is very seldom addressed. In rural areas where public spaces to
meet and socialize are scarce; a community radio station can function not only as a medium but also as a community space for meetings and socialization.
Rural areas in developing countries usually suffer from lack of public spaces and scarcity of communication resources, which can lead to unexpected and
unusual media practices, compared to urban centres in developed countries. Through observation and interviews with radio presenters in community
radios located in two settlements of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) this paper looks into the ways in which a radio station extrapolates
the function of a community medium and becomes a public space. The paper departs from practice theory and discusses the interrelation between media
and place from the point of view of a marginalized group in a marginal community. Findings demonstrate that mediation and communication processes can
give rise to the construction of a community space where a medium is located.The affordances of radio as an oral media that allows immediate transmission
facilitate the strengthening of a community of listeners. This project’s findings also reinstate the importance of radio for rural communities and marginal
groups even in times when visual and digital media seem to have gained supremacy over radio broadcasting.
PP 684
At the Banks of the Old Chico: Memory and Soundscapes of a Brazilian River on a Radio Documentary
G. Mello Vianna
1
, C. Resende Gonçalves
2
1
Federal University of Minas Gerais, Communications, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
2
UFMG, Communication, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
The paper we propose here aims to think about sound productions as a place of memory of certain communities in social risk. Specifically, we are interested
in sound recordings that reveal the memory of communities living on the margins of one of the most important rivers in Brazil and South America: São
Francisco River.This river has undergone significant changes in recent decades, such as the drought of some affluents resulting in difficulties or impossibility
to navigate in several passages, besides the silting and clearing of vegetation of its banks. These changes affect the way of life of communities that live
along its banks. As the object of our analysis, we chose the radio feature (radio documentary) Às margens do Velho Chico, lembranças de um rio cheio, that
we could translate as On the banks of the Old Chico: memories of a deep river (Old Chico it is one of the nick names that Brazilians use to refer to this river),
produced and broadcasted by UFMG Educativa Radio in the city of Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais in Brazil (the state where is located the source
of the river). The radio feature interviews were held in loco: by the river, in the small houses, on a boat, in local distilleries or wherever people work or live.
The soundscape is part of the speech, sometimes crossing the voices, sometimes interrupting them. We understand that the radio speech has materiality;
it represents a missing body by the traits that constitute the voice performance (timbre, tones, intonation) and also unveil (by the other sound elements)
a soundscape with various reliefs. This “missing body”guide us into a spatiotemporal transposition, leading us to the São Francisco river landscape, trans‑
formed by such latest environmental issues.Thus, the sound elements of radio feature - recognizable Brazilian back lands accent (of a region called“sertão”),
the traditional songs related to the river, the sounds of water and of other environments of its banks - become privileged indicators of everyday experiences,
of soundscapes related to the river and the memory of different ways of life. We agree with Zumthor (2000) who wrote that to listen to one another is hear,
in the silence of yourself, the voice of another coming from elsewhere. So, our analyse proposes to hear this “another”, who speaks and sings, telling us
about the transformation of the São Francisco River. Therefore, first we will develop a cultural historical overview of the region bathed by the river in order
to contextualize the radio documentary. Then, we will seek to understand the research process for the production of documentary and, finally, we will try to
understand how the radio feature raises the memory of communities, formed by a variety of representations and speech.
PP 685
The Influence of Sound on Place Attachment and Identification: Place Meaning of Cyprus Island Soundscapes
A. Gazi
1
1
Cyprus University of Technology, Communication and Internet Studies, Limassol, Cyprus
The perception of the urban environment is a multidimensional construct comprising sensory, cognitive, symbolic, and social aspects which contribute
toward the generation of place meaning. While the term ‘space’often refers to the invariant properties of the physical environment (e.g. geometry, colour,
lighting etc.) as they are perceived by the subject’s sensory subsystems, the term ‘place’ is reserved for the interpretation of spatial properties with respect
to subjective values, norms, attitudes, and predispositions. Essentially, places are spaces endowed with value and/or subjective meaning, i.e. spaces of per‑
sonal significance. Place meaning is accompanied by place attachment, an affective bond between the subject and the environment, and place identity,
the reflection of a place’s importance and congruence with one’s self-identity. Place meaning is deeply subjective and is responsible for the wide variety
of responses toward parts of the urban environment by the inhabitants of a city. This paper investigates people’s attachment to place when sounds enter
urban space and enhance the character of the city soundscape. Concepts and notions from the field of acoustic communication are combined with ethnog‑
raphy in order to trigger new types of discussions regarding sound in urban space. Further more the paper aims to investigate the process of place mean‑
ing generation by smartphone users in the city, and specifically the affective and emotional impact of various characteristics of sound in the perception