RADIO ART: MENTAL IMAGES AND APPRECIATION

Abstract

ABSTRACT One of the main objectives of radio arts, radio made by artists, is to produce mental images for audiences. According to radio art theorists and practitioners, those mental images lead to emotional and sensitive listening experiences. This exploratory research aims to advance the scientific understanding of mental image production by radio arts and its relation to its appreciation and conventional radio listening habits. Study participants (126) were asked to report their radio consumption habits. Later, they listened to a radio art and completed two scales on mental images and appreciation. Results show that radio arts elicit mental images, which are positively correlated to the appreciation: the greater the vividness and quantity/ease of the mental images suggested by a radio art, the greater its appreciation. Conventional radio habits do not impact on mental images nor appreciation of radio arts. These results help to understand radio art reception, an audio genre inexplicably ignored by empirical scrutiny and scientific radio studies.