A face for radio: on-air identity in broadcasting

Every day, radio broadcasters go into a studio, sit in front of a microphone, and talk to their (imagined) audience in such a way that the (actual) audience feels addressed, and responds. Somehow effective radio broadcasters produce the indicators of friendship, sympathy and intimacy that a listening public will accept as authentic. This study asks how Australian Broadcasting Corporation talk radio presenters construct this on-air identity. It finds that this work is both more sophisticated and more authentic than orthodox answers imagine. Contrary to early assumptions, the study finds a real relationship between presenter and audience. Identity is built in the flux of that relationship: uncertain at first, more secure with time. In each interaction, fragments of information are used to create a fluid, dynamic and concurrent conception of the audience: ‘a collective mass, one at a time’.