The “vital art” of listening is what we need to develop individually and collectively, said Denis Nowlan, BBC Radio 4’s Network Manager, at a Greencoat Forum in London.
Animals escaped the carnage of last December’s tsunami in Asia by escaping to high ground. How did they know? The perceptive or “vital art” of listening, which the animals displayed, is what we need to develop individually and collectively, suggested Denis Nowlan, BBC Radio 4’s Network Manager. In a talk entitled ‘Faith in the Media’, Nowlan told a Greencoat Forum, 14 June 2005, that “If my business is to mean anything, to have any real contribution to society, we broadcasters need to study and understand that faculty. Indeed, the most important skill for us is to listen (because) without that there is no communication, no understanding, no connection to the truth, whether it be human or divine… This is what distinguishes IofC (Initiatives of Change) from many other organisations: a commitment to listening.”
He was speaking at the Initiatives of Change centre in London.
Interspersing his talk with personal anecdotes and an infectious sense of humour, Nowlan’s talk covered four broad areas: listening; the role that radio plays in “knitting together an increasingly diverse society, able to reach across every boundary”; the advances that digital technology is bringing to communications; and the personal aspect that radio plays in our lives.
“In spite of the emphasis in our culture on the visual, there is still something uniquely profound about listening,” he said. He suggested that the aural may be a deeper way than the visual to appreciate reality because “While the sound comes out of the loudspeaker, the images come out of our imagination.” And, because hearing is a secondary activity which one can do while ironing or driving, for example, radio presenters “often become our intimate companions”.
Nowlan noted that following the deaths of broadcasters Alistair Cooke and John Peel, mountains of letters had been received in which people said they felt they had lost a friend, a part of their life, or someone whom they felt had spoken to them personally.
The changes brought about by digital technology meant that audience interaction was changing, Nowlan said. “There is a huge revolution in the way we consume and produce radio,” he said. Audiences are listening to radio through the internet, through their digital televisions, and through DAB radios which allow them to pause, rewind and record live output.
At the same time, mobile e-mail and text messaging allow listeners to talk back to us in real time about what they like and dislike.
This aspect prompted numerous questions from the floor. Asked how he saw information being distributed in the future, Nowlan said that the digital age meant we could theoretically do away with schedules. “Will we even have radio stations anymore?” he posed rhetorically. “People will be able to tune into what they want when they want. The digital age is changing the whole way of receiving and producing information.” With the exception of live programmes, there was the possibility that listeners would be able to decide what they wanted to listen to on their own schedule at the touch of a button.
Radio was a means of expanding people’s awareness as well as inviting us all to encounter new ideas, new people, and new experiences, Nowlan said. “It builds cultural value.” Millions, for instance, who wouldn’t normally go to a concert or play are able to do so through radio. “Radio 4 is arguably the greatest patron of drama in the world.” This was radio’s vital contribution because “it reaches across nearly every boundary, religion and class and opens up spaces where competing messages may be heard. The future of society depends upon these spaces where we can keep these dialogues alive.”
In response to a concern from the audience that broadcasters only covered negative stories about Africa, such as poverty, war and AIDS, Nowlan acknowledged that BBC management had realised this as an area to be addressed. All BBC networks, radio and TV, are running a season of programmes this summer which aim to tell ’the whole story’ about Africa, in all its variety and vitality, as well as confronting and analysing the difficult issues.
“I believe the art of conversation is in itself a test of civilisation”, Nowlan concluded, “because it entails a willingness to listen to people different from us and what radio is doing is enabling that wider conversation with ourselves.”
Neil Mence
English