RadioLab Part II: The Persuasiveness of Aesthetic Techniques

Given a generative, grateful definition of genius  the radio show and podcast RadioLab is a work of genius. The aesthetic is carefully crafted with immense passion and attention that’s reflected in the dance between the content and the production. The play at work in this dance reminds me of the closing lines of W. B. Yeat’s, “Among School Children”: “O body swayed to music, O brightening glance. / How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

Although co-hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich do display the kind of curiosity and wonder we associate with children the aesthetic that communicates these qualities so well could only be achieved by the kind of creativity we develop in adulthood. Making RadioLab episodes is hard work. It takes great skill to not only be playful, but also to involve others in that playfulness using only sound. It takes even greater skill to make that playfulness seem personal and interactive to individuals without being able to communicate with them one at a time.

One element that makes RadioLab distinctive and relevant is Abumrad’s unique musical approach to conveying information. “Telling a story,” he says in an interview  “feels musical, deeply musical. ...I filter all my ideas about journalism through basic musical ideas. When I think of stories now I’m thinking of the layers of sound and music that could work.” Conductors of the interview for Time Magazine Cubie King and Matt Vella compare him to a conductor using “the same techniques as composition: meter, cadence, consonance.” 

RadioLab’s aesthetic conveys the playful, amazed dynamic between Abumrad and Krulwich in purposeful ways. The enthusiastic delivery shifts in tone and personality. Just as the message of an ad tends to dictate the medium of an ad the content and tone of RadioLab dictates the kind of pacing and effects of sound that enhance our experience of how the content and tone come together. Part of what makes the asethetic consistent and familiar over time while remaining novel is that there is always a new overarching theme that ties each episode together.

This isn’t child’s play. The frequently funny banter between Abumrad and Krulwich distill their curiosity and skepticism with the grace we associate with spontaneity because it’s the result of meticulous editing. Interviews too are spliced together in shorter, then longer, then shorter cuts. Getting these beats just right takes weeks.

Ira Glass, the host of the radio show and podcast This American Life, points out RadioLab uses the ebb and flow of two voices to better frame arguments and can move in and out of challenging ideas with greater agility. With other voices edited in they interact with one another in novel ways to create a uniquely streamlined, surprise-ripe and absorbing experience. 

These compositions are longer than we might expect given how much we hear about our diminishing attention spans. We don’t sit around the radio anymore as a family and maybe it seems odd to try to resurrect extended attention to such an old medium. But new media augment the radio experience in important, problem-solving ways: now we can experience programs or podcast episodes à la cart when we want, wherever we want. Perhaps more than any other form, radio’s reach has been released from the boundaries of space and time by the increase in consumer choices enabled by new technologies. The result is the opportunity to communicate with great intimacy. This is how RadioLab holds our attention for an entire hour. 

Consumer marketing strategy that holds our attention can always be traced to factors having to do with consumer sentiment. These factors are essentially what we mean by “trends.” One trend that Abumrad identifies is of people wanting to absorb themselves in stories about “why the world is the way it is.” As the rise of interactive marketing is showing us, people’s involvement can be earned. 

At a time when we’re concerned about a decline in children’s creativity due to lack of attention, it’s heartening to hear someone say, “I do think in some way podcasting is connected to the larger appetite people have for… stuff that doesn’t suck frankly. I think people are getting to the place where they’re like, ‘Okay, I wanna actually go deep on stuff.’ Our attention spans are rebounding. At least that’s what I hope anyway.” That’s what I hope too. One thing I know for sure: podcasts are helping.