The Second Republic on the Radio.

Temporality, Affect and the ‘New’ Austrian Nation.

Abstract

This article centers on radio documents from the Austrian post-war period. In analyzing them, we illustrate how a ‘new’ Austrian nation
was formed on the radio after the Second World War. In particular, we examine how temporality is organized in and through the medium of radio, in such a way that the nation may be constructed not only as independent, but also as ‘new’. To do so, we focus on different stagings of (supposed) inflection points in history, which must project a sense of stepping into a new era, but also address the past. We are particularly interested in whether and how content that is (not) negotiated discursively is affectively charged through its sonic design, creating cross-temporal affiliations. To this end, we analyze three radio formats that seem particularly relevant to us with regard to the shaping of social temporality, namely, New Year’s speeches, live media events and radio features.