Martin Spinelli: "Rhetorical Figures and the Digital Editing of Radio Speech"

* Table of Contents
** Abstract
** Key Concepts
** Examples
** Keywords
** Citations
* Abstract: This article explains rhetorical and aural aspects of speech within an understanding to expand our own view of the radio's workings and encouraging these tropes in practice. He explains how specific functions of speech and sound work, for example that the immediate movement from silence to noise creates emphasis on the noise. On the radio, there is a cognitive difference in how we interpret words and sounds we take words and try to make symbols out of them. These new methods, which the author explains through multiple radio speakers and innovators as examples, for "radio speech editing" must embrace the affordances that new technology has, in order to expand what we listen to and interpret on the radio.
* Key concepts. The key concepts of this article are describing the ways that technology has changed the ways that we are able to edit radio speech. He specifically states this new "taxonomy" for digital radio through various ways, and uses these examples such as: 
** "The breathless figure splices two parts of speech unnaturally close to each other in violation of proper spoken rhythm (to heighten the speed of a single line of speech). The weave figure in which two or more separate lines of thought are cut into various pieces and rearranged in an interlocking manner creates an artificial dialog or parallel absorptions into parallel discursive flows followed by a disruption of that absorption." (Spinelli) He makes points in order to show that because the technology has grown, the affordances of digital radio has grown and by utilizing these affordances, the radio can be used to best fit the cognitive abilities for listeners.
* Examples:
*# On NPR, the podcast This American Life constantly uses the techniques and taxonomy noted in article through how they speak to others, raise and lower their voices to implicate meaning (allowing listeners to find the symbols which Spinelli talks about), and how they interview other people. They also use music in the background which further adds a connection between the words that they use in their podcasts, especially Ira Glass whom we have listened to in class. Audible example: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/555/the-incredible-rarity-of-changing-your-mind
*# How they edit and add sounds on the radio for advertisements, especially with music and original sound effects, further contributing to how we listen to the radio. For example, in a single advertisement, there will be music, original sounds made in the studio, and words, all that can be manipulated in order to create a specific meaning that listeners are meant to cognitively synthesize.
* Keywords: Digital editing, radio, aural affordances
* Citations:
*# Glass, Ira. "The Incredible Rarity of Changing Your Mind." This American Life. National Public Radio. 25 April. 2015. Radio
*# Spinelli, Martin. "Rhetorical Figures and the Digital Editing of Radio Speech." Convergence 12.2 (2006): 199-212. Web.
Category:Aural affordances
Category:Radio
Category:Editing