Radio journalism as research – a Ph.D. model

RJ-ISBAM 12 (1+2) pp. 169–182 Intellect Limited 2014

The Radio Journal – International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media Volume 12 Numbers 1 & 2 © 2014 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/rjao.12.1-2.169_1

Mia Lindgren Monash University

Radio journalism as research – a Ph.D. model Abstract

Keywords

Practice-based research methods have opened up opportunities for radio journalism academics to have their radio practice recognized as academic research. Using the example of an Australian practice-based Ph.D. project, this article presents an innovative model for higher degree research in radio, reflecting on the project’s research question, methodology and structure incorporating both text and audio. This article argues for radio production as a form of qualitative methodology for collecting data and as a way to present research findings to a broader audience outside academia. Informed by Candy’s (2006) framework for practice-based and practiceled research, the Ph.D. study applied two research approaches: research through practice and research on practice. To demonstrate research through practice, the researcher produced a 54-minute radio documentary, Deadly Dust, commissioned by Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Radio National network. The ‘doing’ – the making of the documentary – was then contextualized and analysed through a reflexive process informed by fieldwork interviews with internationally renowned radio producers. The research on practice component of the Ph.D. dissertation accompanying the radio documentary provided new theoretical insights into the creative process of long-form radio. By demonstrating how practice can be defined in research terms, this article provides justification for the inclusion of long-form journalism, in this case a radio documentary, as a legitimate academic research output.

radio documentary radio journalism practice-based research radio studies non-traditional research outputs (NTRO) qualitative methodology

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1. At Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, where the research outlined in this article was done, the definitions of a doctoral thesis is extended to include a ‘creative or productionbased thesis’ (Murdoch University 2009). The study in question comprized a 70,000 word thesis + 54-minute radio documentary. 2. See: http://www. monash.edu.au/pubs/ handbooks/courses/ ƒ4103.html.

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Introduction The incorporation of non-traditional forms of research, such as a novel, film script or visual arts project into a doctoral study has long been accepted within the creative arts. These creative Ph.D.s consist of an artefact accompanied by an exegesis contextualizing the piece within a theoretical framework, showing how the creative component contributes to scholarly knowledge in the field. Here the role of the exegesis is to present ‘the research framework: the key questions, the theories, the disciplinary and wider contexts, of the project’ (Fletcher and Mann 2004). More recently this model has been introduced as an option for students wanting to complete a research higher degree in journalism.1 For example, in 2013 Monash University in Melbourne introduced its Ph.D. (Journalism) programme, where students submit ‘a major piece of original journalistic research together with a written critical commentary’ of approximately 30,000 words.2 This original journalistic research can be in the form of radio or video journalism or a range of non-fiction writings. This article demonstrates a model by which the practice-based research methodology can be adapted to radio journalism. It can be debated whether journalism can or should be categorized as a creative work. This is in addition to questions as to whether radio documentary work should be defined as journalism. According to Zelizer (2004:  8), journalism is a broad research field that can be slotted into a range of academic disciplines from sociology to creative arts. Notwithstanding these issues, the creative practice model has great potential for journalism practitioners wanting to deepen their understanding of theory and practice within their genre. The opportunity to reflect on practice, with practice informing the research process, would be welcomed by many. This is an especially useful pathway for practitioner academics such as journalists who have moved from industry to teach journalism and find they need a higher degree to make a full transition to become academics. For the purpose of this study, radio documentary production was defined as journalistic work with the researcher in the role of journalist-practitioner. The Ph.D. project used as a case study here demonstrates the way practice can be expressed in research terms providing justification for the inclusion of a major piece of original journalism such as a radio documentary as a legitimate academic research output. The dissertation incorporated the production of a 54-minute radio documentary, Deadly Dust, on the impact of asbestosrelated disease in Australia, for broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Radio National network. This article first considers the developing field of radio practice theory and how radio production relates to more traditional academic forms of research. It situates radio journalism as a form of qualitative research where data is collected and the findings presented to a broader audience. The dissertation is then presented in these terms with its research questions, methodology and structure incorporating both written analysis and audio. The mixed-method approach including literature review, fieldwork interviews with radio producers, and reflexive practice generated rich data, through which the heretofore hidden processes embedded in the production of a radio documentary became visible. It is argued that this innovative higher degree project presents a model for how radio journalism practice can be incorporated into the academic framework of a Ph.D. dissertation. In this way practice can enhance knowledge and facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of radio documentary production.

Radio journalism as research – a Ph.D. model

Radio production as research? The downside to the widespread availability of radio is that it tends to be taken for granted. Because it is a medium that can be used while doing other things – whether driving the car or reading a book – it is widely regarded as a secondary medium which implies it is somehow less important than other media or lacking in some way. (Fleming 2002: 1) Whereas much has been written about film theory, radio theory is often seen as embedded in the production process; therefore it is not acknowledged. The ‘invisibility’ of radio and labelling of radio as a secondary medium has serious consequences for radio as a research field. It means the impact of radio on our daily lives is under-researched and therefore under-valued (see e.g. Aroney 2005, 2009; Hendy 2000, 2003; Lewis 2000; Madsen 2005). Therefore, it is ‘easy to underestimate or in fact ignore altogether the multi-faceted theory that informs this type of communication’ (Lindgren and Phillips 2005: 593), or in the words of Tacchi: ‘Radio has become naturalized – so much that it is difficult to establish its significance’ (2000: 290). The simplicity and accessibility of radio has specific implications for the understanding of radio production. Radio production is often seen in terms of hands-on craft skills rather than as a process informed by academic methods. This can be true for short-format productions like news and three- or fourminute current affairs stories where tight deadlines effectively militate against in-depth research and reflective practices. In contrast, the production of in-depth long-form radio feature documentaries require that producers follow protocols and apply skills and methodologies very similar to those used by academic researchers in the social sciences and humanities. Similarly to film production and other creative formats, the art of radio documentary-making resides in the invisibility of technique. The production processes are deliberately and intentionally hidden and consequently, the better the radio production, the more invisible the production process becomes. As far as the listener is concerned the radio story appears to be a recording of reality rather than an artefact created by a radio producer employing journalistic techniques to select and order components to create a storyline. Australian radio producer Tony Barrell, in an interview with radio producer and academic Eurydice Aroney, has commented that radio’s ephemeral nature is its greatest drawback: You can’t hold up a radio program and look at a bit of it. You can’t freeze a bit of a radio program, and just listen to a bit of it. You can’t stop it in time … People write whole essays, books, articles about three stills from Casablanca and everyone knows what they’re talking about but if you try to do the equivalent in radio you couldn’t do it. (Barrell in Aroney 2009) While in earlier times radio was ephemeral, modern technology has allowed for sound to be captured and scrutinized more closely than ever before. But still, just as Barrell points above, audio cannot be freeze-framed for analysis like video or film. A growing number of growing radio academics and practitioners have theorized and reflected on radio documentary practice (see Biewen and Dilworth 2010; Björkman 2009; Delofski and Madsen 2009; Hedemann

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2006; Lindgren and McHugh 2013; Madsen 2005; McHugh 2010). In addition, there are a number of textbook publications that focus on radio production skills such as researching, preparation, interviewing, editing, scripting and mixing (see Alysen 2006; Barrell 2011; Chapman 2009; Frangi 2012; Kern 2008; Phillips and Lindgren 2013). Even so, the practice of radio documentary has yet to be fully theorized. This gap is recognized by the new online journal RadioDoc Review, published by the University of Wollongong in Australia, where academics and practitioners review international radio documentaries. The journal aims to develop ‘critical language and analysis of this vital sonic storytelling form, and evolving a canon of the genre’ (McHugh 2014). The objective of this doctoral study was to add new knowledge to the growing body of work on the radio documentary form. By documenting and theorizing the practice of radio documentary production as demonstrated in this article, we can expand our understanding of the genre. At every point in the production process there are decisions to be made and issues for the producer to consider. For example, the production of the documentary Deadly Dust, about the personal impact of asbestos exposure, raised the following issues: what is the role of the journalist when dealing with trauma interviews? What role does music play in enhancing the emotional impact of the story on the listener? What strategies can be used to balance the need for strong emotional impact without making the content so unbearable that the listeners turn the radio off? The listeners are never made aware of these considerations as they listen, and unfortunately many practitioners are too busy themselves meeting deadlines to have time to reflect on the production values and challenges involved in their daily work. Only by articulating and documenting the processes involved in journalism practice can they be made explicit and understood in terms of a research process (Duffield 2009). Capturing the theory and practice of long-form radio production has a range of benefits for academics and radio practitioners alike, and these will be returned to throughout this article. This article also contributes to the body of work exploring ways of incorporating long-form radio into an academic framework. Australian producer and academic Siobhan McHugh has analysed the relationship between radio documentary/feature and oral history in her 2010 doctoral thesis ‘Oral history and the radio documentary/feature: Intersections and synergies’. She argues that with the ability now to both store and retrieve radio documentaries online, it is only logical ‘that the radio documentary is set to become legitimate source of academic research’ (McHugh 2010: 149). This argument is supported by Makagon and Neumann (2009), who take this even further and show the value of audio recording as a research method worthy of broader application within the social sciences and humanities. In their book Recording Culture (2009), they praise the audio medium both as a vehicle for data collection (i.e. fieldwork) and as a premium form for presenting data to fellow academics and the public alike. [A]udio recordings can provide qualitative researchers with opportunities to more fully engage with the people and places being studied while functioning as an alternative to the privileged written text that dominates scholarly work. (Makagon and Neumann 2009: xii) This is a rare acknowledgement of the potential of radio documentary production to play a research role in an academic world where the written

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word is given primacy. The authors express surprise that qualitative researchers have avoided audio3 documentaries completely both as a ‘site of analysis and a model for creative fieldwork’ (Makagon and Neumann 2009: 2). They highlight the similarities in the research process between audio documentary storytelling and the fieldwork ethnographers would do, which both require great investment in the time spent with the people you are studying. They outline how aligned the methodologies of journalism and ethnography are: The research process can be contingent on several modes of investigation – fieldwork, interviews, historical and archival research, the use of institutional sources of information, personal experience – that are closely aligned with both journalism and ethnography. (Makagon and Neumann 2009: 15) This is encouraging for practice-based academics, who for many years have argued to have their radio documentaries regarded as research outcomes. The fact that established qualitative researchers are encouraging their colleagues to use audio documentary as both research method and means of presenting data gives further weight to its legitimacy as a research tool. The case for defining some forms of journalistic practice as research was further strengthened by the Australian research assessment framework Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). In 2012, the Australian Research Council conducted an evaluation of research excellence across eight discipline areas. In the Field of Research (FoR)1903 code covering Journalism and Professional Writing 26% of the research outputs assessed were defined as non-traditional research outputs (NTRO). The definition NTRO covers a range of journalistic productions such as feature articles, radio and television documentaries, etc. In addition to NTROs, the ERA data showed the following breakdown of research outputs for the journalism research area: books  5%; book chapters 17%; conference papers 16% and journal articles 36% (Australian Research Council [ARC] 2012). This data shows how Australian journalism academics are producing journalism outcomes such as the radio documentary examined in this article and that their journalistic NTROs are recognized as legitimate research outcomes by the ERA assessment framework. The Deadly Dust documentary was submitted together with a short 250-word exegesis to the ERA2012 evaluation where it was classified as research.

3. The term audio is used by the authors instead of radio so as not to exclude audio productions published for other mediums than radio, e.g. the Internet. 4. The documentary Deadly Dust was broadcast on Hindsight, in the Social History and Features Unit at ABC Radio National (http://www.abc.net. au/radionational/ programs/hindsight/ deadly-dust/3168798).

The Ph.D. project – practice-related research The 54-minute radio documentary Deadly Dust was commissioned by and produced for the history programme Hindsight.4 It told the history of asbestos in Australia through the eyes of people affected by the dangerous material. The programme explored the social, medical, legal and historical contexts of asbestos use in Australia and its deadly legacy felt by people decades later. The documentary was one of multiple research outputs from a major multidisciplinary research project funded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) about the dangers of asbestos. I was motivated to undertake the Ph.D. study by the desire to reflect upon, understand and capture my own production practice. I had spent years working as a journalist producing a range of different genres of radio stories without the opportunities to think about methodologies and theoretical aspects

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of those productions. Later, when I started teaching radio production at university, it became clear to me that this lack of reflection by practitioners was further exacerbated by limited research on long-form radio production, as already noted. As a result, I set up this study to critique and reflect on the production process of making a radio documentary. I wanted to explore a potential model that would support my transition from journalism to the academy through a higher degree that accommodates my role as practitionerresearcher (see discussion of Schön below). The study addressed two broad research questions: 1. How can radio documentary practice be defined in terms of research and which research paradigms are suitable for this purpose? 2. How does the concept of ‘journalism as research’ assist in analysing and understanding the processes and protocols involved in producing longform radio documentaries? The Ph.D. study was informed by Linda Candy’s (2006) framework for practice-related research set around two research approaches: practice-based and practice-led research. Candy argues that through practice-related research ‘new knowledge is reached through a research process and is made explicit and transferable’ (2006: 2). This aligns with the Australian ERA definition of research where the creation of new knowledge also comprises ‘creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humanity, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise applications’ (OECD 2002). Candy’s subdivision of frameworks allows her to make a clear distinction between research through creative practice (practice-based research) and research on creative practice (practice-led research). This was a useful model for my Ph.D. project given that it had a natural division between research through the practice of doing a radio documentary and research on radio documentary theory and practice: 1. To demonstrate research through practice, I produced the 54-minute radio documentary. During production, I kept detailed fieldwork notes. The documentary was submitted to a competitive commissioning process at the national broadcaster, a process which can be seen as a form of peer review. The project had approval from the Human Research Ethics Committee at Murdoch University, Perth. 2. The written thesis accompanying the radio documentary comprised research on practice by contextualising, analysing and theorising the documentary production through a reflexive process informed by fieldwork interviews with award-winning international radio documentary producers. This provided new theoretical insights into the creative process of long-form radio.

Research through practice The production of the radio documentary was familiar territory for me as producer. However, as the production was part of a higher degree it required a different approach. I had to engage with the production process in a more considered, analytical and reflexive way. The pitching document to the ABC outlining the story became my roadmap to the production, capturing what

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I imagined the finished documentary would sound like. The document would later contribute to the thesis as an appendix. Influenced by Schön’s early ideas about reflective research requiring ‘a partnership of practitioner-researcher and researcher-practitioner’ (1983: 323), the study was designed to include not just interviews with industry practitioners but my own reflections as a practitioner-researcher. Schön argues for the value of ‘reflection-in-action’ that many practitioners do when going about their daily work. Schön describes how when someone reflects-in-action that person becomes a researcher in a practice setting: He is not dependent on the categories of established theory and technique, but constructs a new theory of the unique case … He does not keep means and ends separate, but defines them interactively as he frames a problematic situation. (1983: 68–69) This, Schön argues, means reflective enquiry has a rigour in its own right if practitioners’ expertise can be labelled as reflection-in-practice (1983: 68–69). This introspective examination of the practice of producing a piece of longform journalism involved both reflective and reflexive approaches; this included an awareness of emotions, thoughts and behaviours while producing the radio documentary (reflexivity) and a more structured reflection on practice during the analysis and writing stage (reflectivity) (Ryan 2005). During the production process I wrote about my thoughts, observations from interviews and notes from readings in my fieldwork journal. Keeping an analytical eye on the production process provided a unique insight into the production of a creative artefact. Documenting the production process illuminated the relationship of radio production to more traditional academic research paradigms. It revealed through the deconstruction of the production process how radio journalism aligns with familiar research methods in terms of compiling, analysing and organizing data. This is outlined in the table below where Weerakkody’s (2009: 42) six steps of doing a research project in media and communication is compared with the research process of producing Deadly Dust. This comparison illustrates how practice-based research methods can be a useful framework for showing how long-format journalism can be seen to conform to more traditional academic constructions. By presenting practice in this way, the methodology is transparent and replicable, as is required of academic research. It makes apparent how journalism uses methodologies familiar to social sciences, humanities and creative arts research. This further supports the argument by Makagon and Neumann that audio documentary production can be an exciting form of qualitative research methodology, which to them is closely aligned with ‘both journalism and ethnography’ (2009: 15).

Research on practice The role of the written thesis was to demonstrate how the doctoral study comprising both audio and written text contributed scholarly knowledge to the under-researched area of radio studies in general and radio documentary practice specifically. Candy’s (2006) argument for the value of practiceled research (research on practice) supports what Josie Arnold describes as a model where ‘your own creative insights, practices, problems and delights are

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Weerakkody’s model

Deadly Dust radio documentary

1. Selecting and narrowing the topic for a research study

Initial background research to develop pitching document. Writing up and submitting proposal outlining story content, interviewees, references, approach, style, methodology of collecting information, duration, production time to Executive Producer. Deadly Dust commissioned by Hindsight ABC Radio National Literature review: reading broadly about asbestos in Australia from medical, social, political and legal perspectives, using academic and industry texts. Aims: to identify what has been done on the topic before (what is new with the study); to identify source material that may be included in the documentary; to identify suitable interviewees; to build an understanding of the topic so the producer can build a story around the findings This is partly done under Step 1 where the research design and plan were developed for inclusion in the proposal document. Here a more detailed design and plan is prepared covering the approach of the documentary, style, role of narrator, duration. As part of commissioning process adjustments to original proposal were suggested by the Executive Producer Data were collected using in-depth interviews combined with review of literature, other media and internal ABC and external archives Record interviews on location (i.e. fieldwork). Record ambience and location sounds. Order archival material from ABC’s sound and film archive for inclusion in documentary. Thematic analysis of material by logging interviews (non-verbatim transcription), archival material, other material to be included into documentary

2. Conducting the literature review

3. Developing the research design and plan

4. Choosing suitable methodologies and data collection methods 5. Carrying out the data collection and analysis

6. Writing a research report or proposal

Scripting, editing, mixing all components such as interviews, voice links, music, sound effects, and archival materials. Preparing scripts, picture gallery and bibliography (books and relevant web links) for ABC website. Documentary peer reviewed by Radio National production unit and Executive Producer prior to broadcast

Source: Lindgren (2011). Table 1: The process of making of the Deadly Dust radio documentary.

the core data’ (2008: 39). It opens the way for multi-layered research which, according to Arnold (2008: 58), includes: • the practitioner’s work • the practitioner’s insights into that work • the relevant works of other practitioners and their insights into that practice • apposite academic writings and theories that enliven and enrich the practice.

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The aim of the thesis was to generate radio documentary theory from practice. Following Arnold’s (2008) multi-layered research approach, this was achieved by combining a reflexive process with fieldwork interviews with seven internationally recognized award-winning radio producers reflecting on their work: Peter Leonhard Braun (Germany), Chris Brookes (Canada), Simon Elmes (UK), Berit Hedemann (Norway), Lorelei Harris (Ireland), Kirsti Melville (Australia) and Torben Paaske (Denmark). These fieldwork interviews were conducted face-to-face at the International Features Conference (IFC) in Dublin. A number of themes covering the practice of producing radio documentaries were derived from the semi-structured interviews: story idea, motif, scenes, sounds, narrator, music, interviews, editing, dramaturgy, scripting and final edit/mix. The interview process was a central theme for the radio producers. Australian producer Kirsti Melville reflected on how to achieve an outstanding interview: What makes an interview particularly magic can be a combination of the strength of the person’s story and their ability to tell it, and they don’t have to be wildly articulate, it just has to be that you can hear in their voice the joy, the sadness, the struggle, the inner struggle. … It’s often just a feeling, if you hear something and you think it’s a great combination of words and emotion and honesty and authenticity in their voice and their experience, and it can be just a pause or a tremor or a realisation or an awareness that they come to while they’re talking to you. (2010) BBC producer Simon Elmes described the skills required by the interviewer to help create this ‘magic’: The answer is a lot of patience, an immense amount of listening, a degree of charm, a degree of persistence, an amazing ability to hold something in your memory and to hold onto a little thought so when you got to the answer three answers down the track you can then say, ‘Hang on, just a moment, you said … ’ And that’s not to challenge them but just to say, ‘When you said that, is that to do with that?’ … and that’s when you get the third line and that’s when that little filigree crack starts, you start chasing it. (2009) Canadian producer Chris Brookes compared the techniques of a news interview with that of a radio feature or documentary: [Y]ou’re going for information; ‘I ask you a question Mr Prime Minister, I shall ask it again,’ you know? Whereas I think as feature makers we’re more interested in how the prime minister is coughing and snorting and pausing and what’s going on in the back of his brain rather than in the front of his brain, in a way. So I think that’s what we’re trying to capture in feature-y kind of interviews, and so I wind up mostly just holding a microphone. (2009) Interviewing was also a significant theme for the production of Deadly Dust, which contained many interview with people terminally ill from

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5. One of the examiners of the doctoral thesis pointed out that [o]pportunities for working radio producers to reflect on their practice are indeed rare …, and descriptions and analyses of their work will be very valuable, with genuine practical application. Although this thesis has been written in an academic context, I believe it would be easily read by and of great interest to radio producers, who will appreciate the value of ‘uncovering knowledge embedded in practice’.

asbestos-related diseases and their families. My journal included multiple entries about the impact of interviewing people suffering from trauma. It was decided that an autoethnographic approach would be most suitable to observe my own experiences, providing unique insights into the many issues and challenges arising during the production process. Extracts from these thoughts and reflections were used as vignettes both in the thesis and in a subsequent publication about the impact of listening to traumatic asbestos interviews (see Lindgren 2012): It’s been challenging to interview people about traumatic experiences … From their stories it’s easily possible to imagine how I myself would feel, or how the disease would impact on my situation and my own family. I have to learn to separate myself from the interviewee – listen and ask but not take in or incorporate into my own thinking and feeling … As a news journalist I would process the stories fairly quickly and wouldn’t therefore need to have the emotions churning inside of me for a length of time … my role [here] is more that of a facilitator of narrative rather than [as] a journalist. (extract from production journal, 4 September 2007) Ellis and Bochner describe autoethnography as a genre of research and writing where the boundaries between the personal and the cultural become blurred (2003: 209). It is especially useful method where the researcher, like myself, is part of a group or culture studied. For a study investigating the theory and practice of making a radio documentary – a creative activity – the experience of the producer is an essential part of creating that knowledge. Journalists are often too busy to have a chance to reflect on their work. Radio producers mostly work alone with few opportunities to ‘look over someone’s shoulder’ as they go about their job. By using autoethnography I could observe my own work in a structured and detailed way, reflecting on my own journalistic practice, then analysing and drawing conclusions by comparing my experiences with those described by the international radio producers interviewed for the study. This model for reflection was informed by a pedagogical desire to share the experience of producing a radio documentary with other radio documentary producers and teachers of radio. The idea was to write a text with accompanying audio that could become a teaching and learning resource. This was a unique opportunity for the reader/learner to share the learning of a practitioner – an opportunity seldom available either in the industry or academe.5

Conclusion Journalism academics around the world face the challenge of defining their work in terms of academic research outcomes. They are under pressure to account for the research value of journalistic activity. This article has presented a model for how journalism practitioner-academics can combine the production of in-depth high-quality journalism with theoretical analysis that confirms its standing as legitimate academic research. The Ph.D. case study used practice-related research methodology as the framework to extract theory from practice. Following Candy’s distinction between practice-led and practice-based research (2006: 1) the fieldwork interviews with eminent radio documentary producers were examples of practice-led research – through

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which the researcher conducted research on practice. This made it possible to derive theory from their practice and thereby supplement the scant literature on the radio documentary. The practical component of the Ph.D., the radio documentary itself exemplified Candy’s practice-based research, which can be described as research through practice. The creative production contributed to knowledge in and of itself through the meticulous research process required to tell the history of asbestos. In addition, the producer’s self-reflective account of the production process illustrates the theory embedded in practice. To fully understand the complex processes of journalism practice it was necessary to borrow analytical frameworks from other disciplines. The study showed the relevance of ‘mixing and matching’ a range of approaches to collecting, analysing and presenting data reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of journalism research. In summary, the practice-based doctoral study outlined in this article was a three-step investigation into the theory and practice of radio documentary production. It presented an analytical model for conceptualizing journalistic practice as research; a model that was both transparent and replicable: 1. The first step was producing the radio documentary Deadly Dust commissioned by the ABC whilst keeping a detailed fieldwork journal capturing the production process as it happened. The extensive archival research undertaken to produce the documentary was also documented and captured in a full ring-binder. 2. In the second step primary data about documentary production was collected through interviews with renowned practitioners reflecting on their own work. The interviews contributed new knowledge to the underresearched field of radio documentary practice. 3. In the third and final step of the study, the production of the radio documentary was revisited, and the themes extracted from the fieldwork interviews combined with my own reflections on practice, were applied to the production of Deadly Dust thereby offering a much-needed analytical framework to use for evaluation and analysis of the practice of radio documentary production. The result was a study on journalism practice combining an analytical dissertation with a radio production thereby becoming an exemplar for practice-related research, which can be useful for other practitioner-academics as a framework for their research.

References Arnold, J. (2008), ‘Supervising Ph.D. candidates in practice led research degrees’, paper read at International Conference on Education, Economy and Society, Paris, France, 17–19 July. Alysen, B. (2006), The Electronic Reporter: Broadcast Journalism in Australia, 2nd ed., Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Aroney, E. (2005), ‘Radio documentaries and features: Invisible achievements’, in B. Berryman, D. Goodman and S. Healey (eds), Radio in the World: Papers from the 2005 Melbourne Radio Conference (Electronic ed.), Melbourne: RMIT Publishing, pp. 397–405. —— (2009), ‘Researching the zone: Tony Barrell, the auteur and the institution’, SCAN, 9: 3, 3 December.

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suggested citation Lindgren, M. (2014), ‘Radio journalism as research – a Ph.D. model’, The Radio Journal – International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media, 12: 1+2, pp. 169–182, doi: 10.1386/rajo.12.1-2.169_1

Contributor details Associate Professor Mia Lindgren is Head of School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She is a co-author of two broadcast book: the Australian Broadcast Journalism now in its third edition (OUP, 2013) and the Swedish Den Självkörda Radioboken (Liber, 2005). She publishes in the areas of journalism studies and practice, journalism education and radio studies. She also has an interest in practice led research. She has been Chief Investigator on three competitively funded research projects examining journalistic approaches and storytelling in public health and history.   181

Mia Lindgren

She is the new editor, with Emerita Professor Michele Hilmes, of this journal. She is also associate editor for the online documentary journal RadioDoc Review (http://ro.uow.edu.au/rdr/). Contact: School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University, Sir John Monash Drive, Caulfield East, 3145, Victoria, Australia. E-mail: [email protected] Mia Lindgren has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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