“This Is Radio Clash”: First-Generation Punk as Radical Media Ecology and Communicational Noise

Tools

Goddard, M N. 2024. “This Is Radio Clash”: First-Generation Punk as Radical Media Ecology and Communicational Noise. In: George McKay and Gina Arnold, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190859565 [Book Section]

Preview

Text
This Is Radio Clash online.pdf - Accepted Version
Download (290kB) | Preview

Official URL: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford...

Abstract or Description

This chapter will argue that in relation to dominant communication media such as newspapers, radio and television, punk rock operated as a form of noise, less in the literal sense since noisy forms of rock music were already well established, but in the sense of communicational noise, as an excess of the standard requirements for rock music communication. More than just ‘ineptness’ in relation to professional recordings and instrumental prowess (Hegarty), punk was a short circuiting of mainstream media channels operating both by an alternative production of media and the production of events unassimilable by the mass media and especially radio and television. It will argue that the first generation punk band the Clash was as much a form of alternative world service radio, informing listeners about both local and global struggles for freedom and survival, as it was a band.

Item Type:

Book Section

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190859565.013.12

Additional Information:

Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-punk-rock-9780190859565

Keywords:

the Clash, punk rock, London punk, media ecology, noise, psychogeography Joe Strummer, radio, radical media

Related URLs: