ABSTRACT
As World War II drew to a close, the medium of radio broadcasting reached the height of its ubiquity and influence throughout the industrialized world. Focusing on the case of Brussels, this chapter explores how the Institut national de radiodiffusion, Belgium’s French-language public broadcaster, sought to accompany an eager but demanding listening public in an emotionally fraught time of reconstruction and cultural renaissance. Though (inter)national in its scope and ambitions, the institution of radio broadcasting was firmly rooted in the urban landscape as it tapped into, relayed, and contributed to creating the emotional dynamics that coloured city life in an extraordinary period. The urban soundscape and the meaning it acquired through the medium of radio offer a compelling vantage point from which to assess not just the range of emotions that shaped life in a particularly turbulent moment in the city’s history but also the formation of a distinct emotional community rooted in the shared trauma of war and catharsis of liberation. Examining the sonic, emotional, and spatial dynamics generated by the radio, moreover, also allows us to reflect on how the lived emotions of the past shape the work of the historian in the present.
