Introduction

Radio, and more generally, media audiences in the age of the network society are better understood as networks of listeners, rather than groups belonging to specific social and economic clusters. Radio audiences are a mix of traditional radio broadcasting audiences and networked publics. There have been several attempts to periodise the history of audiences. One of the best known analyses is Abercrombie and Longhurst. Networked publics represent the type of public that has emerged from the network society and refer to any type of public that is organised in a network. Here, listeners from this age will be referred to as networked listeners. The periodisation proposed here will attempt to portray how audience participation in radio has changed over time and investigate the causes that have determined the emergence of a new relationship between radio and its publics.