Dialogic Society: Discourse and Subjectivity in British Telecom’s ‘Talkabout’ Service

Abstract

When Brecht expressed this opinion in the early 1930s he was principally concerned that the radio audience should not be passive recipients of this ‘apparatus for distribution’. His solution was that the listeners should themselves produce radio transmissions in order to transform the medium into an instrument for communication. This proposal for what Raymond Williams has called ‘free communications’, however, is not simply a call for democratic participation in the means of production. As Brecht also says, the outcome of such a reciprocal network should be an increase in the opportunities to engage in a wider range of inter-personal dialogues which enhance social relationships and ultimately, perhaps, reinforce a sense of community. The example of British Telecom’s Talkabout service illustrates the point that increased participation alone does not necessarily achieve the aim of reducing isolation.

The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him.¹