Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2007. Graduate Programme in Communication and Culture. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR46004

Since 1944, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, through its radio network, has been the prime disseminator of drama to Canadians. CBC radio reaches virtually every inhabited region of the country, including remote areas where little or no professional stage drama is presented. Canadian playwrights have often adapted their stage plays for GBC radio production in order to reach the largest potential audience. This study examines the techniques which have been used by seven playwrights to adapt their stage plays for CBC radio. The plays examined are: The Abdication by Norman Newton; The Action Tonight by Tom Grainger; Captives of the Faceless Drummer, by George Ryga; Do You Remember One September Afternoon?, by David Watmough; The Great Hunger, by Leonard Peterson; Women in the Attic, by Leonard Peterson; Quiet Day in Belfast and its radio version "Murder in the Betting Shop," by Andrew Angus Dalrymple; and Yesterday the Children Were Dancing, by Gratien Gélinas, translated and adapted by Mavor Moore. The stage scripts and their radio versions were examined to ascertain the changes that had occurred in the adaptation process. The playwrights and several CBC producers were interviewed. Comparison between the stage and radio versions revealed differences in the order of speeches, and additions or deletions of verbal and non-verbal elements. Dialogue was cut or condensed to shorten the script for radio. Occasionally the order of events was rearranged for the adaptation to insure clarity after elements had been cut. Some visual elements of the stage play received verbal equivalents in the radio script, while others were translated through radio production techniques, such as sound effects. In addition, radio production techniques which had no stage equivalent were added in the adaptation process to help create a mood or emphasize a character. These alterations appear to have been made for two reasons: to compensate for the lack of the visual element on radio, and to shorten the script to conform to the CBC network's time restrictions. The author of this study concludes that the adaptation techniques used in the scripts under consideration are relatively rudimentary. For the most part, the playwrights did only what was necessary to make the stage play understandable to the radio listener and did not fully exploit the potential of the radio medium. The radio listener can be stimulated to imagine an unbounded stage and need not be restricted by an aural translation of a physical stage setting. The author suggests that further investigations might explore techniques which would help the adaptor to transform his play more imaginatively for radio. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2005. Graduate Programme in Communication and Culture. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 262-272). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR19771

Thesis (M.J.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-160). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

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The CBC Current Affairs program Sunday Morning is used as a case study to develop an appropriate theory and conceptual apparatus for the understanding of the relationship between the organisation of news-production and news-product. This relation is first identified as critical to the field of mass media studies in general, and news-research in particular. On the basis of this review a new model of news-as-discourse is proposed. In the examination of the radio program Sunday Morning this model and its conceptual categories are further developed and linked with other research in the sociology of news, the structuralist analysis of narrative, and the cultural study of artistic forms and practices. Sunday Morning is shown to employ discursive practices and formations, and production practices which result in power format radio.

This paper is a phonetic investigation of radio newsreading on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) from 1937 to 1987. Recorded newscasts from the first, third, and fifth decades of CBC history are examined. Brief histories of CBC Radio news and of the Office of Broadcast Language are included, and the bibliography brings together much scattered reference material on CBC language. Traditional auditory evaluations of selected aspects of voice quality settings, vowel quality, and voice dynamics are supplemented by instrumental measurements. The descriptive terminology of Laver (1980) is applied to identify the voice quality settings. The majority of newsreaders examined display the vocal settings of lowered larynx, open jaw, and the use of creaky phonation. This configuration enhances vocal resonance and is shown to be an established newsreading model, perceived as suitable to the authoritative presentation of information. The patterns of vocal settings identified for three test decades (1937-47, 1957-67, 1977-87) are supported by the results of acoustic analyses. Individual, group, and across-group statistical tests were executed on the results of acoustical waveform analyses of the peripheral vowels k n u/ produced by each newsreader. To test vowel quality as a sociolinguistic variable, the CBC formant data were compared with compatible /ae o u/ data from informants of the Survey of Vancouver English (Gregg, 1984). The results show that the speech of CBC Radio newsreaders cannot be associated with any particular SES class of the Vancouver Survey. As a result of the extensive variation in production found for both informant groups, the high back vowel phoneme /u/ remains ill-defined for Canadian English. The voice dynamic component in CBC Radio newscasts has changed over the years. Measurements of speech rate show that the duration of pauses post-1966 are dramatically shorter than those pre-1966. Sentence length is shown not to have changed considerably, but phrases have been lengthened and pauses shortened. A marked reduction in the percentage of silent time within the newscast has been the result. It is suggested that pitch fluctuations are now used more extensively than pausing to structure the text orally. Despite the changes in continuity, the articulation rate of the newsreaders, measured in syllables per second, has remained constant. These results indicate that the newsreaders are exceptionally skilled speakers. The prevalent voice settings and the averaged acoustic measurements for CBC vowels are presented as representative of a readily identifiable and publicly recognized standard of formal spoken Canadian English.

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Thesis (M.J.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 134-145). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.