Audio Materials as Primary Sources
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Audio Materials as Primary Sources Using audio formats as primary materials is a good way to bring an added dimension to your research. These materials can encompass a wide range of types, including everything from oral histories, to music, to radio broadcasts. As with other primary sources, it is not just the nature of the item in use that determines whether it is a primary source, but how it is being used. For example, a radio broadcast can be used as a secondary interpretation of an event or story if it is used to support your argument or as evidence of a particular issue. However, that same radio broadcast can be used in a very different fashion as well, by becoming itself the locus of interpretation. This style of analysis (sometimes called content analysis) seeks to interrogate the content and medium of a given message for meaning. Audio sources, then, can be very useful to primary research and open avenues of inquiry that can be very rich. While keeping in mind the above discussion of the dual nature of primary audio sources, it is possible to make some broad generalizations about what kinds of things might be primary audio sources. |
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Recorded Music - Just as one might examine and interpret a novel or visual artwork, recorded music is generally always regarded as a primary source. Likewise, sonic art, soundscapes, or any other item that uses the medium of sound to create artistic expression can be viewed as this type of primary source. Click here for an example of a primary recorded source of music. |
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Interviews and Oral History - Interviews and Oral Histories (first-person accounts of lives or events) can almost always be considered primary audio sources. These sources are often akin to biographies or autobiographies, and as such can be used as primary sources. There are many of these types of sources around, and many more emerging all the time, but you may also create your own through interviews that you conduct and materials that you generate from these interviews. Click here for examples of primary oral history documents. |
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Broadcasts and Speeches - Recordings of radio and other audio-format broadcasts and speeches often present a window onto important events, people, and movements throughout history. Speeches, as the first-hand product of the speaker, are generally considered to be a primary source. Approaching broadcasts from the content-analysis perspective mentioned above allows one to broaden potential primary sources out to contemporary items as well as historical ones. Click here for an example of a primary speech source. |
