Key words: history, mobility, traffic, radio, listening

“Talking You Through; The Shifting Socio-Technical Practices of Radio Traffic News, 1950s-now”

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study about radio traffic news in the Netherlands, Germany and the New York metropolitan area, 1950s to now. The research is interdisciplinary, using methods and concepts from technology and society studies, media studies, mobility studies and sound studies.

By studying the technologies and organisational forms for gathering and transmitting traffic information, the presentation and embedding of these reports on radio, and the appropriation practices by drivers, this dissertation answers the question how and to what extent practices of gathering, presenting and listening to radio traffic information have evolved into practices aimed at traffic flow control. This study revealed the long-lasting relevance of the relatively old and seemingly mundane phenomenon of radio traffic reports, despite the introduction of more ‘advanced’ traffic information systems.