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Empathy, Ethics And Aesthetics In Love + Radio, Michelle Macklem

RadioDoc Review

The podcast Love + Radio thrives on cultivating a kind of emotional tightrope, where the listener wavers from curiosity to contempt to empathy. The episodes “Jack and Ellen” and “The Living Room” have stark differences, particularly in terms of sound design, but their aesthetic and production values have a coherency that is exemplary of Love + Radio’s style. Sound is used to distinguish between ‘Ellen’, the subject, and ‘Jack’ her paedo-baiting alter ego. ‘Jack’ is created by pitch-shifting the voice of ‘Ellen’ down, instantly giving the story intrigue and also alluding to the clandestine nature of their work. “Jack and …