Dramatic Structure and Auditory Acting in Indonesian Radio Advertisements

Abstract

Radio advertising in Indonesia has grown alongside the steady expansion of broadcast radio itself, yet the dramatic form that underlies the genre has received little sustained analysis. Radio spots, like radio drama, are built from theme, characterisation, plot, setting, and dialogue, and it is from this structure that conflict, suspense, and foreshadowing emerge as the devices that hold a listener’s attention within a few seconds of airtime. This article examines how these dramatic elements are constructed in Indonesian national radio advertisements and considers what theatrical knowledge and training contribute to their production. Working from a structuralist framework drawn from dramatic theory, the study analyses a corpus of fifteen national radio advertisements broadcast in Indonesia in the mid-2000s, with two spots for Kartu As (Telkomsel) and Clear Man (Unilever) examined in detail as representative cases of dialogic and monologic construction respectively. The analysis shows that both advertisements follow Gustav Freytag’s dramatic plot scheme of exposition, complication, climax, resolution, and conclusion, that characterisation in the genre is necessarily flat and setting is only sketched rather than stated, and that the announcer functions, alongside dialogue and sound effect, as a structural device without an equivalent in conventional stage drama. The study further finds that theatrical competence, particularly playwriting and the vocal and breathing techniques associated with auditory acting, directly improves the craft of radio-advertisement production. The article contributes an explicit structural model for reading Indonesian radio advertising as a form of short radio drama and identifies a concrete point of connection between theatre training and the advertising industry.