Chinese Radio Drama: Genre Features

The subject of the study is the genre specificity of the radio play. The research material consists of radio programs broadcast in China from 1920 to 2025. The choice of this period is explained by the need to examine the development of the Chinese radio play within a long historical perspective, in connection with socio-political, cultural, and technological changes, in order to differentiate its key genre characteristics. The typological criterion for differentiation is the functional purpose of radio’s expressive means. The aim of the study is to determine the place of the radio play within the system of radio broadcasting genres. In domestic theory, this position has not been defined. In China, the radio play is regarded as a genre of radio dramaturgy, which is specifically associated with journalism. As a result of the study, concepts necessary for further investigation of the auditory component of Russian media systems are clarified, in particular with regard to programs broadcast in the contemporary media environment (which often represent convergent genres), as well as non-standard auditory internet content. Methodologically, the study is based on genre-typological and historical-analytical approaches: radio plays produced between 1920 and 2025 are analyzed through the functionality of expressive means and their role in shaping the sound image. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the development of the radio play in China is examined within the context of the logic of genre differentiation in radio broadcasting. It is shown that the distribution of semantic load between words, music, and noises changes depending on genre objectives. Within the group of documentary-artistic genres, music and noises are capable of becoming independent carriers of meaning. Against this background, a contradiction is identified that arises when describing materials in which the artistic basis dominates over the documentary one but does not exclude it: such programs cannot be classified as either radio compositions or documentary dramas (both genres belong to the group of documentary-artistic genres of radio journalism). The study concludes that there is a need to distinguish the radio play as an independent genre unit within the theory of genres of domestic radio journalism.