How does the war sound, and how is it heard? How can its experience be mediated? Why does music and stories told through sound are still relevant – in times of war, but also abundance of other, potentially more social and definitely more visible, media? Listening to War Through Digital Community Radio Practices in Ukraine and Beyond raises this and other questions by looking at how people search for meaning and justice by listening: to each other, the sounds of a war around them, and the world beyond their current place and moment. What they hear is everyday life with all of its paradoxes, moral dilemmas, violence, frustrations and hopes; echoes from the near and distant past; and often impossible allusions to the future. What they broadcast is things they feel are missing and need to be heard – so all the suffering would not be pointless, and so that life would be more bearable in the process.
Based on interviews from more than five small online community radio stations in Kyiv, Uzhhorod, but also Berlin, Warsaw and elsewhere, this PhD thesis investigates how people continue to come together around radio to make sense of their life at war. It looks at musicians and music fans invested in alternative music and culture scene and fosering vibrant and pluralistic public discourse despite, but more often because, of the fragility, trauma, and uncertainty caused by the war.
Ieva Gudaityté successfully defended her thesis on 25 March 2026.
Watch stream
Trial lecture
Designated topic: Sonic Ecologies in times of emergency: What can researching urban soundscapes reveal about responses to social change, conflict and crisis? Reflect on changing research methodologies. How are these approaches relevant beyond the Ukraine conflict to other forms of crisis, for example the climate emergency? You may also take a transnational or transhistorical approach to questions of resilience, resistance and witnessing.
Evaluation committee
- Dr Martin Daughtry, New York University
- Professor Kate Lacey, University of Sussex
- Professor Peter Edwards, University of Oslo
Chair of the defence
- Head of Department Anja Nylund Hagen, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Professor Kyle Devine, University of Oslo / University of Winnipeg
- Dr Maria Sonevytsky, Bard College