Radio drama and adaptation studies.

This article introduces key issues in the study of radio drama adaptation within adaptation studies, highlighting the medium's historical marginalization compared to textual and visual forms. It notes that radio drama has often been analyzed as literary text rather than as an aural art form, with limited theoretical engagement and scattered scholarship mostly consisting of case studies and transmedial comparisons. The article discusses challenges in adapting various source materials—such as novels, stage plays, and audiovisual works—to radio, emphasizing radio's unique capacity to evoke imagery through sound and imagination. It also addresses the evolving accessibility of radio archives, the development of audionarratology as a methodology for analyzing acoustic narratives, and the ongoing vitality of radio drama in contemporary audio culture, including podcasts and audiobooks. The Special Issue aims to lay a foundation for future research by presenting diverse case studies from major radio drama traditions in the UK, US, Germany, and France.