Page 243 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1544 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

The cover of Radio
Broadcast magazine
from 1924.

today’s World Service) to British colonies, French colonial
broadcasting, and, after 1933, by Nazi Germany’s radio
service. The Nazi official Josef Goebbels (1897–1945)
bent the medium to promote German ideas while strik-
ing fear into the hearts of potential enemies.The United
States, which had relied on private networks for interna-
tional radio services in the 1930s (especially into Latin
America), by 1942 formed the Voice of America as the
official voice of the United States outside its shores.
Broadcast propaganda continued from all belligerents
during World War II and expanded further during the
Cold War as the Soviet Union, China, and several of their
satellite states developed their short-wave radio systems
and added airtime.The United States created Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty in the 1950s to broadcast into
Eastern Europe and Russia, respectively. Dictators some-
times made personal use of radio: The Egyptian leader
Gamal Nasser (1918–1970) used radio extensively to
reach his people in the late 1950s, as did Fidel Castro (b.
1926 or 1927), who made hours-long speeches regularly
after taking over Cuba in 1959. Both leaders sought to
strengthen their popular domestic support, often by 1950s in the United States as money was poured into
attacking external enemies (usually the United States). new AM stations (which expanded from 900 to 2,400
With the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, inter- from 1945 to 1952) and television. FM radio was espe-
national radio became somewhat muted, focused more cially valuable in tropical countries, where electrical inter-
on nationalistic messages and culture than on persua- ference often drowned out AM transmissions.
sion. Yet U.S. services into Cuba (Radio Martí) and the As commercial television expanded after World War II,
Middle East (Radio Sawa) show how international radio however, radio often shed much of its program variety
could still be applied to political and cultural persuasion. (and, in the United States, its network service) to the
Cold War radio propaganda served primarily to keep true newer television business. Radio became “background” to
believers on both sides in line—it probably persuaded most listeners as it sought a new role—which turned out
few listeners to totally change their thinking. to be that of purveyor of modern popular music. “For-
mula” or “top-40” radio appeared in the mid-1950s in the
Radio in a World of United States as radio stations became jukeboxes for the
Television latest musical fads, rapid-fire newscasts, and a growing
Postwar radio broadcasting faced a very different media amount of advertising. U.S. radio DJs (disc jockeys)
context worldwide. In the 1930s Edwin Armstrong had became media heroes to millions—and models for the
perfected FM technology, which largely eliminated static European pirate stations. A growing number of listeners
and offered far better sound and more predictable cov- used easily portable transistor radios after about 1960,
erage. FM was a boon as Europe rebuilt its war- making radio the “take it with you” medium.
devastated radio systems, allowing more stations and Educational radio became known as public radio in
diversified content.The service developed slowly into the the United States after 1967, with National Public Radio